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Anecdotal evidence: I got far more replies to WhoIsHiring posts when I didn't list my location compared to when I did. Sad, really.
I'm not sure if that has to do with a perception of talent or simply a presumption of a language barrier, since I've also seen a fair number of devs from India post content (both on blogs and on places like Stack Overflow) that make me question their communication skills.
It may simply be a case of many people = higher number of proportional incompetence.
Edit: To add, it may be a higher number of proportional sub-par content coming from India due to greater degrees of internet access.
Full disclosure: I'm originally from Sri Lanka, now living in New York.
Short answer: No. Absolutely not.
A longer answer would probably explain that in my experience over 10 years in the industry, much of that working with Naturalized Indians as well as H1Bs, I would say they are on par with anyone else in the industry, you have good and bad.
I've met brilliant Indians, and worthless ones. Just like every other nationality. It's simply not a good metric to use when choosing them, that's why it's illegal to do so.
Sorry but you give cheap, you get cheap. No form of software development is a rote, repetitive process that you can just drag in anyone who can fog glass off the street and sit them down at an assembly line to do. It's not amenable to the kind of cheapo outsourcing that can be done with some industrial processes. (And even there, you get what you pay for... it's why the Chinese sweatshop junk is junk.)
I've met plenty of good Indian devs over here in the 'States, and I'm sure there are plenty more over in India. But they're probably only a bit cheaper than good U.S. developers, especially since they can get telecommuter positions at U.S. firms for U.S. wages.
That's why I'm now thinking that a better (even though also potentially flawed) generalisation would be "India = bad management".
This isn't from HN, but I've noticed an implicit bias against devs from South and Southeast Asia (can't speak for China). On my resume, I go by the shortened form of my first name, not "eksith" and that was a conscious decision after putting my full name resulted in very few calls and emails. I'm not sure if that has to do with a perception of talent or simply a presumption of a language barrier, since I've also seen…
Jerry average american building a real estate site may have some different biases though, and that bias may cost him some really good talent.
If there's a "India == bad devs" stereotype, it's more the result of cheap American outsourcers trying to get bargain basement prices on Indian dev labor and then being unsatisfied with what they get. Sorry but you give cheap, you get cheap. No form of software development is a rote, repetitive process that you can just drag in anyone who can fog glass off the street and sit them down at an assembly line to do. It's…
However, when the larger company I worked at outsourced development to India to cut cost, the code quality we saw coming back was terrible. My impression though was that this was due to a combination of factors, including project management, lack of clear requirements definitions, language barriers, and then finally software development.
You get what you pay for.
A lot of businesses would prefer someone local because of timezones, even if the overseas dev is more skilled. For a startup, for example, it is advantageous to get a bunch of devs in a room to bounce ideas around. It is harder to schedule Skype calls at odd hours and get the same effect.