Heh. As a recently graduated 23yo, I feel you brah. Based on a few of my friends' experiences, I'm determined to stay away from the "outsourcing industry", where engineering quality is secondary to things like seniority, management etc. I was lucky to get an Internship with an up and coming startup and learned the ropes. :)
24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India
31–40 of 62 posts
Re: 24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India
#32Hah! This is very interesting. I am a programmer from India. I somehow prefer programmer over software engineer. I turned 23 on 11th. And for me 22 was complicated enough. Interestingly, I am not from any IIT, NIT or whatever that you mention and neither do I have a job in the big brand firm. But still I think the situation is somewhat better than what you have mentioned in your post. Maybe its a difference between w…
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Re: 24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India
#33"IMHO work quality is severely underrated in India, everything just needs to be done, the end quality does not matter, it should just work, that's enough" - this fact about Indian software development is well-known throughout the world.
I don't think this is a fair thing to say. In my experience the quality of software engineering varies wildly in all countries. There's always the cream (smaller numbers, relatively) and always the mass of software engineering wanabies in every country.
The thing with India is there's just a lot more of all types in absolute numbers. The perception problem India has is that the weaker engineers tend to try outsourcing and the strong engineers are snapped up rapidly by big companies who recognize their talent.
If you look at the Google I/O keynote video this year, there are a lot of Indian engineers in high positions presenting. This is where the top dogs are. They're not going to be the ones completing your outsourcing requirements.
The other flip side of this is the companies doing the outsourcing are often as clueless as they percept the engineers to be. They often haven't a clue how to properly document their requirements, they inflict constant scope creep and then give 2 hours notice of the contract ending.
For the record I'm a software engineer in the US, and yes, every experience of outsourcing to India has been bad. I don't think I'm blameless for that.
Re: 24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India
#34Hah! This is very interesting. I am a programmer from India. I somehow prefer programmer over software engineer. I turned 23 on 11th. And for me 22 was complicated enough. Interestingly, I am not from any IIT, NIT or whatever that you mention and neither do I have a job in the big brand firm. But still I think the situation is somewhat better than what you have mentioned in your post. Maybe its a difference between w…
Thanks.. :)
Re: 24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India
#35Heh. As a recently graduated 23yo, I feel you brah. Based on a few of my friends' experiences, I'm determined to stay away from the "outsourcing industry", where engineering quality is secondary to things like seniority, management etc. I was lucky to get an Internship with an up and coming startup and learned the ropes. :)
Glad you liked the post!
Re: 24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's great that you can take criticism. I've interacted with quite a few Asians online who literally believe their English is perfected, yet their written words read like they are proper idiots. Your English is pretty great though, in comparison. I think you will find you will gain a good deal more respect among fluent English speakers and programmers alike when you master the language.
Fuck that noise. It's representative of a shit state of affairs when 'mastery' of one particular language is necessary to gain respect among fluent speakers. No respect for those who haven't 'mastered' the thing we have mastery of? Fuck, it sounds like a recipe for supremacy or something.
It's precisely about noise. I suppose you haven't had to deal with the kind of people I have or else you may not be regurgitating this politically correct trite. It is simply objectively superior for one man to be understood better than another. It is about the other persons ability to understand them with as little effort as possible, and when you need to ask them "Hey, wait, explain what you mean by this [fucking gibberish noise]" you have just lost time and patience. Respect is not something one is entitled to.
I mean, shit, how is this any different from me jumping in and contributing to a Git repo the language of which I haven't mastered? Should I not lose respect when my PR's have syntax errors or use bad practices? Fuck that noise indeed.
Re: 24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
You haven't mentioned the complete sentence => "98% of Indian Population have not even heard the word "Github" in their entire life, yet everyone acts like they know this stuff". The problem is "They try to act" like they know about software industry, meanwhile when you try to explain them that you are working on some open source project, they refuse to respect your opinion.
But 98% of US population, or 90% maybe - have never heard of github either.
Read the previous paragraph in the article. The point was that "everyone" assumed they understood how well he was doing, while being unable to evaluate that. (E.g. never heard of github.)
Re: 24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India
#38I have to ask - what's up with the " Steve Bhagavat Gita "?
To answer this question, I wrote an entire blog post, explaining how Steve affected my life - http://techapj.com/thank-you-steve/ In short, I think of "Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech" as a modern approach to "Bhagavat Gita".
As someone from a Hindu family - this was very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Re: 24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India
#39Wow man! I think you have a really bad attitude.
I am a programmer. I am not a software Engg. I am actually a Production Engg. However, I am a programmer. I'm a little bit older than you....27.
Let me tell you what I spend my days doing. I sit in a CCD (Cafe Coffe Day) with my best friend from 10:30 - 1 pm and code and work on making a beautiful product. Our product caters to the Indian market. We make a decent amount of money. Enough to allow me to buy my first house and go for vacations every few months.
My problem with your post is your attitude. India is an amazing country to me cause the market is so insanely large that if you capture a niche of a niche of a niche.... you can live a great life. In fact, I will argue, you can have a more beautiful life than you would in countries like the US etc. You will be able to delegate all boring aspects of your life (to maid and cooks and helpers and assistants who are all very cheap because labor is cheap) and just focus on what you want to do. That is the beauty of India. I could go on and on. But, let me assure you, that you are missing out if you think its a bad thing to be a skilled programmer in India.
Re: 24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India
#40I am from south of India - In Kerala, my state, marriage is a 30ish affair. 20s is the time to explore,experience,learn and experiment. Nobody but you can stop yourself from achieving your dreams.