The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’? • Hacker News Board

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#331

Post by Alterlife » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

mindentropy wrote: post #327

Alterlife wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I don't agree with that either. In my experience, there is a normal distribution of idiots regardless of the country of origin. A lot of my colleagues and ex colleagues either work or have worked in Infosys/Wipro/TCS at some point in their careers. And again, they didn't "magically" get worse or better when they left or joined my company (I'm in a product development company). Wipro, Infy etc aren't able to hold…

>(I'm in a product development company). >The better senior developers leave to product development firms that pay better and have better quality work and work life balance, leaving behind newly joined junior developers who know less, but will accept what Infy/Wipro pays and work ungodly hours. Do you think the work in product development companies are any better? They just get paid more. Most of the US captives in I…

> Most of the US captives in India will never send their most important product line to India. ... > it is just maintenance of a product line which will be phased out.

This is unfortunate and, most of the time, true. I do wish we had better work coming here.

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#332

Post by kjeetgill » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

osrec wrote: post #129

IT miracle? More like IT sham. The quality of engineers in India is sketchy at best in my experience. Lack of understanding and innovation is rife across the board, but they seem to be great at selling their service. This may be because of the "yes" culture other comments have mentioned, but I would guess it's got a lot to do with a massively undercut price. It is, however, a false economy, because you often end up i…

My suspicion: you're working with outsourcing consulting teams. The best engineers are locked up in the companies that actually hire there. Google, Microsoft Research, LinkedIn, etc. If you're not doing the actual hiring you're just getting talked into buying a team built for cheap.

Disclaimer: LinkedIn Employee. Our Banglore team isn't noticably different skill wise than our SV team.

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#333

Post by osrec » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

prajjwal wrote: post #326

osrec wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to say it (as I am Indian), but it's a cultural thing. Basically, it's all about solving the problem by any means necessary, regardless of cost to the environment, cost to others, future problems etc. This is changing somewhat, but rather slowly.

That basically hits the nail on the head, but it's not the full extent of it. We have ["Jugaad" culture]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad ), where we actually take pride in doing things that would be labeled outright fraud in a lot of places. I also can't see how its changing, I've become rather cynical from having to deal with it constantly. I sure hope you're right, though.

I was about to mention "Jugaad" in my original comment - my dad talks about the concept proudly all the time. I am sort of proud of it, but also hate the conniving aspect of many jugaads!

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#334

Post by mindentropy » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

osrec wrote: post #284

ksk wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everytime I hear this I fail to see how it makes any sense. Either (1) All the firms hiring them are idiots and are unable to judge competency and continue falling for the "scam" every year, year after year on every project, with every company. (2) Your propositions are incorrect. They do have good engineers and they do end up doing good work.

They pick their targets very carefully. They will generally aim to get contractual sign off from business-focused people that know little about IT. They'll promise them the world at a fraction of the cost of competitors, and the business guys will present a healthy set of cost savings to their board. Once the customer is fully locked in, they will fail to deliver on a few of those promises. Then the excuses start. Th…

You are talking as if the firms that have outsourced are just some poor innocent sheep. Most of the firms that have outsourced only care about money. Again it is all about money and nothing else. Nobody cares about tech, or the product or anything. It is just finding a good deal to make money. I have seen enough people from management outsource the work and then jump ship and let the lowly tech handle the mess. It is the same in India. You get the hike and then jump to another company which pays better.

If most of the firms that have outsourced have got really bad work from these big firms then why are they not suing for bad quality work? Why do they give bigger and bigger contracts? That shows the type of people in your management which you should take a hard look at before complaining about the quality of work of these big service companies.

Source: I have been on both sides. I have seen the internals of them doing business and it is a freaking mess.

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#335

Post by koala_man » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

StudentStuff wrote: post #59

throwawayqdhd wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indians are fixated on certifications. My friends still can't believe that I make the kind of money I make without a CS degree (I studied literature). And when I tried to hire someone when I tried building an agency, the only thing candidates kept emphasizing was their degree and certificates, not their skills.

Wow, that sounds quite sad that they define their self-worth by some piece of paper given to them, and not by what they can accomplish with the skills they have gained. A degree does not make a competent employee from what I've experienced.

Sounds like someone didn't get into Harvard

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#336

Post by michaelcampbell » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 5:03 PM UTC

carlmr wrote: post #135

mieseratte wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not talking about hiring some interns and giving them room to fail here. If I hire your firm and you tell me you can achieve an objective, then I spend money and come to find out you can't and you knew you couldn't, you've defrauded me. If I ask if you can perform a task and you tell me you know how, then I find out you have no idea, you've lied to me. I'll take a "No, but I can figure it out" any day of the we…

>I'll take a "No, but I can figure it out" any day of the week, but lying is a cardinal sin in any relationship. ...in western business culture.

...which is clearly the context of the discussion.

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#337

Post by intrasight » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

I read that article expecting it to say something about "the end" but found nothing. Poor article and a waste of 5 minutes of my life. Seemed to be an ad for Infosys.

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#338

Post by megaman22 » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

singingfish wrote: post #79

megaman22 wrote: post #14

I can only hope so, after near on a decade of dealing with TCS, HCL, Cap Gemini, Cognizant, and others. I tend to get drawn in because I'm working for an ISV that makes a product. The Indian third-parties get drawn in because the real customwr has outsourced a function to them. I now have to deal with the incompetent pm on the $outsourced side, instead of the competent, reasonable pm on the real customer. And eight l…

TCS: Total Catastrophe Services

It's staggering, sometimes. It's just a whirlwind of people churning around, and they kind of expect that anyone they work with has umpteen people to toss at a problem at the drop of a hat.

I have encountered some highly effective, competent people at TCS, but the overall level of skill and understanding seems very low.

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#339

Post by imglorp » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #229

imglorp wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some cultures, you're smart to get ahead any way you can, and they'd call anyone a fool who followed some set of rules or principles instead of getting ahead. For them, rules are artificial, arbitrary social constructs with zero benefit, while results are concrete. It's hard to argue they're wrong.

That depends on expectations, whether in a given industry or culture. In most professional settings showing your hand as essentially a mercenary in terms of allegiance and showing no stickiness, will result in considering an alternative candidate, in the US.

Yes I think there is some deceit required for those implementing this philosphophy but it doesn't change the strategy.

We, also got burned by someone who accepted another offer and quit, a week after beginning work with us. Obviously, that guy--and whoever recommended him--are on our shitlist now. Word does get around hopefully.

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#340

Post by jczhang » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #234

osrec wrote: post #129

IT miracle? More like IT sham. The quality of engineers in India is sketchy at best in my experience. Lack of understanding and innovation is rife across the board, but they seem to be great at selling their service. This may be because of the "yes" culture other comments have mentioned, but I would guess it's got a lot to do with a massively undercut price. It is, however, a false economy, because you often end up i…

> The quality of engineers in India is sketchy at best In a little over 25 years of experience, I've observed that the most competent developers I've worked with have been Indian. The most incompetent developers I've worked with have also been Indian. That doesn't say anything about Indians as a population, it's just that 90% of my coworkers, for the past two and a half decades, have been Indian.

i mean this is an obvious statement, if you've only worked with a group, then of course the most competent and least competent is within that group...