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

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#361

Post by loco5niner » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:29 PM UTC

Alterlife wrote: post #352

loco5niner wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...and as one of them incompetent developers in India, I feel the need to defend myself. Is there a typo (or 2) in here somewhere?

I substituted 'them' for 'those'. According to the interweb, it's grammatically acceptable in informal English. Similar to saying "Look at them eyes" or "One of them developers will get to it eventually". ref: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/them

Makes sense. Unfortunately, the use of "them" instead of "those" in this case (actually, in many cases) is grammatically incorrect.

At the very least this usage would cause the listener/reader to assume that English is not the speakers first language, or assume a lower level of education.

Not meaning this to be a discouragement, but hopefully, a help

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#362

Post by aspenmayer » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

Alterlife wrote: post #352

loco5niner wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...and as one of them incompetent developers in India, I feel the need to defend myself. Is there a typo (or 2) in here somewhere?

I substituted 'them' for 'those'. According to the interweb, it's grammatically acceptable in informal English. Similar to saying "Look at them eyes" or "One of them developers will get to it eventually". ref: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/them

> ...and as one of them incompetent developers in India, I feel the need to defend myself.

In your original sentence, you are trying to use "them" as an adjective to modify "incompetent developers," but "them" should only be used as a 3rd person plural pronoun. Using "them" as an adjective is not proper; your examples sound strange to native speakers, and is usually associated with vernacular English in general. Native speakers may assume this usage is due to poor knowledge of proper English, or possibly a regional (improper, but common) usage in the American South.

https://grammarstars.blogspot.com/2008/08/41-them-and-those-...

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#363

Post by matz1 » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:41 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #348

chappar wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure how you can generalize. I would not consider it as a red flag unless the candidate in question has history of hopping too quickly. I have direct/indirect experience of being both the sides. I once left a company in couple of months because company's culture was totally different than what I expected. I have also seen a friend of mine getting fired in couple of months after joining a company because comp…

It is absolutely a red flag. If you've committed to another company, then you have no business interviewing elsewhere. If you don't take a job seriously at one company, why would I expect you to take a job seriously at my company? If I offer you a job, how can I be sure you'll show up for it, and not just take the next offer that comes along? I can't. So you're no longer in consideration as soon as you tell me you're…

If you are serious then you better give a generous offer so that is unlikely for other company to give better offer.

A job is a business. The loyalty is goes only as far what the company or the employee can offer.

Likewise a company can fire employee anytime as soon as that employee is not needed anymore or better employee come along.

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#364

Post by amriksohata » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:44 PM UTC

Indian origin here working in the UK. I have met good and bad developers from India and the UK. I agree the attitude in India is to get the job done but thats because they are contracting for companies here. Its the same attitude I get from UK contracting companies, they write terrible code and just get the job done. However I found the best developers working in smaller private companies. I've found various contracting companies in the UK just as bad as Indian companies, poor coding standards, lies and fob offs.

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#365

Post by ksk » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:48 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #358

ksk wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They will generally aim to get contractual sign off from business-focused people that know little about IT. In that case any IT consultancy could fool those people. If a US consulting firm is chosen, how could anyone make the claim that they were chosen on merit? I know quite a few "business-focused" people. It is not so easy to fool them even if IT is not their core competency. Businesses typically will include sev…

In that case any IT consultancy could fool those people. If a US consulting firm is chosen, how could anyone make the claim that they were chosen on merit? If it's a US firm, then there can be financial and legal repercussions. Good luck going after a firm in India.

The usual way businesses deal with that sort of thing is by withholding milestone payments till the contractual obligations are fulfilled. Running such scams doesn't keep you in business for long. There is no one handed clap.

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#366

Post by otakucode » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:53 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #199

mieseratte wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At work, we've had issues with Indian candidates informing us during interviews that they've already recently accepted an offer / started a new job, but that they're willing to come work for us instead. Completely oblivious to the fact of how big of an immediate red flag that is.

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.

>It's hard to argue they're wrong.

Eugenics. Thalidomide. Radium paint. Lead paint. Leaded gasoline. The list goes on.

It's quite easy to argue against taking shortcuts and eschewing rigor in favor of "results" if you know some history and have some perspective.

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#367

Post by otakucode » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 8:09 PM UTC

varjag wrote: post #274

vkatluri wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, commit for how long? I have been in situations before, where I have accepted an offer, started a job and was informed 3 months later that the company mis-calculated the budgets/revenues and have to let go a bunch of people. Guess who gets let go first? The people who started the latest. Doesn't this go both ways? In this day and age in America, there's no loyalty going in either direction, employer or e…

Not entirely convinced that others' poor ethics are a justification for your own.

What argument can you possibly make for an ethical burden that amounts to one-sided loyalty? The REASON is would be immoral to have no loyalty to an employer is because it makes the employers loyalty one-sided. If the employer abandons their loyalty towards employees, as all modern employers did throughout the 1980s and have now established as standard business practice, then there is no ethical burden on the employee to remain loyal. In fact, it becomes unethical to be loyal, a betrayal of your family and self for an entity that does not respect you. I am sure there are a great many employers who expect that they should be permitted to acquire dirt cheap labor to build their profits with no consequences. Their desires are irrelevant.

"Make game of that which makes as much of thee."

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#368

Post by PeterisP » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 8:13 PM UTC

sangnoir wrote: post #314

cpmouter wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>people from different parts of the world see things and respond differently than you'd expect and then get frustrated when the outcome is different than expected I get your point, but the fact that Indians say "yes" to everything (i.e. the fact they lie constantly) is not something that managers should get used to, it's something Indians have to correct.

> i.e. the fact they lie constantly I'm yet to discover a culture that doesn't do this, and the people from that culture are so inured to it they don't call it lying but "being polite". As an example that would be widely understood by HN, Americans lie constantly when they ask "How are you doing?" - they really don't want to know how you are doing, and worse, you're expected to lie back with enthusiasm "I'm great!",…

There certainly are many cultures (e.g. Eastern or Northern Europe) where the expected response to "How are you doing?" would be either a truthful description of the important problems in their life that they are currently concerned about or becoming creeped out because you're asking a rather private question and you aren't close enough so that it would be reasonable for them to tell you how they're actually doing, nor it would be reasonable for them to lie with "I'm great!" - i.e. where the question isn't appropriate to be used randomly by near-strangers.

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#369

Post by PeterisP » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 8:25 PM UTC

mkovji wrote: post #290

niklasd wrote: post #50

I studied in India 2012 for a short time. I met incredible smart and hardworking people. However, one thing that I found quite unnerving was that there is a tendency to always anwser yes if asked if one knows how to do something, even if thats not true. Sometimes a plain "I don't know" can be very helpful in achieving a goal. I can't count how many times I asked a rickshaw driver if he knew a certain place and he ans…

I have never seen any rickshaw driver say yes to some place that he doesn't know. Either he will say he is not sure and he will stop at a place and inquire for u with people nearby and then take you to the place or most of them have google maps and can look it up if you cant by urself. Since they are pretty hyperlocal even without maps they can simply by talking to couple folks here and there figure out the right des…

I have personally seen a rickshaw driver in India say yes to some place that he doesn't know - resulting in him going to a wrong place, stopping there and inquiring for me with people nearby and then having someone look it up on google maps, and afterwards going in the opposite direction to clarify the proper place once more there.

And I'm certainly not thankful for the driver to have taken all this effort of solving the difficult problem of going somewhere that he doesn't know the road; I'm angry about the large unnecessary delay caused by them saying "yes" and then being unable to properly fulfil the promise they made, i.e. go to the goal as if they had known where it is, which they said (thus, promised) they do, and didn't. I wasn't asking "are you willing to take extra effort to deliver me to place X in some way" (which is a reasonable question that I might have asked in some circumstances, but I didn't in that particular case), I was asking "do you know the route to place X". I would be thankful if they had just said "no", as I would have had the chance to find someone who does know the proper answer themselves.

This is a significant cultural difference - in my country, answering yes when if you're not sure (and demonstrating the lie by being unable to fulfil the promise on their own) would result in that person's words not being respected anymore because that person isn't honest, and that person being shunned, not being trusted with anything serious ever again until they prove that they have changed significantly; a single incident being considered sufficient to mark the person as untrustworthy. Breaking a promise or telling a falsehood - even an implied one to a stranger - is considered a very serious issue. The problem with this when working with people in Asia is that within a few months a majority of Asian coworkers generally have had at least one incident similar to this (saying, i.e. promising something that wasn't so) marking them as untrustworthy. Of course, as with any difference, it's an open question which one of the cultures should adapt to the other, or meet in the middle, but that's a quite fundamental difference.

Re: The end of India’s ‘IT miracle’?

#370

Post by otakucode » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 8:26 PM UTC

ksk wrote: post #365

reaperducer wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case any IT consultancy could fool those people. If a US consulting firm is chosen, how could anyone make the claim that they were chosen on merit? If it's a US firm, then there can be financial and legal repercussions. Good luck going after a firm in India.

The usual way businesses deal with that sort of thing is by withholding milestone payments till the contractual obligations are fulfilled. Running such scams doesn't keep you in business for long. There is no one handed clap.

Except the person on the US side who fought for and won the ability to outsource the project to save money is personally invested in success. He has decided this will make his career. So when it comes to fulfilling those contractual obligations, he will sign off on it, then bring it in house and try to quietly put together a team to fix the system to make it actually function.

This isn't just an India thing. This is how government contracts work in the US too. The government contracts out to Lockheed Martin for a big IT project (used to anyway, LM got out of the business on the civilian side at least), LM hires the cheapest 'talent' they can find, loading projects 80/20 management/engineering, drag their feet for a few years, and eventually someone on the government side decides they're going to make their career by being the person who brings this project across the finish line. So they ignore or lie about the requirements being fulfilled and drag the steaming mess in-house, while LM hosts a champagne-drenched celebration. Contracting has fundamentally perverse incentives.