IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S • Hacker News Board

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#41

Post by jrs95 » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:04 PM UTC

timthelion wrote: post #5

I think that this is a good example of how racism, conscious and unconscious is making us worse at predicting the future. Ten years ago, so many Americans were making jokes about poor quality Indian code and Indian accents. The idea of Indians actually working innovative jobs seemed laughable to many Americans. But there wasn't actually strong evidence that Indians were less good at doing cutting edge research. This…

It's not like the stereotype is entirely fabricated. This was created by how Indian workers were used by corporations -- to cut labor costs without much regard to the quality of work. If they're doing the same thing in their Indian offices, it's not going to do them any good in the long run.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#42

Post by pavanred » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

Everyone seems to be making the assumption that all the work IBM India does is outsourced from US. IBM India is the biggest domestic IT player in India with clients like Airtel, Indian Railways, HDFC etc.; IBM India also services clients from other countries in the world (which wouldn't have happened otherwise because its too expensive in the US). And, IBM India, has a few research labs setup that do independent research.

Considering this, how is the number of employees in India and US even a relevant question. Isn't it similar to say why is there more manufacturing workforce in China when compared to US for company X? We know why, it costs less for the company and the client, and taking advantage of it opened up new markets/demand.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#43

Post by saint_fiasco » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

timthelion wrote: post #12

timthelion wrote: post #5

I think that this is a good example of how racism, conscious and unconscious is making us worse at predicting the future. Ten years ago, so many Americans were making jokes about poor quality Indian code and Indian accents. The idea of Indians actually working innovative jobs seemed laughable to many Americans. But there wasn't actually strong evidence that Indians were less good at doing cutting edge research. This…

As an example of this racism, I'd use this comment from the article: "It often takes 2 and sometimes 3 Indian employees to perform the role of the North America diluting the savings." https://nyti.ms/2yxCQGX

I am a foreigner who works for an American customer and I freely admit that I am not as productive as one of their in-house developers. This is because of things like communication delays, lack of documentation (of both their code and their business logic and practices) and generally the overhead of being in a separate team.

Now that IBM has more people in India than in the US, maybe they will find that they face the opposite problem: US workers will have to adapt to their Indian counterparts instead of the other way around, so it will be more productive to hire an additional Indian than an additional American.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#44

Post by davesque » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

cybernytrix wrote: post #33

gourabmi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a thought about the "huge" salary difference. Are you taking the Purchasing Power Parity(PPP) into account? I know that PPP is too macro for comparing very specific cases but it does steer the discussion in the right direction. Let's say, an engineer's monthly salary is $10,000 in the US and he can afford X level of arbitrary "comforts in life". To be able to afford the same X level of arbitrary "comforts of lif…

When you talk about PPP, keep in mind to factor in housing and other modern lifestyle conveniences. These are very very expensive if you price it as a percentage of your salary. Even in the Bay Area, a Home is still 5-6X annual income of a typical software engineer. In India, it is more like 10-15X.

Sure, but aren't basic necessities less expensive in India?

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#45

Post by jrs95 » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:06 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #40

timthelion wrote: post #5

I think that this is a good example of how racism, conscious and unconscious is making us worse at predicting the future. Ten years ago, so many Americans were making jokes about poor quality Indian code and Indian accents. The idea of Indians actually working innovative jobs seemed laughable to many Americans. But there wasn't actually strong evidence that Indians were less good at doing cutting edge research. This…

I'll probably get in trouble for this but from my experience even in the US majority-Indian teams prefer hiring Indians.

This is pretty much true of any group, it would be absurd to deny it.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#46

Post by iamnewhereqwer » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:06 PM UTC

burger_moon wrote: post #28

timthelion wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the quality of life, while debatable, would be considered a downgrade for many who could potentially be poached from other regions". Why would it be a downgrade. If they paid an American $120k a year to live in Bangalore, that would buy the American a nice villa, pay for several servants, and allow for frequent travel. In SF, that same money gets you a shoe-box apartment.

I guess you could also use that money to buy a diesel generator so you don't suffer from the daily power outages and you can buy a great water filtration system so you don't have to worry about ever drinking unclean water either.

Have you been to Bangalore?

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#47

Post by Mikeb85 » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:07 PM UTC

timthelion wrote: post #5

I think that this is a good example of how racism, conscious and unconscious is making us worse at predicting the future. Ten years ago, so many Americans were making jokes about poor quality Indian code and Indian accents. The idea of Indians actually working innovative jobs seemed laughable to many Americans. But there wasn't actually strong evidence that Indians were less good at doing cutting edge research. This…

It's not racism, it's the fact that India's tech sector came up so quickly, there were so many engineers, probably not all with the same level of training, that lots of code probably was crap. Not because Indians can't code, but because the industry wasn't as developed as elsewhere. Obviously that can change over time, and it has.

> This racism is again mirrored in the huge salary difference. Are those Indian workers really worth so much less?

Corporations pay people what they'll accept. Since many Indians are essentially doing salary arbitrage between what they'd make in India and the US, they'll accept less. Also, cost of living in India is much lower.

Literally none of what you've explained here is a result of racism, just economics.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#48

Post by atarian » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:07 PM UTC

timthelion wrote: post #5

I think that this is a good example of how racism, conscious and unconscious is making us worse at predicting the future. Ten years ago, so many Americans were making jokes about poor quality Indian code and Indian accents. The idea of Indians actually working innovative jobs seemed laughable to many Americans. But there wasn't actually strong evidence that Indians were less good at doing cutting edge research. This…

>Ten years ago, so many Americans were making jokes about poor quality Indian code and Indian accents. The idea of Indians actually working innovative jobs seemed laughable to many Americans.

As someone who grew up in America during that time, this is the exact opposite that I was told by the media and teachers. We were taught that Indians were just as effective (if not more) than people working in the US and that we shouldn't select jobs that will be outsourced in the future (like programming). In fact computer science enrollment in many colleges were at an all-time low during that time because of outsourcing fear.

So I completely disagree with your generalization that many Americans thought Indians were worse at programming.

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#49

Post by maccard » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:07 PM UTC

DarronWyke wrote: post #39

e40 wrote: post #24

The real question is (and this is serious): how is it working out for them?

Badly. They've lost many clients because of it. Disney was one of their biggest; they jumped ship a few years ago due to constant missed deadlines and poor work. I used to work for IBM. We had a few workers in India who were decent to good, but most of them are just seat warmers. Their work was abysmal and required frequent re-doing.

really? I distinctly remember Disney doing the exact same thing, to the point where they paid their current employees to train their own offshore replacements [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff...

Re: IBM Now Has More Employees in India Than in the U.S

#50

Post by padiyar83 » Fri, Sep 29, 2017, 4:09 PM UTC

timthelion wrote: post #5

I think that this is a good example of how racism, conscious and unconscious is making us worse at predicting the future. Ten years ago, so many Americans were making jokes about poor quality Indian code and Indian accents. The idea of Indians actually working innovative jobs seemed laughable to many Americans. But there wasn't actually strong evidence that Indians were less good at doing cutting edge research. This…

>> By not paying a competitive salary, those IBM offices in India are lacking the deep experience of western programmers.

1. IBM offices and most multinationals do pay competitive salary in India. We have the same problem with retaining talent in India that we have in US. Its hard to retain good programmers.

2.Thanks to US immigration system, you do find a lot of folks with deep experience working for firms in US for years return back to India. They carry with them the best practices that they learnt in US. Some of these people also attend US universities.

3. At least the big fives (I don't know about IBM) have consistent coding and code review standards across geographies and use similar frameworks, deployment and monitoring tool chains. So there is not as big of an impact as you think on coding standards across geographies, be it Dublin, Sydney or Bangalore. It usually tends to be the same.