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24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India

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Re: 24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India

#41
post #29
post #9

>>>> 98% of Indian Population have not even heard the word "Github" in their entire life, yet everyone acts like they know this stuff What kind of logic is it? Are 98% of Indian population software engineers? Why do they need to know about GitHub?

Why do they need to act like if the know github? What's important about github outside the dev community????

I guess he means for the people who commented on things he did, ie: his relatives. They did not know of his experience/the projects he had worked on - they did not know his "Github" work, and only recognized bigger brands & universities names.

Re: 24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India

#42
Happy Birthday!

There will always be things that you feel like you should or must be doing when you are 24 or 25 or 65!

Its great that you have found something you enjoy. As you get more experience and explore new avenues, you may find things that interest you more. Be open to change. The peanut gallery will always be there, but the only person you are accountable to is yourself.

The social pressures are a part of the culture, but they are background noise as such and should be treated as much. Focus on what you want to do, and where you are going. The other things will fall into place one way or the other.

Re: 24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India

#43
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think that there's nothing national in this. It's just because the majority of the development work in India is being done in outsourcing. When you outsource you rarely pay for 'quality code', you pay for the code that works, delivered on time and preferably below the budget. Okay, you get what you're paying for. Having said that I realize that this is a vicious cycle - young developers can write good code…

This. I've outsourced to India, Uruguay, Poland and I think Ukraine. Every single line of code from outsourcing has been thrown away. That was from finding a dev shop and them leasing one of their "devs" for x per hour (x was never under $20). When I learnt my lesson, I thought about it and removed the indirection. Since 2011 I've only hired directly, but still remotely. I explain exactly what quality level is expect…

I recently did a code review for some work from a team in Ukraine. I was not expecting much - instead, I was blown away. The code was phenomenally well put together, good tests in place, comments were clear enough - this was tens of thousands of lines of code I'd never seen before and I was able to find my way around - and understand it - within just a few minutes. Not once did I cringe or find anything desperately in need of a rewrite. There were some not great architectural decisions regarding the database which I'd have done differently, but I understood how they got there, even if it was not a good point to be at.

This was easily some of the best code I've seen in years, both of my own and other colleagues. There were some key takeaways I got similar to davidjgraph's points. The company here in the US using this team worked directly with this team - there were not multiple agencies in the middle taking their cut. Additionally, it was the same core team (7? 8 people?) working for more than 2 years - they had a long term sense of commitment to the problem and the project, and it showed. Many outsourcing disasters I've seen are rush jobs by people trying to hit billable hours and move to the next project (well, same for onshore workers, really).

Re: 24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India

#48

If someone asked me what my salary was, I'd kick them in the teeth. Not sure if that's a 'British' thing, but asking someone what their salary is, is really rude!

Yeah, and kicking someone in the teeth is very polite :p

Re: 24th Birthday: What it’s like to be 24 for a Software Engineer in India

#50
India is not the problem neither the people around you, its your attitude. And its better we Indian’s stop injecting this sort of stereotypes about the country. I will be 24, new year eve. And nobody is going to ask me to get married, nobody is going to until I am 27 or 28, and I don't have to go for arranged marriage. After college I threw away offers from these big companies Infosys, Wipro, Accenture or whatever and choose to work in startups. And boy, the job is awesome and you get paid fine, better than my friends in these so called big companies. I didn’t study in any of those NIT’s or IIT’s and I don’t think that really matters to you in any regard. My parent’s weren’t supportive and I have been asked several times to quit the job in india and go abroad and work. But I don’t think there is anything negative in it. They have grown up in a situation where married life and job in a good company/government service were important. Make yourself clear to them and none is going to ask that to you again, they are educated enough to understand that and they will be happy as long as you are (and its a good thing about Indian parents). And why should you care about what others think or care as long as you are living a life that satisfies you? Indian’s maybe a little nosy about things you do. But its never going to affect you as long as you don’t want it to.

    The term "Entrepreneur" here in India is a synonym for "Jobless”

hell no!! they are respected and appreciated. We have startup incubators in India, the governments are supportive as well. http://startupvillage.in

    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

No! there are companies that value good programming, and they are ready to higher you at a good cost and you are appreciated for writing good code. There are Indian’s working in Indian companies who do contribute to some major open source projects. And I have friends in these big companies who are really good programmers and writing good code there, neither they are under appreciated. And in business “Everything needs to be done”, and for the end quality to matter. Its the programmer’s discretion. Its not specific to India. And at 24, probably your life just started and there is lot to live and achieve (it doesn't matter you are in India or in US). And life on entrepreneurs is just as hard as it is for the ones in other countries, its not any different.
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