
Why startups in India find it hard to hire devs - ajhai
http://pindancing.blogspot.com/2011/04/why-startups-in-india-find-it-hard-to.html
======
GeneralMaximus
The OP is right on all counts. I live in New Delhi and often work freelance
(Python/iOS work). What I've found is:

\- Indian companies rarely pay well. I feel lucky if I can convince someone to
pay me $12/hr.

\- Most have unreasonable qualification criteria. Why do you want a degree
when I have references and real world experience?

\- A large number of them will treat people who went to "lesser" colleges
differently from those who went to one of the IITs.

\- I've never received a payment on time. On the other hand, my friends who
have done contract work for American firms got paid on time.

This has been my experience. Of course, YMMV.

~~~
ajju
I think you will find that the college pedigree bias is prominent everywhere
amongst Indians. It's sad.

Also, the website in your profile (<http://uncool.in>) does not seem to be up.
Wanted to check out your portfolio.

~~~
GeneralMaximus
> Also, the website in your profile (<http://uncool.in>) does not seem to be
> up. Wanted to check out your portfolio.

Sadly, it's been down for a while. I was moving from a shared host to a VPS,
but I was waylaid by midterms :/

If you send me an email, I'll email back with my resume. Email is in my
profile.

------
microarchitect
As usual, Ravi is spot on here.

When I lasted looked into them, most startups in Bangalore were run by MBA-
types who seemed to be intent on just copying the latest fad from Silicon
valley. Even some of the most successful Indian startups - naukri.com and
makemytrip.com are just copying well-established international websites and
derive their success from paying attention to the Indian market before the
country was on the radar of those players. It'll be interesting to see how
these companies do now that they have competition. In any case, as Ravi and
many others have pointed out, only the founders got rich out of Naukri and
Makemytrip.

The other thing Ravi alluded to, about having credible proven founders is also
important. I know a few devs* who, if they offered me a chance to work with
them, I'd jump at the opportunity. However, the vast majority of these
startups guys were folks I'd want to avoid working with even in
GenericBigCorp.

* Unfortunately I don't know Ravi personally but if I did, he'd be near the top of this list.

~~~
krat0sprakhar
"copying well-established international websites and derive their success from
paying attention to the Indian market before the country "

I'm not sure if this is such a bad thing. Flipkart copied Amazon and its
thriving in this country.

~~~
malnourish
Very tangential, but I was just checking out Flipkart and some things are
extremely inexpensive. Portal 2 and Crysis 2 are under $20 USD.

~~~
aksbhat
what is even more interesting is that books are also much cheaper e.g.
Algorithms by Cormen, et. al. cost only 6$. It would be interesting how eBooks
are priced in India, as compared to US.

~~~
zorked
Unfortunately they only ship to India...

~~~
mark_h
abebooks.com (and I'm sure plenty of others) frequently middle-man for sub-
continent re-sellers.

------
themonk
Because founder wants to keep all the equity. Very few examples where early
developers got share of success.

~~~
BerislavLopac
But would they be willing to work for equity anyway? Where I live no developer
would work without pay (or for a reduced salary) for a startup if they could
(and they could, easily) find offshoring work paid much above average local
salaries.

~~~
raghava
> work without pay (or for a reduced salary)

One needs to take into account the social context when discussing India. If a
guy does not earn, even if he is working on curing cancer or educating the
poorest of poor, he is considered a big-time loser and a bum. If there comes
along a startup with a cloned idea wanting some people who can code for lesser
salary, none in their right minds would choose it; because there are a million
things that could go wrong and generally, people here are less honourable when
it comes to financial matters#, and always have an eye on bigger cut in the
pie.

Lesser pay would not work. Equal, or even slightly higher pay compared to big
IT shops, along with equity will work wonders.

#Yes, I am generalizing, but that's the situation in a society ripe with a
huge poor/middle class section wanting to make it big somehow and cross those
barriers.

------
jagira
My 2 paise \- More than half of Indian "startups" are working on next groupon
or foursquare clone \- Unlike USA, social security is almost non existent. In
India bankruptcy means bankruptcy. This makes devs a bit risk averse.

------
namank
Interesting Article. I'm a dev student with entrepreneurial aspirations. Any
other sites, twitter people, blogs where one can keep tabs on the Indian
startup scene?

~~~
blrgeek
hackerstreet.in is reasonably active.

------
yummyfajitas
I don't buy these reasons. I know of a startup which hits all the bullet
points. If it works, the CTO has enough equity to never work again (unless he
wants to). They want a full partner, not a coding body, which is precisely why
they are giving away equity. They want the partner to completely own the tech
side [1], make all the tech decisions, as well as participate in strategic
decisions.

Local talent was completely uninterested. So they recruited an American who
worked remotely for a few months, and is now moving to Pune and joining up
full time.

[1] No PhP. The stack is Python/Django + Hadoop for analytics, and they have
already released an internal utility as open source. More will follow.
<https://github.com/styloot>

~~~
divtxt
Sorry - your example is probably one of the exceptions.

I know two startup founders in Bangalore who face these issues - especially
reason #1: matching the compensation for good talent.

And reason #3: there are almost no examples of non-founder startup
millionaires in Bangalore (/India).

This is how most developers in Bangalore got rich in the last decade: get the
highest compensation you can and invest as much as you can in two things: real
estate and stocks.

~~~
raghava
> example is probably one of the exceptions.

Precisely. I myself have seen many MBA types running around looking for
'developers who would strictly be employers only, to implement that cool idea
(which usually is a clone of some famous thing on the other side of planet)'
_with no equity offered_. And as there is no safety-net through social
security here, any worthy fellow would choose the obvious and avoid such
startups, as the risks far outweigh the benefits.

People get what they pay for, simple as that.

------
senthilnayagam
not only startups most smaller companies in general face the same problems.

I can quote 3 examples about top5 indian IT companies a) company A ,campus
interview, selects 80% of the engineering college students(all branches)
including students with arrears. b) company B, does not conduct aptitude for
certain colleges as it would reduce the number of hires. c) company C,
recruits people from specific companies without technical interviews

employees from my company have gone to larger companies to increase their
market value in Arranged Marriages.

~~~
kamaal
Oh, I can tell this isn't just a thing about your company but nearly all
companies in India these days. Yes arranged marriage market is a crazy place,
Unless you have a tag 'manager', 'architect' the prospective girls don't care
much about the boy.

And this is understandably so, some time in the 90's and early 2000's the IT
sector grew rapidly and promotions and hikes happened regardless of your
worth. I even know people who have just got into the industry an year or two,
did some testing and report writing. Pushed and sent to an onsite location
like US or Europe and the third year you are back, you are promoted to be a
manager. The middle level management in most IT giants is rotting with
inefficient talent promoted early.

There fore the assumption with the current generation is regardless of their
merit they need to go to the 'promised lands'(US and Europe) in an year, get
promoted to a Managerial designation, book a flat, buy a car, marry with heavy
dowry and settle down.

That's not happening these days. So most resort to job hopping. Some even hop
jobs every eight months, whats more hilarious is.. Companies giving hikes to
people who hop jobs but not to the ones who stay and perform. Adding to this
regional politics in office spaces, drives the genuinely good guys crazy.

------
known
83% Indians want to escape/runaway from India
[http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-
show-1-only-...](http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-
show-1-only-17-pc-indians-thriving-europeans-happiest/20110420.htm)

------
aksbhat
If you are a good dev/student and some bank is willing to lend you 40,000$, it
is far easier to join a good US university for a masters degree and then get a
job in Silicon valley.

So all you are left with are people who cannot take above option.

~~~
raghava
Should I take that you mean to say all those not flying off to a foreign
university due to various reasons of their own (a personal obligation, may be,
or something like that) are not fit or worthy enough?

------
known
Startups in India does back ground checking viz
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Caste_system_...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Caste_system_in_india)

------
akarambir
nice read. Developers often go for big companies as they are getting excellent
compensations but given the nature of a startup(i'm talking abt true startup-
solving real problems), developers may be attracted. Most of the good
developers believe in solving hardcore problems. So you as a startup can
provide them that. You cannot(unless you are heavily funded) compete with big
companies on salary criteria.

------
GMali
#3 is actually the main issue, in my opinion.

------
kamaal
Not just the start up in general its a little to hire good developers in
India. Not because they are unavailable, but because they are often lost in
the huge crowd rush. The general good folks that come out IIT's and REC's do
either join a company like Google or alike. Or Write a entrance exam like CAT
to work for some investment bank. Or do their MS in US and permanently plan to
settle down some where in the west. In other words they just don't want to be
a part of the system at all. Barring a few.

The other good folks have a very terrible problem they are forced to run with
the crowd. Often they get hired by the IT big giants. The scenario there is
pretty different. In the 90's and early 2000's most of them in such companies
got promoted very early to managerial designations, went to onsite location
like the US. Got very rich due to stocks, money earned in foreign location(due
to foriegn exchange) and the hikes from promotion. They have a lot of money
and give a damn on how things run, they have nothing to loose after all.

When folks join such big companies often these are the sort of people whom
they meet and are forced to draw inspiration from. Most managers have hardly
coded and don't know a jack about technical stuff.And since the hurry is to
now become a manager, buy a flat, a car, marry with rich dowry and settle
down. The struggle happens on three counts and chief being get rich as early
as you can, BY ANY MEANS you can. So since now becoming manager is the key,
most don't want to code at all. Some how fight, do politics(Which is very
common here, due people from so many languages and regions mixing together.
there is severe politics and biases towards there respective people) and go to
onsite. And if this doesn't happen, go job hopping until you get it.

The sad fact is companies reward jop hoppers but the sincere ones who for long
time and perform. I even know few folks who have hopped 5 jobs in 4 years,
consider themselves Java expert and don't even what CLASSPATH is. Once they
get the tag of 'lead' or alike they think they can just give orders and have
servants do the job for them. This how 95% project managers and other
designated alike work here. Adding to that to 'CYA' they purposefully promote
inefficient folks, I think they a feel a good guy is direct threat to their
own position.

The net result is more and more less risks projects are taken by Indian IT
giants there days. Most of them in just bench testing and infrastructure
management like IT support. And some times the managers are so inefficient
they can't execute those projects properly.

Now coming to actually talented folks, we are terribly frustrated crowd. As
self taught programmers(From other branches of engineering) and despite our
hard work and merit we can neither go to companies like Google, because they
treat non-CS and non-IIT folks like 'mud blood muggles' nor work for start
ups. Start ups are mostly from MBA types who believe some how idea is all that
matters and programmers are like typists whom they can just use and throw.

There is no easy way out of this problem. At least with the current social set
up in India. Sometimes I feel I must immigrate to the US( Like Russians did
frustrated with the system there.).

But no, this is my country. I will stay here and fight the system. And will do
everything I can to make my country a better place and have genuinely good
guys get what they deserve.

~~~
anonInd
<RANT> Very well written . The education system in India is absolutely a joke.
Here is how it works . After 10th exams you take up science for 10+2.
Simultaneously, you enroll for Maths,Physics and Chemistry tutions ( for IIT
entrence exams). If you are dedicated ,hardworking ,sharp and have no social
life ( ie do not do the things every teenager should do viz chase girls, get
laid, loaf around) you might get into IITs or a good NIT ( say 3000 seats) .
All others are doomed to join B/C grade colleges. Here comes the catch. Such
colleges do not teach anything , they just print degrees . Students mug up OS,
DB , Networking, Software Engg and pass out with distiction but are not able
to install Windows or change IP address . Setting classpath/path or coding(
BFS/DFS/Data Str / Searching & Sorting) is a far cry.

When i graduated ( with a CS degree from a B grade college ) I could not write
"Hello world" in any language , did not know how to query records. However, I
was placed in the first company that came to campus. These are USD 10 billion
companies that build and maintain "MISSION CRITICAL" applications for all the
"Movers & Shakers" of US of A.

Four years down the line , thanks to internets ( Esp Hacker News) I can code.
From a zero to a decent programmer. My teammates(4-5 yrs of experience) can
not write code that will print a directory structure. They can not complie
code without eclipse. All they want is "ONSITE" This is the story of India
that I know. </RANT>

~~~
raghava
> My teammates(4-5 yrs of experience) can not write code that will print a
> directory structure.

Let them first get through fizz-buzz test, then we can talk of traversing a
directory through code.

For the uninitiated, one needs to understand that most (numbers are in 75% and
above, and am not kidding) of the 'developers' out here are in the IT industry
not because of their love for software/programming but because it pays
relatively well. And those who truly love programming are the real outcasts
here.

------
gaius
_Often tech stacks are in place even before people actually decide what to do_

This is a key warning sign IMHO - it means that technical decisions are being
made by managers based on fashion rather than engineers based on what's the
right tool for the job.

