
20K Workers Will Be Jobless in Indian IT Sector, Thanks to Infosys and Cognizant - TheLastSamurai
https://techtudor.blogspot.com/2019/11/approximately-20000-employees-will-be.html
======
lmilcin
It is not really a slowdown. Companies are more than ever eager to hire
anybody to do IT projects. The trouble is the level of service provided to
customers by vendors from India is pretty shitty and that's why companies are
migrating to other countries for IT resources.

I work in banking and payment sector and I had a chance to observe this on a
dozen projects.

In one instance Cognizant offered to completely automate a significant
application used by hundreds of thousands of customers throughout the world.
They were supposed to containerize half a dozen services, Oracle database,
configure it to run on AWS and also automate environment creation.

The team put by Cognizant had not a single person knowing how to do basically
anything. They spent entire project schedule and more just learning the basics
of how to get around. Instead of automating anything they negotiated to be
allowed to just order vms on EC2 and install applications there, manually. It
took them three weeks to figure out how to copy 400GB database backup (they
had space, accesses and networking, they just couldn't figure out how to copy
the file). Then they spent another two weeks unable to restore the backup.

The trouble is that for a long time they have been cranking junior devs with
no quality culture and no real interest in what they are doing and now this is
starting to hurt them.

~~~
ethbro
The thing that's consistently baffled me with projects like this is why
technical milestones aren't encoded in contracts.

In your example, if they can't demonstrate a PoC container or automated
environment creation in x% of the schedule, the contract is terminated. With
similar milestones throughout the project.

It's like traditional PM project pacing goes out the window when dealing with
contractors.

It's not a secret these shops put the least capable people on contracts they
think they can get away with, so why not better incentivize them to bring a
more skilled team?

~~~
klausjensen
I witnessed an outsourcing process first hand, where Cognizant was supposed to
come in a handle X, Y and Z tasks (pretty much all IT services) in a large
energy company.

By the time it became clear, that they were not able to deliver on their
promises at anything that resembles an acceptable level, most people with
actual skills were no longer around (FTEs and contractors).

My second best suggestion would be to let an outsourcing partner take over
small areas and do a gradual transition as you monitor their performance and
quality. The problem is, that these companies have specialized "window-
dressing" consultants, that are actually smart and have real skills. As soon
as the contract is won, the people with skills are moved to the next contract,
that needs to be won - and they are replaced by extremely low-paid resources
without qualifications. By the time the company realizes this, it is too late.

I felt quite sorry for these under-qualified people. Imagine going to work
every day, barely eeking out a living, while being completely unable to
deliver on what you are supposed to do, all while being shouted at by some
local slavedriver/manager with a large moustache - for doing your best.

...So the reason I said "second-best" is because I do not believe there is any
reason to do business with the Indian outsourcing companies at all, unless you
are an exec whos bonus depends on "outsourcing x % to low-cost countries" \-
and you do not give a fuck about the company as a whole.

~~~
blaser-waffle
> I witnessed an outsourcing process first hand, where Cognizant was supposed
> to come in a handle X, Y and Z tasks (pretty much all IT services) in a
> large energy company. By the time it became clear, that they were not able
> to deliver on their promises at anything that resembles an acceptable level,
> most people with actual skills were no longer around (FTEs and contractors).

This is happening to my group right now...

~~~
klausjensen
Start looking for a new job and leave.

------
bradwood
This has been a long time coming. INFY and others like them have been slave-
driving their staff with huge markups for eons. I’m glad the chickens are
finally coming home to roost.

I’ve worked in wholesale finance for decades and seen how these guys are
treated both on- and offshore by their employers. It’s frankly despicable.

Let’s hope the market in India finally pivots and smaller, more nimble shops
take more and more market share.

That being said, I wonder how much of this is embedded in cultural norms that
will not be easy to shake. For example: saying yes to your client’s every
request, even if it’s stupid, is not something that comes easily, I suspect,
if you’re ingrained to just say yes...

~~~
Nursie
That particular cultural norm (or way of doing business, in deference to
'flarg' who is better acquainted with this than I am) has got in the way of
producing quality work several times in the past, and ruined the productivity
we were trying to get from outsourcing in the first place (it was not my
decision, I just had to try and make it work).

    
    
      "So you understand what you have to do?"
      "Yes"
      "And you have all the documentation and information you need?"
      "Yes"
      "OK great, let's get this thing going, get in touch if you need any help"
    

Two weeks later -

    
    
      "How's progress on the project?"
      "I have not been able to start the work because I could not understand..."

~~~
theshrike79
With Indian contractors, you can't use questions that require them to give a
yes or no answer.

You need to phrase things differently: "What will be the first thing you'll be
working on?" instead of "Do you understand?", for example.

~~~
wheelerwj
open ended questions are just better in general.

Describe your next steps...

Please create a step by step project plan in {tool name}...

Another issue is waiting two weeks. Never, ever, wait two weeks. With any
outsourced team you need much more frequent check-ins otherwise you run the
risk of being blind-sided by huge project delays.

~~~
Nursie
Lessons learned I guess!

We assumed that we were dealing with a (semi-) autonomous developer or team of
developers, who would ask for clarification or assistance if needed.

We made ourselves available, we didn't expect miracles (it was big product
with a team you had years of knowledge about it attached, though they were
working on a small, isolated area), but our expectations were just out of line
with what we got.

In the end the developer turned out to be able to do the work, though did not
excel. The biggest hurdle to cross was this mismatch of expectations.

------
sumanthvepa
This sad for the Indian IT ecosystem, but the world has been evolving into a
more protectionist place for a few years now, and the trend isn't going to
stop. Indian outsourcing companies need to evolve into SaaS and cloud
companies to compete globally. They are already doing this to some extent.
That needs to accelerate. Sadly though, this is not going to help the vast
majority of their employees, particularly middle-management folks, whose
primary skill -- project management, won't be in very high demand, as the deep
hierarchies of these companies are replaced by flatter structures more suited
to product companies. They need to re-skill skill themselves. And that is
going to take a huge toll on them financially.

~~~
paggle
Also Indian IT companies are overstaffed with followers and understaffed with
leaders. Even ICs in a good product company like Google or Apple are entirely
capable of self-managing 90% of their work -- you only need to tell them
something like "implement smooth scrolling on the iPad mini that matches the
iPad Pro." They will come back and evaluate the problem and approaches and say
that the current system calls don't support an exact match but that reducing
to 30fps can get a match or the OS team can do additional work to expose a
lower-level graphics primitive to make an exact match. You'll never get that
from your typical Infosys grunt. The vast majority of the Indian engineers
with that skill level are either employed in the US on H-1Bs or in India at
the FAANG India offices.

~~~
vermilingua
Nothing you said there suggests that this is an India specific problem.
Paraphrasing:

> good developers capable of self managing work at Google or Apple

> the only Indian developers at that level work at FAANG

It's almost like good engineers are attracted to the companies that can afford
them, regardless of their nationality.

~~~
paggle
No, there are a lot of good Serbian developers for example but they all work
in outsourcing since the FAANGs don't have offices there. So there are a lot
of very talented Serbian devs who do contract work. But in India there is a
robust export and domestic market for engineers and a HUGE services market so
the services firms are mostly populated by crap talent. It is an India
specific problem.

------
tracer4201
I worked for an oil and gas company in Houston about 5 years ago, and the IT
organization was primarily Indian contractors working through a couple
companies. I recall Infosys and Larsen and Toubro.

One of the IT contractors supporting the SAP system confessed to me how
horribly L&TI treated him, and how if he spoke up about it, they could force
him to return to India. He was making $18 an hour btw, although I’m pretty
sure his billable rate was far larger. One of his Indian friends found out
what he’d told me and ended up yelling at him in their native tongue because
he wasn’t supposed to speak up, apparently.

I’m sure tons of talent from India absolutely is deserving of their work
visas, but there were companies clearly gaming the system.

~~~
chopraaa
I worked for HCL right out of college.

If I asked people whom I worked with to guess my salary, they couldn't even
come close. I made about $180 per month with 48 hour work weeks.

~~~
sokz
I got offered about the same amount last month by HCL,for a position that
required a Master's.

------
t0ddbonzalez
Is it a bad take (or a sweeping generalization) to say that the quality of
work done by IT service companies in that part of the word is consistently
below-par?

~~~
illuminati1911
It’s truth. Nothing more than that. Same is true for most developing
countries.

The top developers in India and other similar countries have no reason to work
there with shitty salaries and sweatshop projects when they can get visa and
much better salary in almost any other place like US, Europe, China etc. So
they’ll end up leaving and those mega enterprise outsourcing-corporations will
pick from the ones that stay.

~~~
donkeyd
> they can get visa and much better salary in almost any other place like US,
> Europe, China etc.

In Europe I'm already seeing some pushback against this. In some companies
there are so many Indians that it's starting to affect the culture, so they're
moving towards hiring more local juniors to train them, because there's less
of a language/culture barrier.

~~~
mav3rick
Affect "culture". You mean Xenophobia ?

------
hos234
On the flip side - [https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-
business/...](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-
business/india-may-see-105-unicorns-by-2025-says-
nasscom/articleshow/71930457.cms)

~~~
raghava
It is coming from NASSCOM, which is a lobbying arm.

Value bloat is what people want, and NASSCOM does just that.

Take that news with loads of salt.

------
ooooak
It's storytime

S1. I met a guy who was really passionate about blockchain and python. At some
point, he joined a startup. They were using react-native. Within 2 months he
left the job. They treated him really poorly, and no one was there to help
him. Now he is preparing for gov jobs.

s2. Another young gun, who works in TCS it's been 6 months since he is last
wrote a single line of code. At some point, they will throw a project at him
and assume he is a top java hacker. That will solve all kinds of crazy
problems.

------
lunias
It took way longer than it should have, but recently it seems like companies
have caught on. I've worked with more off-shore developers in the Dominican
Republic / Belarus than India in the past 2 years.

Never understood the need for such large, low individual cost, tech teams
anyways... almost always seems like a better idea to pay 2 people 200k a piece
to work on something than hiring 8 off-shore developers / managers for 50k
each.

------
anuraj
Average productivity of an Indian IT services employee is as low as $15000 a
year. With no uptick in productivity - the only way you can improve margins is
to cut the flab - which is there in senior and middle layers. So senior and
middle managers who have made themselves redundant without upskilling are now
game. Average work life duration of an Indian IT employee might be less than
20 years currently.

~~~
klausjensen
Trying to understand "average productivity" here. The 15K is what an average
IT worker produces per year - for example if they were billed out for 1500
hours at 10$ per hour?

Genuine question, trying to understand. :)

~~~
anuraj
That is true. Most companies have bench+overhead and billed resources may be
60% or less of total work force. Average billing works out to $10-15 for the
low value high volume work these IT services firms do and that has not changed
over the last 20 years or so. What has changed is a bloated middle/senior
management which is a drag to the above business model. They did try to move
up into consultancy and productised services - which did not really work.

