
Over 95 percent of IT “engineers” in India are incapable of basic programming - williamxd3
http://newobserveronline.com/95-of-it-engineers-in-india-incapable-new-report-reveals/
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azinman2
I have no idea how good this “study” was or representative, but there’s a
clear agenda in the “reporting.” I’m sure there’s validity in looking at the
Tata’s of the world with skepticism and abuse of visas, but no one with
credibility could look across the top talent of Silicon Valley and say it’s
not important to get Indians work visas.... or those from any country, really.
It’s a strategic advantage to get the world’s best talent in and wanting to
stay in the US.

Also, when the word “IT” does not exactly sound like top engineering talent.

~~~
40four
Agreed, this article is rubbish, and anyone who upvoted should be ashamed.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
Actually I upvoted it hoping for some meaningful discussion regarding the
findings from the report. However, the website is rubbish and it seems most
comments seem to focus on that instead of the findings.

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justboxing
Pretty certain the website is a content farm troll that is also indulging in
heavy astroturfing...

[http://newobserveronline.com/about-us/](http://newobserveronline.com/about-
us/)

> We are staffed by professional writers who all have extensive experience in
> news and journalism from around the globe.

No names, or headshots, or bios, or contact info of any of their "professional
writers".

~~~
40four
Thank you. This website is a farce. It's disgusting this got any up votes.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
I admit I upvoted it even though I consider the website to be trash, because
the findings from the report seem interesting.

~~~
40four
I agree it is interesting, but I think as a whole we should not reward sites
like that with traffic from our community. I'd bet $20 someone affliated with
the site posted this to drive traffic, & it briefly rose into the top 30
before getting flagged. Any normal person would have linked to the main study
or a repetubale source.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
On second thought, you're right, I made a mistake upvoting it.

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icedchai
If someone's "in IT", it does not mean they're a developer, at least around
here. It usually means they're a network or system admin.

~~~
havetocharge
I don't know where "here" is for you, but any systems person that's been
employed in the last 5 years should be able to write syntactically and
logically correct code. At least that's my experience and expectation from
working in the North Eastern part of North America.

~~~
icedchai
I'm near Boston. If someone says they're "in IT", there's a good chance they
can't program. Sure, maybe they can write a bash script.

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patrickg_zill
A friend of mine left a profitable company because he was tired of dealing
with offshore engineers. The company's strategy was to have a few people in
the USA and have other work done for cheap in India; where they got what they
paid for...

~~~
sokoloff
If you try to scrape the bottom of the barrel pay-wise, you’re making the
wager that someone good enough to write solid code doesn’t know enough math to
know that they could get a 3-5x raise by going to a company paying a locally
competitive wage.

We get excellent results overall from our teams in India, but we also pay
quite a bit over the bottom of the market there...

~~~
originalsimba
> If you try to scrape the bottom of the barrel pay-wise, you’re making the
> wager that someone good enough to write solid code doesn’t know enough math
> to know

This, you nailed it and honestly what else matters. 100% of "offshore labor"
and "india labor" and whatever is about exploiting people for personal gain.
It's short-sighted selfish greedy Americans mostly, and they honestly believe
that brown people living in other countries exist to be their slave labor.
These same people are the ones who are constantly trying to abuse the "intern"
program.

If you hire someone in India for $20/hr to do a job you damn well know is
worth $100/hr then you're a ....ing ....ole. Every time I see job postings
looking to exploit third world labor markets, I hope those underpaid
developers burn the employer's entire operation to the ground.

It's not enough to bear witness to evil. We should be taking action to stop
it.

~~~
sokoloff
I believe there's a wide middle ground where qualified developers in India can
do excellent work, for a well-above Indian average salary, for American
companies, and where the American company can get excellent talent for cheaper
than state-side. Everyone is made better off when the American company decides
to make this type of hire versus hiring no one.

The companies trying to hire/exploit developers for 8-10 Lakh are going to
have a way worse experience than those trying to hire developers for 35 or 50
Lakh (and they deserve the experience, IMO).

~~~
originalsimba
> for a well-above Indian average salary

In other words, you think it's okay to exploit people?

If you're writing software for a global corporation on a global marketplace
(The internet), why would it be acceptable to be paid based on regional
politics, which is what local economies are reflective of.? Especially
considering the politics of third world nations is manipulated and controlled
by the governments of first world nations for profitable gains.

No, the only acceptable answer is to pay all developers equally regardless of
region, based only on their capability, and perhaps their investment of time
and effort into their own improvement.

The Pre-Internet Planet Earth and all the little tricks that our ancestors
injected to make it easier to take advantage of less fortunate people needs to
end. Their guilt isn't yours until you decide to ignore your morality so you
can make a few easier bucks. You cannot be a willing and informed participant
in this systemic evil and pretend that it's anything but.

~~~
sokoloff
Just as we pay relevant to local markets in Prague, Barcelona, Zurich, Boston,
and Seattle, we also reference local markets in India. (We don't only
reference local markets when it suits us.)

Unless you take the view that all profitable employers exploit their employees
(a view that I understand but do not share nor agree with), I don't believe
that we're unfairly nor inappropriately exploiting our talent in any of our
locations.

We seek to make a profit above the cost of our inputs (including risk premium)
and I'm not ashamed of what we pay our employees in any of our markets
anywhere in the world. If you choose to pay your employees using a different
system, I support your right to do so.

~~~
originalsimba
So... yes?

I guess I'm challenging you to justify this policy without naming greed as
your justification. You are exploiting people for what amounts to slave labor.
You're saying that because someone has the unfortunate luck of being born in a
third world country that they deserve a smaller salary than you. Admitting
that you are not ashamed of yourself for exploiting poor people for cheap
labor I mean.. what else is there to say I guess.

~~~
sokoloff
No, I don't think it's OK to exploit people; I think I said as much.

I don't believe that it's exploitive to make an offer of salary that an
employee is overjoyed to accept. If you believe that's exploitive, you should
run your company differently or work for a company that doesn't do that.

~~~
originalsimba
I do run my own company differently.

> I don't believe that it's exploitive

But it is. You aren't paying them based on their capabilities or merit, you're
paying them based on what region of the world they were born into, which is
completely out of their control. The message your "offer" sends is this, you
aren't worth a real developer's salary, because you were born in India. So
work for peanuts for me, your privileged first-world master, until you've
earned enough to move out of the nation you were born in, and then maybe you
can earn a salary equal to your peers.

That is exactly what you're doing, and that is exploitative. I know it's
exploitative because it is exactly what American plantation owners did in the
slave-owning south 250 years ago. "Work for me for some length of time and you
can earn your freedom". It's the same scam. "But these developers are being
paid" uh huh, they get $5-$20/hr for what I get $100/hr for. It is dishonest
to call that fair.

If you don't believe in equal pay for equal merit then stand behind your
opinion, but don't pretend that you're doing these poverty stricken people
some kind of favor by paying them fast-food salaries to develop your million
dollar applications. If someone spends their life becoming an expert developer
they deserve to make expert-developer salaries regardless of what region of
the world they call home.

The economic "tool" of outsourcing has always been about exploiting poverty
and _literally everyone actually knows that_.

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DamnYuppie
As someone who as managed large off shore teams in India I am just going to
file this one away under "duh".

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bichiliad
A few thoughts:

1\. The scare quotes around "Engineers" seems inappropriate.

2\. "In India" is pretty broad; did they go out and test every self-proclaimed
engineer in India?

3\. "Candidate is not able to write compilable code" sounds questionable; how
were they assessed? Were they allowed to use an IDE? Were they allowed to fix
compiler errors and were unable, or did they instantly fail if their code
didn't compile on the first try?

4\. I think the assumption that people who self-select to apply for Aspiring
Minds represent a fair slice of Indian Engineers seems weak at best.

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dvfjsdhgfv
The article was flagged yesterday. Instead of linking to this alt-right
website it makes more sense to link to the actual website with the report:
[http://www.aspiringminds.com/automata-national-
programming-r...](http://www.aspiringminds.com/automata-national-programming-
report)

~~~
40four
This is my main gripe. It's not that the topic isn't interesting, I think it's
very likely someone affliliated with the site linked to it. I'm a relative
newcomer to HN, & I love the things I discover & learn here, But Because of my
displeasure with this flagged article I've lost what little reputaion I
scraped together(another sign I think there are bad actors at work here)

I think we shouldn't upvote these sites so they are not rewarded them with
advertising exposures. I would imagine trending HN stories drive good traffic
to the linked sites.

------
iAMAGuest
same site reports

>Jews in US Congress Urge Israel to Accept UN “Deal” to Deport African
Invaders to White Countries

I don't think this would qualify as a creditable new source for IT
information.

------
Clubber
The 95% number seems high. I'd be interested in seeing the test, but I'm sure
it's proprietary.

>Over 36,000 engineering students from IT related branches of over 500
colleges

Well they're students. In my experience you build most of your chops "on the
street." I would hope they wouldn't include freshmen or sophomores who haven't
even really dug into the major curriculum (assuming their colleges work the
same way as our accredited ones).

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mediawatch
This article is based on a study dating back to April 2017.
[https://itwire.com/outsourcing/78004-only-36-of-indian-
engin...](https://itwire.com/outsourcing/78004-only-36-of-indian-engineers-
can-write-compilable-code-study.html)

~~~
johnyboyd
Umm ... ok, so in the past 1 year, things have vastly improved ? Haha !

~~~
mediawatch
It's old news. It starts out saying: "A new report by Aspiring Minds.." The
report is not new. It is a year old. Can you get that into your head?

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pcr0
Is there any information regarding methodology or is this just shilling for
their assessment services?

The stats show that most programs had syntax errors. I don't think it's fair
to ask someone to write strictly correct Java/C#/C++ using pen and paper.

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w0m
IT != SWE

