
Ask HN: What has your experience been like with Indian developers? - foobardeveloper
I hear a lot of negative opinions on Indian developers in general on reddit and other forums, not sure what percentage of it is the vocal minority and what is reality. So asking the most sane group of people I know, what has your experience been with Indian developers ?
======
codegeek
Indian developers are just like other developers. You can find excellent ones,
good ones, mediocre ones and horrid ones.

The reason they get a bit more negative publicity than others is because of
the number of developers who are in the mediocre and horrid category.

The reason for that is a lot of young Indians getting into tech just because
that is the easiest ticket to a decent income in a country like India where
there are tons of young unemployed people striving for good jobs. Due to the
population size, this number of young Indians is much larger than other
countries.

So what I am saying that if you compare the excellent developers from India,
they are on par with any other country. But most of the negativity comes from
the excess availability of the bad ones which exist in other countries but
much less due to the population differences and reasons for getting into tech.

-

~~~
taylodl
That's a good point. Even if the distribution of excellent to horrid
developers is the same for India as for any other nationality - and I have no
reason to think it isn't - the fact India has a high population and a higher
percentage of their population going into development than Western nations
means you're more likely to run into the not-so-excellent Indian developer.
What you can't do is use the fact they're Indian to deduce a priori how good
of a developer they are. You gotta figure that out on a case-by-case basis
just as you do for everyone else.

------
ameyades
This question is incredibly broad, and has an element of bigotry. Most of the
time, though, when people are talking about "Indians" they are talking about
outsourcing shops. Outsourcing shops are stereotypically known to be difficult
to work with, though in reality experiences may vary.

To answer your question, however, in my experience, I have met some software
developers of Indian origin who are incredibly talented, and others who aren't
so gifted. Just like every other nationality or race.

------
GrumpyNl
There are good and bad ones. My biggest problem was cultural. Its hard to have
a discussion, they say yes when they mean no, you have to read their body
language to. They will always see you as an authority. Its hard to have
"sparring" sessions with them, because they quickly agree with you.

------
twunde
I think Troy Hunt's article on this is the go to:
[https://www.troyhunt.com/offshoring-roulette-lessons-from-
ou...](https://www.troyhunt.com/offshoring-roulette-lessons-from-outsourcing-
to-india-china-and-the-philippines/)

On a personal note, living on the US east coast, I try to outsource work to
eastern Europe or south America in order to keep time zones relatively in sync

------
ccdev
From my experience, whenever a team of Indian developers are hit or miss, it's
usually due to management not knowing how to communicate the goals clearly to
them. And usually in conjunction with not realizing the people you pick to do
the job are just as important as the budget.

I worked for a web development agency. I guess you can call it a typical
outsourcing shop. The headcount of the US office is something like, two
managers/C-levels for one local designer or one programmer. The majority of
the programming gets done by Indians. Communication is very delayed. The
management doesn't seem to care about follow-up with their clients after the
website is done. A client even gave a bad review of the company saying that
their SEO traffic dropped by 40% after the new launch and had to go with
another agency to undo the damage.

------
herickson123
I've had good experiences working with Indian developers, Indian recruiters is
an entirely different story.

------
pwg
Like all others, some are good, some are ok, and some are not-good at all.

------
db48x
The only Indian developer I've personally worked with was great. Generalize
from that what you will.

------
uptownfunk
What a racist question.

