
Dear first world dev, I am going to live your nightmare - channikhabra
http://channikhabra.github.io/2014/02/26/i-have-decided-to-do-a-job-where-they-will-exploit-shit-out-of-me/
======
RealGeek
I was in your shoes 10 years ago. Even worse, I was in Ludhiana (Punjab) where
I couldn't even find another web developer.

Getting out of such nightmare in India is a lot easier India than developed
countries. You just need to make more money than salary of your job to get out
it; which is about $100 at this point for you. In Silicon Valley and NYC,
developers need to make $5,000 to pay bills. $500 is considered a decent
salary for a first job in India; here are few ways to make $500 / month.

1) Freelancing: You can find better gigs on job boards like
[http://jobs.wordpress.net](http://jobs.wordpress.net) and
[https://groups.drupal.org/jobs](https://groups.drupal.org/jobs)

I run a startup ([http://www.ranksignals.com](http://www.ranksignals.com)), we
could hire you for a freelance job if you are interested. My contact info is
on my profile.

2) Blogging: Start a blog and promote it, you need about 5,000+ page views per
day to make $500 a month.

3) Sell small plugins & themes on ThemeForest and CodeCanyon. You can make a
lot more than $500, there are developers grossing over $100,000 per month.

If you want to get a full time job, don't work at a body shop. Work at a
product or ecommerce startup, they offer higher pay and better experience.
Companies like FlipKart are offering 10 lacs/year salary to new developers.

~~~
akgerber
You definitely don't need $5000/mo. to pay bills in NYC, except maybe if
you're trying to raise a family on your salary alone in a fancy neighborhood.
I live very well on $2000/mo., and could easily cut that without excessive
sacrifice by moving to a less happening neighborhood with a bit longer commute
than my current 35 minutes (say: parts of Jersey City; Sunset Park or Ditmas
Park, Brooklyn; Jackson Heights, Queens; Inwood, Manhattan; Riverdale, Bronx;
Stapleton, Staten Island) and cooking more of my own food.

~~~
RealGeek
If your salary is $5,000; you get about $3,000 to $3,500 in pocket after
taxes, health insurance, social security and other deductions.

I live quite far from NYC in White Plains, rent for 1 bedroom apartment here
is $2400.

PS. I am sure there are people surviving for $500 a month in NYC, but that is
not the lifestyle most developers desire when they have job offers for $80,000
to $120,000. In fact, most developers I've met say they want to make $10,000
per month to quit their job.

~~~
troyk
No doubt, I'm sure the IRS would love to know how he lives in NYC on $2k
gross...

~~~
comicjk
$2k/month is $24,000/year, at which income the IRS does not take nearly as
much. According to the IRS calculator, he would be paying $1,628 in income
tax. Add in payroll tax and that's $3308 total. So his after-tax income is not
far off from $2k at $1724/month.

Assuming he has roommates, his rent and other fixed costs will be less than
$1k, so he will be ok, if rather Bohemian.

------
jezclaremurugan
Wrong. Wrong not as in you are lying, but wrong as in - it does not have to be
the case. I would strongly advise the OP not to join...

* Less pay (< $100 month) - totally off, recently I had an offer from a startup in Chandigarh for a very competitive salary - close to $2000 a month (pm me if you want the recruiter's email id).

* PHP projects - There a lot of vacancies for python, ruby, nodejs and angularjs jobs, either you need experience or you should have decent projects in your github repo.

* 48 hours - might be possible, but does not have to be the case

* Joining for a team - Joining a sweatshop for working with a team from whom you can learn is __Stupid__ - Chances of finding someone with proper skills in a sweatshop is close to zero.

* Bond with 2 months pay - Firstly it is illegal, but, yes I do know that sweatshops do have this practice. Avoid it at all costs. Or you can simply not pay them, as there is no way they can enforce the bond (legally). But this is a huge red flag. A proper company does not ask for that - period.

* 0 friends - where do you live? There are PG accommodations available brimming with social life (with individual accommodation - it is not always a shared thing). I currently live in one - and it is awesome.

* Change your life in 9 months - by working in a sweatshop? Not going to happen, you will instead be stuck in a pathetic project which ruins your career prospects further.

* Move to Delhi/NCR region - it is close to CH, and not as far as B'lore/Chennai/Hyderabad, and you have globally respected brands here.

~~~
allochthon
It's nice to hear that not all devs in Chandigarh are stuck in a bad
situation.

------
yummyfajitas
Bro, send me an email. I might be able to help you out, provided you stop
flaking.

If you are able to get shit done, I might be able to exploit you in a more
pleasant and productive manner than some odesk bodyshop for similar wages - no
bond and no hard feelings when you quit for something better in 2 months.

Do you have a github or other code portfolio? (If not, build one.)

And get the heck out of Chandigarh. Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, pick one. There
are Hackathons here in Pune and companies who will pay you well over
6000rs/month provided you actually get shit done.

~~~
izolate
> And get the heck out of Chandigarh.

So sad! I was rooting for OP for being a techie in Chandi. I was born in
Chandigarh and although I emigrated within a few years of being born, I'll
always consider that city a home of mine. I'd really like to do something to
support its fledgling tech scene. I've committed myself to the idea of moving
to Chandigarh to bootstrap my startup when I decide to go at it alone.

I would love for OP to stay in Chandigarh, but I honestly can't say that's a
sensible move at this point in time.

~~~
mands
I was thinking of moving back to Punjab to work on my startup for a bit - with
Chandigarh at the top of my list of places to set up. Is the tech scene really
that bad out there or has the OP just been unlucky?

~~~
heaven00
Hi, I can confirm that, I had a similar experience. 7k training and 15k when
hired and there were few who were not even paid any stipend and was under
training for more then 6 months.

But, there is always a "but". I have met a few good developers too with whom I
enjoyed my time working before leaving the job.

~~~
mands
Hi. Hmm - good to know, thanks for the insider view.

------
diydsp
> Things are very bad in my city. There is no any kind of active community of
> computer enthusiasts; be it some Linux Users Group or something similar.

Start one! Seriously- no jive. _Be that change that you want_. It may be that
your affinity is not to be a developer--- you may actually be an organizer of
people! Try it! You can do it for free! Make announcements! Start by meeting
once every two weeks in the evening and teach people everything you know! You
will make connections! You will be tapped to work with others. You will grow
along with those around you. The people you help will see your strengths and
send better opportunities your way. Trust me, you will see.

Seriously, start it up. It is within you to do it and it is free and fun! Find
a library or a park or someone's living room or a restaurant. Even if it's
just one computer, gather a flock.

------
gkcgautam
Charanjit, I'm from Chandigarh too. I can completely understand what you are
feeling since I'm completely aware of the situation. Luckily I was doing quite
well myself while I graduated (last year) and didn't need to work for any such
company.

I'm working in a startup now where our major focus is on doing quality work
using modern tech. We deal with clients directly and not through websites like
oDesk. Great to see that you have worked with backbone etc. Would you like to
catchup some time for tech discussion? I have few friends who do that regurlay
at weekends. Mail me at gkcgautam@gmail.com :)

------
vinceguidry
You are looking for discipline in the wrong place.

I thought I could find it in the military, I was wrong.

I thought leaving the military and subjecting myself to the cold reality of
the free market would force me to develop it. I was wrong.

I thought starting a company would make me focus. I was wrong.

Finally, with no other options left, I entered corporate America. Having a
large, nasty ongoing project, clear motivation to keep working on it, and the
latitude to implement my own approach was all I needed to start making real
progress on my own inner quest for productivity.

In retrospect, it was not the last thing that I did that finally "did the
trick." It was the combination of everything I'd done. There weren't any magic
tricks, no way to skip the years of paying dues. There's no way to force it,
even if you throw yourself into the ultimate sink-or-swim environment, if you
aren't ready for that particular experience, you'll either sink, or you'll
swim, but find that swimming doesn't mean what you think it means.

Your current course of action will not have the intended result. What will
happen is that you'll get burned out. Then you'll have nothing to show for it
but the experience. You'll take that experience to your next big push and
build on it. And so on and so forth.

At some point, all of that accumulated experience will drive out some small
success. Might take three years, probably will be closer to 8-10. Then the
game will change, you'll have mastered productivity and now you're playing a
management game rather than a survival one.

You're lucky in that you're driven to make this transition, most career techs
aren't, they stay at the level of survival their entire lives.

~~~
dasil003
I'm glad you have the voice of experience to put behind my thoughts. When I
read the story the motivation made sense, but my fear for the author is that
working in such a body shop will destroy his love of programming which is a
pretty disastrous thing to happen to one's career path in today's world.

~~~
vinceguidry
If it does, then he really doesn't have a love of programming. Which isn't the
end of the world.

I wouldn't be too worried about losing career steam. There are plenty of
things for a person who can code but doesn't have a passion for it to do. In
fact, there are probably many more roles a person like this can take than
someone who just wants to code all the time. And they can be a lot more
lucrative.

Burnout is probably going to be a good thing. Some people need to be forced to
consider alternative career paths and skills to develop. Burnout will
definitely do that. The new direction will ultimately prove to be valuable
later on, but you won't realize it in the moment.

~~~
BugBrother
What would you recommend? Note that the guy obviously is introvert (even _I_
can usual ...cough... often find people to hang out with in new places), so
administrating people/projects might be out.

~~~
vinceguidry
Impossible to make a recommendation without knowing him. Most talented people
find a good way through their twenties and he definitely presents as talented.

------
aviraldg
I'm not sure why OP thinks this is going to be a good idea. The kind of
projects he'll get to work on will almost always be the usual Odesk "clone XYZ
in $X" tripe. Also, the sort of company he's talking about is unlikely to have
senior developers experienced enough to mentor him (from what I know about
these companies.) Working on an open source project instead would be much more
constructive and would get him engaged with experienced developers who could
teach him a thing or two. If he's still a student (and it looks like he is)
GSoC might be a great way to get started with this.

Also, I would avoid Odesk like the plague. Build up a portfolio (open source
works as well) and connect with people on HN.

~~~
GvS
I did some projects from both oDesk and HN. They were quite similar. oDesk
projects I've chosen were more interesting but quite short and HN jobs were
longer but not so great as you would expect from HN.

~~~
eru
What's HN in this context?

~~~
GvS
Hacker news monthly job topics.

------
eddy_chan
Thanks for the insight into the world of ODesk 'Agencies', you've confirmed
for me what my hunch was all along.

Recently I put a Django Ecommerce site job there for $10k USD and you won't
believe how many phone calls/emails/linkedin requests I received from
'Agencies' primarily in India/Pakistan but some from Eastern Europe as well
promising me the world for my $10k.

When you have to sift through all of this the cookie cutter scripts everything
becomes apparent and you realise it's a thin veil of bullshit, the product
managers (middlemen) that call you up in reality have a team of very lowly
paid junior devs who are incapable of doing the project. (Evidenced by me
asking some moderately difficult technical/architectural questions) And very
few have a track record of getting shit done and delivering. I would never
hire an 'dev agency' via Odesk after this experience, it's too hard to sort
the good from the bad as an employer in a 1st world country.

I ended up interviewing freelancers only and liked what I saw/heard - I
thought the freelancers on ODesk were of quite a high standard actually. Ended
up hiring a fairly senior engineer for the project. If he pulls through I will
offer him ongoing work for $2-$3k a month.

------
onion2k
_I get bored like after 20 minutes of playing with anything. I’ve tried as
many techniques as I could in 2 years to discipline myself._

You learn discipline by sticking with something despite wanting to jump to
something else.

------
gexla
> I can do it myself sitting at home, I’ve done a couple projects, but it was
> not fun.

No you can't, obviously. You just said it. For one, you don't enjoy it.

What you need to learn is that straight programming isn't a valuable skill by
itself. You already know this because you wrote an article about it. You need
to be able to tie your programming skills with other skills such as selling
yourself as the person to get the job done. Once you get the job, you need to
be able to ship it.

There are programming skills that are valuable in isolation. If you are a
world expert on a certain domain which lacks talent, then that's valuable. But
that's not really isolation, that's tying your programming skills with a
certain specialty.

Take a look at the model you are working under. There is a whole spectrum of
jobs from good to crap. On Odesk, there are a sprinkling of good and a lot of
crap. I imagine the company employing you is saying yes to every job that
comes their way. They probably don't get good jobs, so it's all crap. They get
crap jobs which pay crap and of course you are going to get a small slice of a
crap pie.

Why take a job just because it's there? Okay, you laid out a bunch of reasons
but you still hate it. I would probably hate working on crap jobs also. People
worked for Steve Jobs because the guy was... well... Steve Jobs. Why are you
working for people who are trying to compete on the worst model in web
development, the race to the bottom in pricing?

If you know good developers, then maybe you could start your own development
shop and get those developers to work for you. If you hate the work but you
can get jobs, then maybe do the selling and have the other developers do the
work.

Or maybe you could come up with your own projects and monetize them.

You just have to hustle, just like everyone else does. You can't just write
code and expect the world to come to you. Get out there and make things
happen.

Edit: In other words, quit whining. ;)

Edit: Edit: I could write a book on this subject. The above is just an attempt
at an off the cuff capture. There are a ton of threads on HN which are hugely
valuable on bringing the bacon as a developer. Just look around, it's more
productive than ranting about your situation.

Clearly the person you are working for is trying to take a "this is how
everything is done here" approach to running a dev shop and hiring developers.
It's the same in the Philippines. Everyone works 10 hour days, 6 days a week
and within a certain band of salary. I suppose the U.S. is like that to some
degree. We have the 9 to 5 and 40 hour weeks.

Disruption in your case would be pretty easy. If the company has decent
employees, then you could scoop them all up.

~~~
channikhabra
thanks for advice. I'll try to quit whining once I get a hold of myself. And I
love programming. The problem is I don't or can't stick with one thing. I have
many projects hanging. I thought trying to do a regular job will help and gave
interviews in several local companies. Since I have not graduated yet, despite
my portfolio most of them offered me to do work for 3 to 6 months for free and
then a similar package. One of them even offered me to do paid training with
them before they "think" about hiring me. The company I am joining now were
the most generous of all I met. Thing I wanted to whine about was the trend of
exploitation that's going on in the city, but I think it turned out to look
like me whining about the job. I am actually kind of excited as I will have to
learn many things which I would not have touched otherwise. And yes I have
plans for my own development shop. I will do it once I have enough confidence.

~~~
socrates1998
It was very interesting reading your story.

I am trying to get a freelance webdesign/developer career going, but I am
quickly learning that doing freelance projects is much more about getting
clients, managing clients, and making sure they are happy than it is about
programming, design or development skills.

Anyways, I hope you new job goes well and good luck!

~~~
seestheday
This can be restated for almost every business there is. It's why sales guys
are paid so well.

~~~
kremlin
My thoughts as well. 'Division of labor' \- not everyone can be a great
salesman and a great programmer.

------
negamax
I am from India. And worked for over a year on oDesk. I think it's painting
the whole industry with a very wide brush. Personally know people in
Delhi/Mumbai making very comfortable salary.

------
shadeless
I'm in the same situation as OP, only the location is different (East Europe).
I've been at it for 5 months already but I'm on verge of quitting every week
since I started. The only thing that stops me from doing it is fear of not
being able to make similar amount of money monthly to able to pay bills and
rent. I've been trying to work on something on the side but the job leaves me
exhausted and the only thing I can do in the evenings and weekends is sleep.

I wouldn't recommend it to anyone - we use terrible tech(php and ftp), I
haven't learned anything new in months, only taught my (senior) coworkers some
tips to work even faster. I'd write more about it but my break is over.

~~~
eru
Why do you work so hard? Slack off a bit more, and have more energy left over
for your projects that will make you grow.

What do you have to lose?

------
rachellaw
He sounds like he wants to be a self-sacrificing martyr hero for coding.
What's the point of all this? Are we supposed to hail him as a "one true
coder" for willing to do this? Is this a competition about who can take the
most pain? It's so pointless.

~~~
heaven00
you have watched too many episodes. he just need some help and some direction
in the right path.

------
ctdonath
_I will be working 48 hours a week (excluding break; mon-sat 10 am to 7 pm)
for less than $100 per month._

Move.

~~~
ashray
I just want to clarify that this is nowhere close to the average salary a dev
earns in India (a decent developer can make anywhere between $400/mo to
$3000/mo). I'm not sure what company he's working for but it sounds like a
real sweatshop. You can find better gigs even in Chandigarh (it's not known
for IT that much..), but for that - you probably need to be better at what you
do, or maybe you need to learn how to sell yourself better.

~~~
jezclaremurugan
Exactly, and in India $2000 a month goes a long way.

------
vamsinator
Here's the perspective from a first world client.

We contracted with Delhi dev shop and were paying about $8000 Australian
dollars per month for the equivalent of 3 developers (mix of backend devs full
time, and on call front end dev, designer, tester)

I think our junior dev was charged out at $1300 per month so if using standard
agency markup of 100% her salary would've been around $650 per month (~26000
rupees per month).

The manager was also always complaining that new recruits kept increasing
their demands each year.

So it's strange that there's such a difference in salaries between 2 cities so
close by. If it was true then I'd expect programmers to move to Delhi.

------
eklavya
If you think you are good at coding, why not get into any of the top IT (by
employees) companies. I know they are recruiting the lowest of the bottom
barrel. Why not join them and make a decent pay and a career while meeting
some experienced people who actually know stuff.

I think it's impossible for anyone even just barely decent in programming to
get a job in India. I have seen people get into Motorola while searching for
jobs like nomads. They were not from premier or even well known institutes.
What you are subjecting yourself to is incomprehensible based on your
objectives.

------
exabrial
I think overseas development will only be competitive when they start
producing products for themselves. The main reason off-shoring fails is
because of culture and communication differences.

(I'm not a world traveler, so disregard the next remarks if you have better
insight than me.)

I noticed while working with chinese developers they were terrified to tell me
they were having a problem with a task I assigned. They also had no problems
passing extremely poorly designed code in order to meet a deadline. It didn't
even have to work, the understanding was, you just have to turn something in
before the deadline. I had a developer that couldn't get writes to the
database working consistently. So he wrote them to a file on disk... I guess
that was good enough.

Working with Indian developers is a much more mixed experience. Aside from
them interrupting you constantly, which I cannot stand, some of their
attitudes were downright laughable. "I have 5 years experience, which is about
10 American years experience" one guy told me as he explained that it would be
better to write their own messaging layer instead of my selection of ActiveMQ.

Anyway, if Twitter/Google/whatever was based in India or China, I imagine the
leaders would know how to use their labor effectively to produce competitive
companies. I don't see American companies ever using overseas labor
effectively. The cultures are just inherently incompatible for working on a
subjective task like software development.

------
vitd
It's hard to tell from just a single blog post, but one thing that strikes me
is how focused you are on computers and computer work. It sounds to me like
you don't do anything else. Have you considered getting a hobby? Perhaps
music, dance, photography, sports, or something else that gets you out of the
house and meeting people besides computer stuff? It sounds to me like you're
burning yourself out by focusing so acutely on only computer stuff.

------
ishansharma
Now that is plain exploitation indeed. I live nearby and am about to graduate.
I am going to a good company but they have 2 year bond.

I've been working from home for 3-4 years part time and I think my little bits
of experience can help you:

1\. When It comes to discipline, it is very hard! What I have been doing is
measuring everything. I got Rescue Time subscription and now, every minute on
the computer is measured! If I don't have a productivity score of 60+ by the
end of the day, I know that things need to change. After that, it takes a lot
of self control.

2\. For networking, online relations can help a lot. Remote teams are great to
work with. I have a small group of 3-4 people, all at different places but
they help in making sure that I don't get bored and am accountable for what I
do!

3\. All you need to network is one good friend who is also a networker. I went
to a small web development firm for internship and now I'm friends with the
COO there. He's helped me with contacts. Some of my relatives are also in IT
industry, so there's some help.

9 months is quite a long time and I'm sure some part in this decision is
social pressure (I earn good enough while doing studies as well, but everyone
around pushes me to get "experience" in big firms!)

------
super-serial
I feel exactly the same as you about working from home... except I live in the
US. About 7 years ago I quit my .NET programming job. I got that job right
after I graduated college. For the 3 years I was there I did great work. I
kept getting bonuses and raises for shipping products. And I saved up some
money, cashed in my 401k, and quit.

Since then I've never been able to be productive. I tried contract work here
and there but I've never had the self-discipline. Actually I've made less
money in the last 7 years combined from programming than 1 month at my real
job. Think about that... I haven't made $5K from programming over these last 7
years.

Of course I needed money so I started working part-time jobs. I currently work
24 hours a week for near minimum-wage, often having to shovel snow in sub-zero
temperatures. I thought the worse I suffer the more I'll get motivated to do
work at home. That has not happened. I have nothing to show for these last 7
years except half-completed projects and a free productivity extension that
5,000 people use - but obviously does not work for me.

So maybe getting a job is the right thing for you. If you can't work from
home, you can't work from home. You'll have to accept the best terms you can
find, and if that's $100/mon then that may be your only option.

As for me... I would rather die than get a programming job. I'm as defiant as
ever. I love programming, but I only love programming my own ideas. Even the
thought of programming for someone else makes me feel physically ill (like
throwing up). So either I make it as an Indie developer or I die as a janitor.
Your post made me realize I should feel lucky that I have the option to be a
janitor for $10/hr. You don't even have that option.

~~~
icefox
Why did you cashed in your 401k

~~~
super-serial
Retirement was 40 years away, and I was confident that I'd start making some
serious money with one of my ideas. Actually I'm still optimistic about that.

In startup terms I thought it would give me more runway.

------
klaasn
I think it goes both ways. Our company Agile Media Lab is in Chandigarh and we
are having a lot of difficulty to find highly qualified resources. We normally
do around 100 interviews for each hire and we still have several positions
open we still can't fill. We do pay at the top of the market.

Currently we are trying to bring in talent from Delhi and Bangalore.

You can email me at klaas@agilemedialab.in if you are interested.

------
WhitneyLand
Just don't give up man - keep pushing to expand your comfort level.

Discipline is something that can be learned, that's why they teach it so much
in the military.

Difference here is you have to force yourself through the pain once you want
it bad enough. It will be worth it.

------
senthilnayagam
Many Indians get exposed to computers at a later age, often not good at
computer and programming concepts, their exposure is low.

Think of this initial job as internship, but after a year when they know their
stuff and can clear technical interviews and with better communications skills
the pay package increases significantly.

when people switch to more reputed companies in earlier years the hikes they
get is between 50-100% . for first 5-7 years the hike is abut 30% by the time
these people will settle in large indian or multinational companies.

------
code_duck
I totally empathize with his positions. I've worked in a couple of niche
markets for years and felt stifled by geographic isolation as well as my lack
of experience working like most people do – in a team, with a boss or manager
guiding your actions. I too have suffered from a lack of focus and self-
confidence. I've thought of getting various sorts of jobs using my skills, but
on the other hand I know that I truly value the freedom of working for myself
and I would miss it.

------
gurvinder
Send me an email, I have a job for you in your city for much better salary in
much better terms ( no bonds) and no body shop.

~~~
eru
You should include your email address in your profile, if you want OP to
contact you.

~~~
gurvinder
Done

------
avemuri
We run two startup coworking spaces in Delhi, so not too far away. I don't
know how tied you are to Chandigarh, but I can introduce you to a few startups
that are looking for devs. Even if you can't move, shoot me an email, we
regularly get requests for contract/remote work.

------
rk0567
I think it's a pessimistic approach to discipline. You could just learn to
meditate [0].

[0] : [http://www.siyli.org/take-the-course/siy-
curriculum/](http://www.siyli.org/take-the-course/siy-curriculum/) (a free
course on meditation)

~~~
mkaziz
How would that help?

~~~
rk0567
Better _understanding of self_ (emotional/motivational factors). Loneliness
would turn into _solitudeness_. Better _attention span_.

~~~
gkcgautam
Please stop with the trolling if you can't actually understand the problem.
Meditation doesn't solve every problem in life.

~~~
rk0567
It doesn't, it's not a silver bullet but it can help a lot. And my answer was
based on my experience (with some variables similar to OP such as working
alone on multiple web projects (unfinished), INTP/introvert etc).

BTW, based on the fact that your account is ~few hours old, I think you might
be the one trolling[1] (or meta-trolling, more accurately) here :-)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_\(Internet\))

------
devnonymous
Oh FFS ! This really hit a nerve and I'm gonna rant. I absolutely hate Indian
kids these days who bitch and moan about how tough it is to do awesome shit
and get a decent enough pay for it, in a place like ...ehe ...Chandigarh !
Chirst !! Just grow the eff up !! Here are some facts that this guy might want
to think about:

a. Today, India has way more internet penetration than even 10 years ago and
it also cheap enough to afford a home connection. Yes, even in a place like
Chandigarh !! </sarcasm>. Though the average so called 'broadband' access it
still far from what might be available in developed nations, programmers these
days can at least do a quick google _while_ they are working on something,
instead of having to batch all of the querying do be done from a cybercafe.
That is what we went through.

b. Having to work at a sweatshop, putting in the hours doing grunt work,
earning peanuts and knowing that you could do better hasn't changed much from
the way I remember it ...oh wait, hell yeah it has ! These days, you will at
least have a computer to yourself. You will at least have comfortable chairs.
You won't be working shifts and they at least will be paying you (I refuse to
believe the $100 bit) as opposed to slaving it out, while it's being called
'training' (worse still, you have to pay them for the opportunity). That is
what went through.

c. They don't have LUGs, Hackathons or any sort of local mailing lists ...oh
geez, why the f __* not !??! I 'll tell you why ? 'cos people like this guy
will bitch and moan about it all the time but will not take the initiative to
just start one up themself. Indian programmers, (most of them, tbh) expect
that things where they can just go to and learn just 'exist'. It's a small
percentage of people who would think -- "here is this thing that I already
know and I can share, let me do that with another person. It would be a very
happy pleasant coincidence if the other person knows and can share something
that I don't already know".

Come on man, start up a LUG, organize a hackathon, visit the computer lab in
your local college and speak to that __girl __who appears to be frantically
coding on a lab computer because her parents think getting a computer for her
at home would be a waste of money ...and anyways, it 's not like she needs any
more education !!

d. ....I could go on, but I just realized the source of these sort of bitch-
and-moan posts, as I write this. The sense of entitlement that youngsters in
India have these days.

You know what buddy, you can't address people who just happen to be in a
better place than you as 'first world dev' just because you happen to live in
India. Being 'First World' anything is about a state of mind where your own
personal issues are greater than other peoples, with the irony that the issues
come from a sense of entitlement. Take a long hard look at your life and think
about why you ought to be entitled to the things that you think you ought to
be.

rant done.

~~~
manish_gill
Heh, at first I was sympathetic to OP, but I find that I agree with you a lot.
My problem isn't that OP isn't proactive enough to start a meetup himself, but
that he readily admits that he "got bored after 20 minutes".

Honestly, if you get bored after 20 minutes, programming isn't for you. In
this job, there are days when you churn out one feature after another, and
days when you spend the whole time staring at the monitor wondering how to fix
that bug. And guess what OP? That happens to _everyone_ , regardless of
location or place of work.

------
RankingMember
Godspeed, I can understand your desire for the presence of others of like mind
in order to be in the right frame of mind to work.

Just be aware that you could do the same thing in the US (or anywhere else,
really) and make exponentially more money.

~~~
eru
He's not gonna get a visa for the US.

------
SuddsMcDuff
Meanwhile, somewhere in Western Europe, someone gets made redundant.

~~~
lgieron
Not necessarily, some of the projects outsourced at third world rates only
exist because the rates are so low. For example, I have a friend who toyed
with the idea of making money in the app store - it costed him only about $100
to have a simple app done by an Indian developer, which was acceptable for
him; I'm pretty sure having to spend 5-10x more for a western developer would
be too much of a risk for him.

As for the cases where people in the west are actually made redundant - the
west has ruthlessly exploited its colonies for a couple centuries and now,
thanks to free trade, it is allowing for some balancing in the global economy,
which means both poor countries getting richer and some people in rich
countries being worse off. I'd say that in the grand scale of things it's
justice, and long overdue.

~~~
SuddsMcDuff
I find myself quite conflicted as I agree with everything you say, but I am
also one of the unfortunate people who's career is suffering due to rampant
off-shoring.

~~~
lgieron
I agree, irregardless of the big picture, that is always sad on an individual
level.

BTW I think the way to at least partially combat outsourcing in rich countries
is through agreeing to work for lower wages (which would still be higher than
national average, I'm not advocating becoming working poor). Arguably, that's
what's already happening, and that's one of the reasons why programmers don't
earn nearly as much as some of the other professionals.

------
doktrin
That's thoroughly depressing. What does $100 a month translate to in terms of
cost of living?

~~~
RealGeek
Rent for a studio apartment in his city is around $200, it is $300 to $500 in
bigger cities like Delhi and Mumbai.

------
switch33
I have a small AI group on skype with similar interests. Add my skype:
Switch336

------
emocakes
who cares. maybe if '3rd world' devs actually produced better code and
contributed to community (more than just joining IRC, asking for help, then
leaving without saying thanks), they might be able to make a better name for
themselves and in turn be able to bargain for better conditions.

------
hueheu
Is HN a blog plateform?

~~~
WhitneyLand
No but it is a community where sometimes we share our relevant experiences.
It's sometimes a lesson to be learned, sometimes cathartic, and sometimes an
opportunity to see our humanity.

------
hemantv
I am 100% sure, you are just exaggerating the salary figure.

