

The 5-year limit to being a coder in India? - bootload
http://www.swaroopch.com/blog/5-year-limit-to-being-a-coder-in-india/

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psranga
There _are_ companies in India where people are coders longer than five years
(I was at one).

My gut feeling (inferring from conversations) is that the vast majority of
companies do not perform work of sufficient complexity to require more than
three years of technical learning. The only way employees there can then add
value to the organization is by becoming a manager.

~~~
drtse4
Just one question, is this "after 5 year i should be a manager" sustainable?
How many managerial positions are available?

Usually these are only a small percentage of the total... and to have
something to actually "manage" the manager/employee ratio must remain somewhat
constant (or that "add value" become meaningless).

~~~
psranga
Software services companies in India grow very fast since many are they're
tapping into the offshore outsourcing (or offshoring) trends.

It appears that they've been able to sustain it for the past 20 years or so. I
agree it's not sustainable indefinitely.

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spudlyo
_"If I have a USA stamp in my passport, I will get one crore dowry.”_

 _Needless to say, the guy was not offered a job._

I'm lost at this point in the article. Why wasn't he offered the job, and what
is a _crore_ dowry?

~~~
sree_nair
Dowry is a deeply rooted cultural custom in some regions India where the
Bride's father/family has to pay a heavy sum of money to the bridegroom or
family in order for the marriage to take place.

Now, I hear you ask : "Why do they need to pay?. can't she marry someone
else?". It's difficult to explain. But I will try.

Love-Marriage (Name for the "not arraged by families" marriage) is still a No-
No in india. Which means your parents finds a girl/guy for you. Also,you are
supposed to find a bride/bride groom from the same relegion-caste you are
from.

So, if everyone expects dowry in your relegion/caste,you end up with no other
option but to pay the money to get your girl married.

Now the amount of Dowry varies according to the bride grooms family status &
of course the qualification and job of the bride groom. If the bride groom has
moved outside india, specially to US or UK, the dowry paied increases
considerably, as it's considered a socially prestegious thing and he is
considered a winner in Life.

Hence the Guy in question asking to be sent to US. And "Crore" is a word used
to denote 10 million Indian Rupees.

~~~
kksm19820117
Love-Marriage (Name for the "not arraged by families" marriage) is still a No-
No in _some parts of_ india.

Corrected that for you.

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michaelfairley
_"...there is societal pressure for more money, higher status, fancier cars
and bigger houses."_

And this doesn't exist in the US (and everywhere else)?

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jey
As an "ABCD", i.e. American-born child of Indian immigrants, I can assure you
that the pressure is distinctly different. Middle class Indians have a pretty
rigid set of expectations for their kids, and there's hardly any room for
individual expression. Everyone is expected to go for the prestigious-but-safe
occupations of doctor, lawyer, or engineer (in that order). Meanwhile in
American society we tolerate, and even encourage, experimentation and
"following one's dream". Yes, everyone's still generally expected to get
married, have kids, buy a house, etc... but there's usually no threat of being
disowned for choosing to become an artist, or even teacher.

~~~
plinkplonk
"As an "ABCD", i.e. American-born child of Indian immigrants, "

the expansion of ABCD is "American Born Confused Desi" Where Desi == "Indian"
:-)

~~~
jey
Yeah, but in my opinion the actually confused ones are the FOBs (first-
generation immigrants)! Some of them appear to have been flash-frozen when
they immigrated and long for an India that no longer exists.

FOB = "Fresh Off [the] Boat"

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drac
At least one of the problems, IME, is that salary ranges are rigidly
determined by the employee tier.

The tiering system goes something like this: Software Engineer -> Lead ->
Architect

Without advancing through the ranks, it is well nigh impossible to get
reasonable increases in pay; so people (even those who may wish to write more
code) strive to climb up the ladder.

Not saying it makes perfect sense to everyone, but there is some logic to
making sure people climb up the ladder quickly (if they are capable) in large
corporations.

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awa
Let me start off with saying nobody gets a "crore" in dowry using a US Visa
stamp, Almost all software engineers can get a stamp if they want them.

Almost all major software companies (Microsoft, Google, Oracle, VMware, ..)
have big development centers in India where many people have been spending
there careers coding. The problem lies with people who get into outsourcing
companies thinking what they are doing is "software development", while most
of it is really manual testing or basic support work.

Way to sensationalize a blog post!

~~~
plinkplonk
"Almost all major software companies (Microsoft, Google, Oracle, VMware, ..)
have big development centers in India where many people have been spending
there careers coding"

They still don't make money on par with their peers who went into management.
( The OP made _this_ point). Neither do they have as much social prestige in
Indian society. (another point made by the OP). I personally know people in
both Yahoo and Google _India_ (emphasized - Google Mountain View is a very
different place) who moved to management from coding to make more money/get
more prestige.

Another thing about these "big development centres" is that by and large
crappy work is done here, relative to the work done at HQ in California. There
are _some_ exceptions, but largely this is true. Google India (with minor
exceptions) does very non-core work for e.g. I know people who moved back to
Mountain View after trying Bangalore for a while because serious development
work couldn't be done out of Bangalore - many reasons, one of which was
excessive interference by non technical managers, which again supports the
OP's points)

Yahoo India is mostly Ops and maintenance, but then Yahoo is going down the
tubes anyway with the best engineers leaving worldwide.

I don't know anything about what VMWare does in India but I would be _very_
surprised if cutting edge work were done in India. I would suspect
maintenance, testing etc or at best some non strategic work. That said I
should ping some folks in VMWare to find out. (Is Ganesh Ram still with
VMWare? he was one of the very early pre IPO hires and my junior in college).

So yes you have a point (Product Dev companies >> Outsourced Enterprise
companies), but that doesn't really contradict the OP.

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narrator
I worked with an Indian guy for a few years. He said that in India it is
extremely unusual for a person to not follow an extremely rigid career track.
It's the legacy of the cast system pigeonholing people into various
professions. In the caste system, your identity very narrowly dictates your
job. In the west, job and identity are far more distinct.

~~~
GBond
What always fascinates me is that this rigid track extends beyond careers and
to the family life. According to my Indian colleagues, the social structure
sets expectation on the type of wife, age you are married, age you start
having kids.

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awa
I don't have a better response than saying BullSH!T.

Ask your friend to peek out and look at the city dwellers, there's no set age
for one to get married though parents are heavily involved in the process,
there's social pressure and most people get married in their 20's.

Ofcourse these are the norms, within the handful of people I know the
exception rate would be 20-30% which is high enough not to take all the social
structure/expectation stuff too seriously

~~~
GeneralMaximus
Oh come on. I know several people in their late twenties being pressured into
marriage by their families. Why? Because, according to their families, if they
don't marry _right now_ they'll never find a husband/wife for themselves and
spend their lives childless. Or something.

~~~
awa
I said there's social pressure... but frankly isn't this the same even in the
US, don't mom nag their daughters to find the right guy when they are of the
"right" age here.

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dododo
why would you want to be a programmer for more than 5 years if managers view
the position with such disdain?

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lonewolfaka9
lets put an limit on companies that they cant work more than 5 year :D

harami saale

