

Talent shortage in Indian IT - kamaal
http://jace.zaiki.in/2006/11/01/talent-shortage

======
ashishgandhi
I've worked at a couple of Indian "consultancy" firms and my experiences have
been far from good.

At the first one I automated some testing for them what would free up 3 people
they were having to hire for that job. They didn't like it. Thats because they
don't have to bear the cost associated with hiring them. It's the client who
has to pay. By the person, by the hour and the company gets a (mega) huge cut
from it. I'm not sure how such consultancy firms handle this conflict of
interest else where but for Indian firms, I know anecdotally, this is very
common. So there is no incentive to hire good programmers. Or do good
programming because the server costs, etc. again are going to be borne by the
client.

And the second one, I was working at another such Indian consultancy firm bit
out of Singapore this time. The company was run by the sales force. My
manager's manager said in one of his speeches that "as the iPad becomes dual
core it will replace servers." I looked at him as my dual core iPad 2 lay in
my lap and clapped because that's what you have to do. And I'm pretty sure he
didn't mean a P2P future of the web. My manger on the other hand wanted a
"function" done that could take in an "iDevice program" and output a
BlackBerry app. He wanted it done in 3 hours. My team could have been an
isolated incident and I want to believe that but it wasn't so. The only thing
my team was doing different than the rest of the organization was the rest of
the organization used some form of source control I had never heard of.
Probably Microsoft based as that was the decision criteria in all cases. Out
team was using none. Files were shared using USB flash drives. There were
instances where old employees had left and we didn't have the source of their
work - only the binaries. They only hiring a particular ethic group of Indians
by the time I left.

Majority of jobs in India are consultancy jobs. They may not be as terrible as
my last one but I would think they are half way there. Things may be changing
but that's how most of "IT life" is.

~~~
gaius
Dominic Connor says the same thing
<http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/05/28/channel_techy/>

A good employee wants to drive down costs and drive up revenue at his company.
A consultant can only drive up revenue for his company by driving up costs at
his clients. This is seems very obvious, but the existence of the consulting
industry versus in-house employees suggests that it actually is not...

~~~
a-priori
Yes, on a per-project basis, it's in the best interests of the consultancy to
drive up the project costs, thereby driving up their own revenues at the
client's expense.

But that's a toxic way to do business, and in the long run it's against the
consultancy's best interests. The correct way to think is to maximize the
revenue of the _account_ , and the best way to do that is to get repeat
business. Also, by referrals. Neither of those will happen unless you're
acting in the best interests of the client.

It's a pity that these firms don't realize this. Some do though; I work for
one of them.

~~~
excuse-me
Seems to have worked for EDS/Cap Gemini/IBM/Whatever-Anderson-is-called-today
so far

~~~
mtrimpe
These companies thrive on three types of arrangement:

1) "Deals with the devil": The company knows they'll be drained for all
they're worth, but they planned badly, overcommitted and basically just cant
hire the expertise they need to do 'X by Y' any other way.

2) "Screw the cost, just make this go away": It's a big project, management
has plenty of money and mostly just doesn't want to think about this project.
A big name might cost a _ton_ of money, but you can sue if things go sour and
generally shit will be delivered eventually.

3) "A fool and his money part easily": If you got a bunch of money somewhere
and have no clue as to how things work, these big boys will diligently take
your money, lavish you with nice dinners while they extract every cent of your
budget while making sure all the paperworks points to your own incompetence as
the ultimate cause for the project failing.

All three types are variants of 'you messed up, now pay the price' and in that
they perform a valuablem, if decidedly unglamorous, function in the IT
ecosystem.

~~~
kls
Right this is usually how it works, and if said consultancy saves the day then
the existing management at the company assumes that that consultancy walks on
water and keeps shelling out money for the perception that problems will not
arise. If they do the process is repeated. What consultancies are selling is
an illusion, an illusion that management is willing to pay for so long as the
perception is that all is well.

------
jace
I'm the OP and I'm frankly humbled to see a 5 year old post trending today.

What's changed in five years? For one, Bangalore has a real startup ecosystem
now, with funded startups that pay market-level salaries and offer stock. This
was rare in 2006.

~~~
free
Yes, I am in the startup ecosystem in Bangalore and I can definitely say that
there are pockets of real talent here. In fact I feel lucky to be in a place
where I am enjoying work, learning a ton and surrounded by some of the most
talented people I have ever seen.

~~~
kang
Care to name those 'pockets' please?

~~~
free
This link gives a better answer <http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-hottest-
startups-in-India>

Amongst the ones I personally know Flipkart, Myntra and Cleartrip have some
really good people. And then there are freelancers who work remotely for the
bay area startups.

Edit : If you are in Bangalore, then do attend the tech conferences here to
get a better idea of the ecosystem.

------
FlyingSnake
I think the issue is three-fold

1\. Baniya style businesses.

Though the startup founders are young and fresh, the overall business
environment still reeks age old business patterns. I know few startups who
offer no equity, treat employees like 2nd class citizens and want to get rich
quick without spending much.

2\. A lot of talent is ignored.

Everyone knows that the education system is inadequate for training engineers,
but startups seldom train/intern students and bring them on par. There is a
lot of latent talent apart from the Engineering graduates. Millions of
students graduate as B.Sc.(Science/Maths) but I haven't heard any startup
training/hiring them. Outsourcing giants like Cognizant/Infosys however are an
exception but they hire, train and turn these non-engineering graduates into
maintenance drones.

3\. General apathy of students towards startups.

Most of the students just want to earn money to be self sufficient. The
easiest way? Follow the patterns of someone successful, mostly a person
selected in outsourcing giants. These companies are a modern version of dusty
Government offices and many people just log their time and get a paycheck. Art
of computer programming is forgotten and everyone wants to be a
Manager/Director is 5 years. This sets a wrong example for new guys and hurts
the hacker culture.

P.S. Many startups are doing good work (e.g. Infinitely Beta) and many will
succeed, but these factors show why hiring is difficult for startups.

~~~
asto
1\. Many founders in India found a "startup" just because they have money to
capitalise it and nothing better to do. They have 0 tech skills and 0
management ability. The few startups that are doing well here are those
founded by technical guys or people who've worked in a certain industry for a
while and start a related venture.

2\. Startups can't afford to train. They need programmers who'll hit the
ground running.

3\. Mostly because the startup scene here sucks; it's fucking comical I tell
you. Join any indian startup forum and you'll know the story of how poor the
quality of startups and their employees is. I leave you with an email I
received recently from "OCC Bangalore" (google group for bangalore startups).
Also, no offence intended to the few who really are running businesses worth
running.

========================================================

Dear All,

I need some tech help.

We need to call these php functions in our jsp files. We can use javascript I
hope.

I searched alot on google and I found this: \-- <script
type="text/javascript"> function test(){
document.getElementById("php_code").innerHTML="<?php for($i=0; $i<10; $i++)
echo $i; //maybe a function ?>"; } </script>

<a href="#" style="display:block; color:#000033; font-family:Tahoma; font-
size:12px;" onclick="test(); return false;"> test </a> <span id="php_code">
</span> \-- But doesnot seem to be working.

Some guys have suggested using this: jqSajax

Background: We are trying to use an existing opensource solution which
provides APIs and the same can be used through java and php. We want to use
the same through our jsp files. Now part of it we have been able to use
through the java webservices they provide, but since they are opensource
platform they have missed implementing some of the code in java which is
available in php services.

Any ideas? Stuck now :(

Thanks a lot

~~~
FlyingSnake
Reading this made me sad. I thought _Can I have the codez Plz_ mentality runs
wild only in outsourcing giants.

~~~
rikthevik
And in the Computer Science labs right before a first year assignment is due.

------
mqzaidi
As someone who has worked at many startups in India, here are my 2 cents. You
chose to work at a startup not in the hope of a glorious exit via some
acquisition or an IPO. You work at a startup because you want to surround
yourself by really smart people.

When making generalizations, while it is certain that most startups will fail,
it is also quite likely that most of your startup coworkers will eventually
succeed and go to great places, and when they do, they will take you along if
you were any good in the first place. Because one thing that almost guarantees
failure is not trying, and you would find a lot of 'not trying, complacent
with my good job' people not at the startups, but at the large or middle sized
companies past their prime, running on the momentum they picked earlier.

This is what I tell people when I hire them, and believe me, a lot more people
are getting this now than a decade ago, when startups were associated with
unexpected riches and easy money. That's a lot of hope.

~~~
mjwalshe
Realy if you want to work for realy smart peopel you go and work at some where
like CERN, NASA JPL and other tier 1 RnD organisations - of course for a
devloper the pay sucks

------
nhebb
> _Sturgeon’s law applies here. 95% of all startups will fail. There’s no
> escaping it._

I don't know about India or software startups in particular, but according to
Dun and Bradstreet the 4-year survival rate of new businesses is 37%.

Edit: I can't confirm the 37% figure. It's a number that stuck in my head from
a few years ago. They're latest report [1] doesn't include survival rates.

[1] <http://www.dnbgov.com/pdf/US_Business_Trends_Jan11.pdf>

~~~
mseebach
New business != startup.

Small and/or lifestyle businesses are great, but there are many properties
they don't share with startups (mainly scalability leading to growth). In many
cases a "new business" simply mean an independent contractor who in this
statistic might as well be a regular salaried employee. Also someone spending
time building a prototype, validating the market, looking for funding etc. but
not bothering to register the business while there's no revenue could fail
before ever making it into the "new business" statistic.

Therefore it's perfectly plausible that 95% of startups fail while only 63% of
all new businesses do.

Then of course there's the fact that the 95% number is rhetoric, not a
statistic.

------
gnufied
Rather old article and mostly true, except :

"We’re in a booming economy now. This is an employee’s market."

I believe this is true almost always for people who are good at what they do.

------
akarambir
_If the company declares it confidential, leave. They don’t have a plan._

This can't be true for all startups. Some ideas are worth being confidential.
Yeah I know execution matters most, but still idea can be what they are
excited about.

~~~
drunkpotato
You are technically correct, but in this case it's not the best kind of
correct. Of course it's not 100% for sure they don't have a viable plan, but
it's likely they don't and more importantly it's not worth your time to find
out. The OP is right: leave.

~~~
rdl
Even if there is secret sauce, they should be able to explain their overall
business model to the level of a business plan.

------
jim_kaiser
I agree.. it's not easy to find good developers in India. I have come to
understand the social circumstances which make them treat software development
as just a job and not something to care about. The good developers cannot
stand writing bad code and letting bad code go into production. The good
developers look at code as an art form.

But the crux is just to know how to attract the right talent.. referrals are a
common way of getting good developers. But, there are many other ways to do
that too, if the companies are willing to make the effort.

I currently work for a cool norwegian offshore company which has a open and
flexible work environment as do many of the international companies doing
business here. They know how to hire.

Most companies here in India have a notice period as part of the employment
contract.. but it is ALWAYS both ways i.e. employer and employee both have to
serve notice or payout. Some of the comments here suggest otherwise.. but that
is purely hearsay or ignorance.

------
truncate
Haven't done any kind of proper survey but from what I see many startups here
don't like to pay even decent. They would hire with low salary. However the
point is if you want good developers, you need to pay them well! Even if you
manage to find some good developer at low salary, he will probably not perform
his best. Finally, they would lag behind schedule, resources get scarse and
they are officially failed.

------
kamaal
Well as a note regarding outsourcing and Indian IT Bellwethers.

I can tell you that you are likely to hear extreme management bashing in this
case. But after personally working in a very famous IT bellwether here in
India for 5 years, and now in another famous global web company. I can tell
you half the people who crib, complain and whine are basically people who
expect to get rich by 'getting lucky'.

The most common complain is _They didn't give me good stuff to work on_ , yet
when you ask the same people what exactly stops them from downloading <insert
their favorite programming language compiler/tool>, or why they didn't work on
their favorite database while all of it is freely available on the internet-
The answer is generally a blank stare. Tons of automation opportunities exist
in almost all projects that these big companies take, yet most people you are
likely to meet still expect work to be _given_ to them. I have seen this
attitude among all freshers and even among some very experienced people. The
fact is most of these people arrive at a software industry after having the
heard 'Get rich quick' stories from the 90's while somebody joined a IT
services company, went to an foriegn onsite location for 5-6 years, became a
manager in 4 years and made tons of money in the IPO.

In fact most complaints of 'Indian IT sucks' generally smells of 'I could not
get rich quick'. With no real desire to make a career in software, and waiting
to jump to a management role at the earliest is the hallmark of Indian IT.
Getting promotions and holding fancy designations is considered extremely
honorable. Let alone most technical leads who managed to win corporate
politics race, I know- Can't write a 100 line program. Not getting promoted to
managerial role by 27 is considered a sign of incompetence, Not being able to
go to a foriegn onsite location is considered a sign of incompetence. Its
almost like a blind rush for money, money and only money. I know of many so
called Technical leads who boast that they _don't write code anymore_ , trying
to imply that people who write code or who are good at tech stuff are
generally incompetent people not deserving of progress. How do you expect to
make progress or do anything big, with this kind of people stacked from top to
down?

After doing a lot of analysis, I have finally realized these people never
wanted to be programmers ever. They have 0 interest in learning, building and
making stuff. They don't have what it takes to make a career in software.
These people just arrive at software companies thinking they will get rich
very quickly, when they don't, they find every reason under the sun to justify
how worse career options in software are. Those who do get rich by usual
promotion->onsite cycles, generally go on to become managers and then
ulitimately glorified supervisors, who seem to hold very high opinions about
tech without knowing a jack about it. Regional and liguistic politics is too
common, being the managers best man and bootlicking helps to get better
appraisal ratings, promotions and onsite chances.

Having said all this, I still meet some very good technical people from whom I
learned a lot(In the same big companies). I continue to meet such people.

As a last note, the rewards vs efforts system is all messed up and needs
immediate fixing. These companies need to bring back meritocracy.

~~~
ashishgandhi
> I can tell you that you are likely to hear extreme management bashing in
> this case... people who crib, complain and whine are basically people who
> expect to get rich by 'getting lucky'.

Clueless managers who don't understand technology even on a superficial level
are a real problem. Has nothing to do with how much engineer makes.

> The most common complain is They didn't give me good stuff to work on, yet
> when you ask the same people what exactly stops them from downloading...

Premise is people don't use technologies they like for their personal
projects. I don't think that's true for the good hackers out there of course.
But what they are talking here is about the work environment and technologies
used (enforce) there. Just because you can use better tools for personal
projects doesn't mean people shouldn't complain about the prehistoric tools at
the their workplace. (And then you go on about money again.)

> After doing a lot of analysis...

Can you share more details please? Because all the smart people I've known no
longer work at Indian firms if they ever did. I no longer work at them either,
and trust me it's a (very) very very different environment. My college for a
short period tried to not let these Indian consultancies recruit on campus.

A question for you. How do you justify developer happiness in an environment
where there's no real source control, an impossible to use ticketing system,
manager thinks a crawler is an actual hardware device like a photocopy
machine, automation code is thrown away as you can't charge the client for
that, load-testing results are manipulated to match the requirement (you keep
requesting where for some reason out of 10 requests you get 3 "acceptable"
data points and take screenshots only of those and report them) and I could go
on an on. It's not about the money.

~~~
kamaal
I've experienced all the trouble you describe. But really if a person is truly
interested in learning something, there is nothing really stopping him. It
hardly takes anything to go to the internet download python, a tutorial and
start building something. If a person can't even do as simple a thing like
this for his career, than I seriously doubt he will go through the grind and
do all tough work required for success.

By all means, complain about getting put into a shitty project. But you can't
blame the the company for all your troubles. Because career management really
is up to the individual, waiting for somebody else to do it for you really
shows lack of seriousness on your part.

I know of a few friends who work on COBOL/Mainframes. Quite few times I had
advised to pick up a language like Python for their own good. But often the
answers are 'What will I get', 'Will I go onsite doing that', 'Look the other
guy did nothing and is still at onsite, why cant I get lucky like that'.

Trust me these people never want to learn. They just want to have it the easy
way. Fast forward when they see a good programmer making it big in a product
company suddenly they start cribbing about how company/manager didn't help
them grow technically. While the fact is all the while they themselves didn't
want to go the technical way.

The other parts I totally agree with you. I have faced the same frustration as
you do. I even know of managers who had never heard of version control
systems. Who never knew what a unit test is, or even simple things like a
Excel Macro(Which falls into much of their own work).

Coming to those kind of managers, most of them are now facing the heat. Big
Corps are cutting down on managerial layers big time. The 90's and early
2000's rush is over. Every one knows that.

------
andyjohnson0
_"Look at the HR policies most companies have. The big shops all treat their
“fresher” recruits as bonded labour. (The contracts are worded to pass the
bond off as training fees.)"_

Am I understanding this right. People have to pay a 'bond' to a new employer?

Is this common in India? Other countries?

~~~
FlyingSnake
Many outsourcing giants have 1 year bond. ( _E.g. TCS and Wipro_ ) and if you
break it you've to pay the company some amount.

Also if you resign and don't want to serve the notice period, you can 'buy'
your way out.

~~~
mjwalshe
You can see why working in the USA and similar devloped economys with more
"liberal" employment laws is so popular.

~~~
batista
On the other hand, you can also see why working in a civilized place, like
Western Europe with less liberal firing laws is also popular...

~~~
mjwalshe
ah I was using it in the technical (political) sense to mean that the balance
is slightly more towards the servant than the master.

More conservative employment laws would mean less employment rights for
workers.

Less liberal in the UK would be the fringe torys who want to get rid of all
employment protection.

