
Flush Indian startups face shortage of skilled workers - pramodbiligiri
http://www.wsj.com/articles/flush-indian-startups-face-shortage-of-skilled-workers-1446978604
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hwstar
I had to get to the article using google.

Well, I suppose India won't be sending that many engineers to the US on an
H-1B once the Indian companies lobby the Indian Government cut off the export
of their local talent.

The only losers here are US tech companies which will have an even tougher
time importing tech talent from India.

Additionally, US companies will now have to compete against Indian companies
with Indian C-level counterparts making a fraction of what they make.

Africa may start to look good long term source of tech talent to US tech
companies, but I suspect that American companies using H-1B visas are going to
have to pay more or use American engineers in the short term.

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raincom
Just hiring the middle management from Yahoo (Anand) and Motorola (Puneet)
does not solve the problem. How on earth such recruitment helps hire the top
talent, the talent that can design and write code. Sure, this middle
management can use their networks to hire the real programmers; again, this
boils down to the pay: pay the competitive rate and equity to the people. But
we all know, programmers are seen as fungible.

Once some profession is fungible, it becomes the service sector: There is no
need to be trained; there is no need to train. So, this will leave the one
group of people: those who are super passionate about programming, and have
mastered the stuff. Apply the principle of 'passion' to medicine, law and
business: How many of Stanford GSB/HBS MBAs are so passionate about business
that money is secondary to them? How many of MD's are so passionate, they
pursue medicine to serve the public, but not for money? How many want to go to
HYS lawschools to serve the poor in the states?

1\. So, make the programming profession like HYS Law, H/S MBA, MD; in which
case, you are not going to get enough talent.

2\. Make it one for the super passionate, same result as the above

3\. Make it fungible like service sector jobs. You can find a lot of talent,
but you don't find the quality. This is what has happened in India. Getting an
IT job in India is a smart move for average hardworking people, one of the
reasons has to do with the reservation system imposed on govt jobs. Even here,
people take some training, then present 'fake' experience on resume to get
interview calls, if you are not from well known schools. Some do succeed in
interviews and work hard on the job.

What is missing here is the lack of true mentorship. When you want to become a
security guard in California, you take some 30 hours of training and
background check, you will get the guard card and start working for some
security guard companies. In Indian IT, it is similar: go to Hyderabad, get 2
months training in Java, present yourself as a guy with 3 years of experience,
face three or four interviews, you will get hired by some offshoring
companies. They are hired because these candidates are happy to get a job for
the least amount of pay.

