
Why there are so many engineers in India - siddhant
http://thenextweb.com/in/2011/05/08/why-there-so-many-engineers-in-india/
======
prayag
This article is clearly biased and (not to put down the original author)
borders on hero worshiping of India and her engineers. Some glaringly partisan
comments "liberating Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) from Pakistan’s
colonialism", "India manage to fight (and win) two major wars just a couple of
decades after independence", "slog through med-school, do a post-doc
specialization, an internship, become an assistant, and finally 15 years
later, in-debt, start your own medical practise.(sic)"

There are large number of problems with the engineering system in India
(especially about the number of engineers and the quality of engineering
education) and the author just sweeps them under the rug.

Poorly written.

Full disclosure: I am an Indian Engineer now studying in UC Berkeley. Almost a
perfect fit to the model described (except that I didn't graduate from the
IITs).

~~~
hardik988
Thanks a lot for your comments, and I see where you're coming from. In
retrospect, there may be a slight bias, and I'll be sure to keep that in mind
when I write my next article.

My aim was not to glorify engineering in India; very far from it, actually.
The aim of the article was to provide a really shallow look into the history
of engineering culture in India. There's a lot more that I really haven't even
talked about - how politicians set-up engineering schools since that was a
major way to pick-pocket the middle class, the (alleged) abundance of black
money in many "premier" institutes of engineering, and in general, the way
engineering in India is taught is plain wrong.

I graduated in 2010 from an "NIT", and I am fully aware of how bad the
engineering system in India is.

~~~
korussian
The bias wasn't slight -- in fact, it made it tougher to get through the whole
article. It felt like the whole time I should be picturing the Indian flag
waving majestically in the background, as India single-handedly picked itself
up by its bootstraps and liberated its neighbors in wars of conscience, and
literally rocketed itself into space, all via an army of Indian engineers (the
gifted superior students), doctors (the snobby rich kids), and lazy good-for-
nothing B.As. Viva India, who can do no wrong.

Even when the article makes a minor allowance for less-than-stellar
engineering performance -- why did it take longer than expected to develop
nuclear power? -- the answer given is not anything to do with engineering, but
only that Indians were too peaceful under Ghandi and simply didn't feel like
going nuclear.

I'm a big fan of India and Indian innovation and potential. I would just have
liked to read a more balanced article that didn't bother with the
nationalistic stuff. Viva Indian engineering in the 21st century!

------
uast23
The moment I read excerpts from "surely you're joking mr feynman" about
Brazil, I thought someone had done a major typo and put Brazil in place of
India, because that is how students are taught here; sad part is that Mr
Feynman was referring to Brazil of 70's and 80's (correct me if wrong) and I
am referring to India of 2011. I assume that Brazil is doing much better now
(?). The Indian education is more about serving (read ITES) than leading.

The article is indeed right but it misses few points. Given the fact that
India is just 60+ years old, the dreams that Indians see is lot different from
the ones being seen in west. People in India still struggle with the basic
lifestyle, which includes a car, a house, broadband, smartphones, 3g, air-
conditioning (yes I think all of these are part of basic lifestyle). You don't
find furnished homes in India very often. Once you are in, you have to manage
everything (bed, refrigerator, laundry and what not). When you are asked to
survive in one of the hottest part of the world and you cannot afford an AC,
doing work is nightmare. So for an Indian guy right out of college, there are
a lot of questions unanswered. I don't think this is the case in west, is it?
(I stayed in London for an year and everything was there right from the first
day). So it's a little unreal to expect everyone to jump into doing a startup
or becoming famous.

But yeah, above all the best part is that situation is changing very fast,
lots and lots of Indians are taking the unconventional path, trying to make
sure that future holds something good.

~~~
xiaoma
I loved that story from Feynman's time in Brazil. What I've often wondered
though, is this: Did his time there change anything for the better?

What became of his former students? If even a couple learned to look at the
world a bit more like him, then the ripple effect might have been great. If
nothing else, it's hard to imagine that the educational system has been
unaware of his critique. Did it spur any sort of reform in the decades since?

~~~
nandemo
As much as I enjoy Feynman's writings, I'm rather surprised at the
significance people attach to that old anecdote. It was just his short
experience with one class, and we don't even know which university it was. I
wouldn't assume the situation depicted there is representative of Brazilian
advanced education in the 60s. In any case, it certainly doesn't match my
experience in the 90s (I majored in CS at a Brazilian university). For
instance, my exams would typically involve writing and analysing algorithms,
solving mathematical problems and proving theorems. If you memorized the
textbook without understanding it you wouldn't pass a single class.

------
hardik988
Hi HN. I'm the original author, and I certainly didn't expect this to show up
on HN. Ill be the first to admit I would've liked a little bit more time to
research, and this is my first article for somebody else. I'm an aspiring
writer and I'm new to the big bad world of long-form journalism; so treat me
nice :) Comments about the ugly parts of the writeup are obviously welcome !

------
prpon
In the past 15 years or so, there is an explosion of engineering schools and
the number of graduates. I've been part of the crowd that lamented the
decrease in the quality of Indian engineering graduates.

When you look at it in a different way. Would you rather have more engineers
than less? I would go for more.

As an individual, having an engineering degree is better than having a degree
in arts. An engineering degree provides these guys with better employment
options even if our notion of quality is shattered.

India is coming of age and the days when 'I studied roman history because I am
passionate about it' are not far off. As of now, livelihood trumps passion.

~~~
kamaal
>>When you look at it in a different way. Would you rather have more engineers
than less? I would go for more.

At the expense of quality?? Literacy isn't the same as education. And because
of this sort of things its that Indian IT isn't able to take any thing more
than IMS projects today. The managers haven't the slightest clue how to run
projects, and engineers haven't the slightest clue how code, design and build.

No point in having paper degrees if people can't work! Money comes from work
not from degrees! And its not about passion, its about doing one's job
properly. And that can be done even without the burning passion. If my job is
that of a coder, I should be able to do my job properly even if I don't have
the passion to write the next big OS kernel.

And the employment opportunities, how can we sustain getting business when we
can't deliver on the current ones?

------
tRAS
The service industry standards in India are quite bad, as I have had first
hand experience of the sorry state of our development environment. I have
thought about this for quite some time, and as others have pointed out there
is a definite dearth of passion as the industry is filled with people who
worry nothing more than their paychecks at the end of the month. It's quite
hard to find motivation amongst such peers(Just to clarify, I'm not badmouth-
ing anyone, just stating the fact) At times it has often make me wonder at our
consistent mediocre attitude. The top programming languages right now(Java,
C++ etc) has had it's origins in the US and elsewhere, where the language
authors have had put in painstaking efforts in creating libraries so as to
make adoption of the language as easy as possible. The irony being since most
of the hard work has already been done, the mediocre work gets outsourced for
cheap labour. Just my 2 paisa...

------
movingahead
The one thing that the article overlooks is that engineering is still the
safest way to get a healthy living standard in India. The salary paid by IT
firms is exponentially higher than what middle class India has ever seen. Our
culture taboos failure. People are worried about a child doing badly in 1st
standard. This aversion to failure mixed with the IT boom has led to such a
large number of engineers in India.

~~~
hardik988
Thanks for your comments. I'm with you on that - and that's what I meant when
I wrote:

"Becoming an engineer in India virtually guarantees financial security for
life, and this blinds parents into forcing their children to choose
engineering."

~~~
tobtoh
But if this is the case, then shouldn't your article be about 'how money is
creating a lot of engineers in India' rather than saying that India has an
engineering culture?

I see it in a similar vein to how there are so many finance people in the US -
that's where the money is - quick riches compared to other jobs you could get.
And if the money/financial security disappeared, so would all the interest in
working in that field - ie the culture would evaporate.

It's different to say the US innovation culture which is an attitude and
culture that has developed over decades due to many drivers, but money hasn't
been the only or even major driving force behind it and in many ways is
impervious to fluctuations in 'market demand'.

------
codelion
The article is trying to show causation from correlation, the reasons for the
number of engineers in India have nothing to do with the Independence, Wars
with Pakistan, ISRO, DRDO etc. A much better and plausible argument is Y2K, a
strong domestic IT sector and herd mentality.

~~~
spraveen80
+1. The article's argument is plain wrong.

~~~
Stormbringer
Actually, I think the article makes some interesting points.

Firstly, anyone who has had experience with off-shoring to India is probably
convinced that the whole country is just minutes from falling apart through
shoddy engineering.

That makes the first part of the article very relevant, because an important
part of realising that there is a problem is to realise that Indian
Engineering _used to be_ very good.

Then the article hints at what I think are the two main reasons:

(1) Immigration (2) Cheating in the education system/lack of effort

I actually see this in the west as well, the attitude that the whole point of
university is simply to get some piece of paper that is a de facto licence to
print money.

Westerners today interacting with the off-shore engineers will usually come
away shocked by how lazy the Indian programmers seem. They have no pro-
activity, no problem solving ability.

But is that an accurate picture of Indian culture? Could they have modernised
their agriculture, fought 3+ major wars, launched satellites into space and
developed a nuclear program if they were all like the off-shore programmers?
They'd have starved to death and/or been wiped out by their own incompetence
if that was the case.

Clearly, the Indian Engineers of 2011 are a 'different breed' than their
counter-parts in the 60s and 70s.

 _Something must have happened_.

If you accept that premise, that things have gone downhill in a big way, then
it begs the question "why?". Now the author may not have all the answers - but
he has some interesting points.

To dismiss him as "plain wrong" is unworthy of hacker news, and disrespectful
of the effort it takes to create this kind of big-picture historical overviews
that challenge entrenched views.

 _Do you really want hacker news to become yet another Digg or reddit?_

Personally, I find that a brief examination of American history provides some
support for the view that brain drain for a country is a bad thing, and
immigration of smart and motivated people to your country is a good thing.
America got big and strong by two things: (a) enormous mineral wealth, (b)
opening its borders to immigrants. Having avoided most of the draining effect
of the European wars in the 1800s and 1900s helped, and also served to promote
the view of America as a safe haven.

If you forget that immigration isn't just about "dumb people who are browner
than me" and also includes "the intellectual elite of countries like Austria
fleeing wars and persecution" then you start thinking that immigration is all
about "they took aor jaorbs!", and close down your borders, impose quotas...
and the stagnation begins.

~~~
codelion
"Firstly, anyone who has had experience with off-shoring to India is probably
convinced that the whole country is just minutes from falling apart through
shoddy engineering. "

Untrue, Uncalled for, Unsupported by any facts, and plain wrong.

------
sc68cal
_The examination pattern fulfills their expectations – asking questions
straight from the book which require no application-level knowledge at all._

It all fits together now. That's why so much code that is farmed out to India
comes back looking in such sorry shape.

~~~
dimmuborgir
_It all fits together now._

No it doesn't.

If what you claimed was true then why does India still continue to be the top
outsource destination?

If cheap labour is the excuse then its the problem of capitalism, not India or
Indian engineers.

The same goes to China and Chinese goods.

~~~
chc
I don't follow. How is it capitalism's fault that India produces large numbers
of bad engineers? You seem to be conflating the fact that capitalism
(specifically, cost-cutting) leads to these engineers being employed with the
fact that their education is lousy.

~~~
rs3123
"India produces large numbers of bad engineers" - that's a sweeping statement.
Among all countries, India sends the largest number of engineering students to
the US (according to NSF - [http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india-sends-
maximum-number...](http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india-sends-maximum-
number-of-sci-engineeri/644397/)), which is not bad for a country producing
"bad" engineers. I am a professor in a US university, I work with a lot of
technically trained undergraduates, and I can say that students here (as
anywhere) when they complete their undergraduate education, are merely ready
to become an apprentice at a company. Their education continues in the company
(or research lab) they join. So when you compare recent Engineering
undergraduates from different countries, I am willing to bet that their
quality is on average not that different.

~~~
chc
If they're in your class, India is not producing those engineers.

At any rate, we're talking about outsourcing. If they're not in India anymore,
then by definition the US cannot outsource to them.

------
anxrn
The existence of a well-backed military-industrial complex seems to have very
little to go with the glut of engineers in India, let alone cross-border
politics.

As a product of this system, the reason seems fairly straightforward to me.
Its plain simple economics. On average, in India, engineering is the path of
least resistance to a quality of life better than your parents. When I
graduated about a decade ago, engineering was perceived as a stepping stone.
Indeed, most of my classmates are not in engineering anymore (most of them
weren't even interested in it), and, by all modern measures, quite successful.
A 4-year engineering is seen as a foundation to bigger things, and that
doesn't seem like such a bad thing at all. Its the generally accepted way of
getting to the top of the pile, if you're not born into money, and so its not
surprising its such a popular choice.

There seems to be a small sliver of anecdotal evidence that this may be
changing, with people willing to follow their passions more, but the effects
of this 'at scale' remains to be seen.

To folks with the bad-programmers-from-India experience, the fault is solely
yours. You're looking for engineers from this system to do your job for the
least money. You're going to get people who're great at selling themselves,
not great hackers.

------
senthil_rajasek
Here is an insightful take on this topic by Sridhar Vembu (Founder of Zoho an
India based startup BTW)

[http://blogs.zoho.com/general/why-it-happened-in-southern-
in...](http://blogs.zoho.com/general/why-it-happened-in-southern-india-an-
unorthodox-explanation)

Although it focuses on only one region of India it provides more clues to
answering "Why there are so many engineers in India?"

------
stretchwithme
Its called the Internet and it allowed brains in one area with fewer rewards
for brains to connect to another area where brains are well rewarded and to do
the sort of work that can be done over a network.

------
sbierwagen
Tedious Indian boosterism. HN has seen its share of naked press plants, but
this article was really missing the FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE in the header.

------
sdizdar
Interesting. I was always under impression that Jawaharlal Nehru's reforms
(pretty much socialism) were the key. His policies and reforms were key in
establishing India education system. Without him and his reforms there will be
no path for better quality of life for many Indians.

How much of credit should be given to Jawaharlal Nehru's reforms?

I'm not Indian, so please excuse my ignorance.

~~~
kamaal
The current form of education system is very different than what existed
during the immediate post-independence era when the reforms were carried out.
The entire Indian Industry and people passing out on the basis of their jobs
in those times could be classified into the following categories.

First and foremost, The elite, the civil services, UPSC et al. Next
opportunities in the defense services, Next came government jobs(clerks, small
time accountants etc). The private sector jobs were limited to
factories(Process based jobs) like ITI, BEL, HAL etc. Then small time business
men. So depending on them the general qualification were BA, BCom and
Industrial training courses(Welding, electrician etc).

Medicine and Engineering were considered elite, the demand and supply was both
limited. For a while India had a Gulf boom, many people went to gulf to work.
But real turn around happened after Manmohan singh's FDI's reforms in the
early 90's. This is when the outsourcing market took off and the IT boom
started and demand for both crappy colleges and engineers went high.

During that time, it was easy to get promoted and work in a foreign country.
Due to all this every tom,dick and harry got promoted and became a
millionaire. Even if he was moron and knew nothing and did nothing. The market
was such that all this could go on. Now the entire Indian IT's middle
management is rotten. The expectations of the current generation is very high.
The college grads think they can easily promoted to be a manager in 3-4 years
so they need not have to be technically good.

All this has led to horrible state of affairs that exists today. The scary
thing is good people are never rewarded and bad ones some how keep making
money through job hopping.

------
timedoctor
I would like to know how to find the great engineers. So far have hired
fantastic engineers in the former soviet union and in the Philippines, but
have not had one good experience in India.

I believe that there are some phenomenally good engineers and a very large
number of terrible engineers. So as a foreigner trying to hire, without
travelling there it's very difficult. The great people simply don't respond to
job ads, and unless you are Google, are not interested in applying. Plus the
great people earn $2,000 per month and higher. The large number of very
average people earn $300-500 per month. So that's why I haven't found any
great people, but I think if you have connections or a good recruiting team in
India it's possible to find these people.

~~~
nobody_no_one
A perspective from opposite side, a skilled engineer that starts looking for
remote gigs. Sites like dice.com or monster.com are of no use, there are very
few telecommute job offers there. And on websites for freelancers rates are
too low. So where do people like you are searching for skilled foreign
engineers?

------
yalogin
The real reason there are so many engineers in India is because there are many
many crappy engineering colleges in India right now. The last decade saw
engineering become a business and every person with a little money looked to
start an engineering college. Yes India has a lot of population but the
proliferation of colleges is the main reason.

~~~
kamaal
Supply always meets the demand and not the vice versa, A more appropriate
question to ask is 'Why is there so much demand for crappy engineers in
India'?

~~~
michaelcampbell
Your question is surely rhetorical, for I would be astounded that you do not
know the answer.

There is demand for _CHEAP_ engineers. It happens that many are from India.
There is no demand for crap, but sadly, there is no demand for quality (over
cost) in the eyes of many.

~~~
kamaal
I am Indian, and I refuse to believe to this 'cheap' meme. FYI, as per Indian
standards most of these crappy programmers are paid really well. In most cases
better than the good programmers.

The thing about good productive programmers is same as that in the US, they
tend to stick around for long time in one company, take time out to learn and
master the trade. And are not usually on the job lists. On the other hand, due
to rapid growth it has become fashionable here for the bad folks to hop a job
often. The trick is simple, the performance evaluation happens every year in
most companies here. Before their performance is even judged, they fly to some
other company.

Hiring is often done by HR's. They are given a template of standard questions
flicked from the internet. Most of which are factual and don't test a
candidate analytical ability. Questions like 'What is a class', 'Can you
define X'. If you memorize the answer you can easily pass the interview.

There are dumps of questions available for clearing common certifications like
SCJP et al. They say some jargons in interview, negotiate a good salary and
join the company. By the time their performance is evaluated in the company
they go to some other company.

This is what is happening in India currently. The good folks are there but
they are invisible and often lost in the crowd.

~~~
michaelcampbell
Well, I'm on the outsourcing end of the equation (although I haven't had a
hand in the actual outsourcing itself), and I can say from firsthand
experience the 'cheap' meme is accurate.

The reason given for removing existing personnel to replace them with
outsourced people is twofold. One is cost, and it is the large majority of the
sum total of the reasons. The other reason is the erroneous idea that the
company can train up a bunch of outsourced people and have a flexible,
dynamically sized, workforce.

The _justification_ is that "they're just as good".

In the 10-12 or so years I have seen this tried, it has yet to even COME CLOSE
to what was promised. The reason it keeps happening is the person in charge of
the decision gets his bonus for cutting the costs, then moves on, long before
the actual long-medium terms costs become known. By then that person is long
gone and/or up the corporate ladder to where no one dare say "this sucked,
he's the guy that caused it".

My view is cynical and jaded, but it is from experience. And I say this not
having ever lost my job over it, so that's not a factor.

------
known
Quick & easy money. That's what my mom told me when I wanted to study
medicine.

------
senthilnayagam
good article, but the bulk of engineers now come out of private colleges.
Engineering Education is the new business, every politician or big businessman
owns one or more engineering college.

Middle class could afford it, IT jobs are easier to get, engineering is the
new the minimum qualification for getting a good job.

if government liberalizes medical education, we would see a million more
doctors soon.

------
maverhick
Engineers don't need to only mean 'startups'

------
anand21
bad description doesn't connected it with the current problems or its causes
rather connected with indo-china war but started making "some sense" after mid
of the article.

------
chailatte
Doesn't mean they're any good. Last innovative startup you've heard from India
in the past several years is....Visual Website Optimizer. Wow, mindblowing.

~~~
neeleshs
Not sure the article said anything about they being good. Any evidence on VWO
being the last innovative startup from India? Just because the startups are
not featuring on HN does not mean there are no innovative startups from India.

