Moving things to india sounds like a great idea, except the 13-15 hour difference in communication. it's all well and good until you're in Cupertino and taking an 11:30 pm call because they have 0 hours of overlap... guess you can force them to work US hours, but that goes to culture as well.
Are they trying to show that India's workplace is more compliant and they'll just do what corp types will tell them?
Racist much? I work out of Europe and manage teams both in India and Europe. My experience have pleasantly gotten better with Indian teams. If the quality is sub-par then perhaps you're not a good manager? perhaps failing upwards?
There are cultural factors you need to overcome, and it's with every international team. I am not going to simplify this, because it's a multi-faceted thing, but focusing on a single thing, for instance, propagation of bad news, India is an intensely competitive market and I need to make it abundantly clear I want to hear the bad news as soon as possible, and that I don't care about blame, as long as we learn from mistakes. From the US, I often get bad news sandwiched between good ones, so I need to redouble attention.
I am from Europe and I have worked with many Europeans, Americans and Asians. Quality of sub-contractor colleagues from India was, same as from anywhere else, directly proportional to what the company paid for them. Good pay = skilled and hard-working. Cheap labour = barely any skills and hardly working.
Nah. Its probably a case of 'you get what you pay for'. They pay for cheap teams, and those teams give them what they pay for. Good talent is expensive in all countries - even if it is relatively cheaper in India compared to SF. The MBAs don't even want to pay that much. They want dirt cheap.
India is just like every other country. Ive worked with very bad developers in India, unbearable, and I've worked with excellent developers that I would hire again in an instant.
I have similar experience but with Americans. They knew very superficially about the business and completely dependent on our Indian team to get them out of their troubles. Troubles caused by again not knowing and just trusting another team (donno where they were from) to handle their issues.
This isn't a one off case either.
So get off your high horse. Both countries have qualified and unqualified people in tech and other fields. Just calling yourself the greatest country in the world doesn't change the fact that all of US depends on immigration
I gotta agree with the parent comment about teams in india. No high horses required.
Just seemed like a bunch of Bootcamp grads not caring about work and quality. There were, of course, some competent workers there, but most seemed to have gotten hired through favoritism, not competency.
India seems to have this reputation that the entire population is made up of tech geniuses, but they have a similar ratio of idiots as anywhere else.
US college grads cant get jobs at Google. Google uses a staffing agency called "Cognizant" that is based 100% in India. $15/hr Cognizant workers recently asked for minimum wage & benefits in CA & Google announced they will not pay workers minimum wage or benefits IN THE US.
Google replaced long-term workers with these contractors to evade labor laws. There are over 275k workers on H1 visas in Santa Clara county alone. Those contracts end & Google replaces them with lower paid positions doing the same work. This is why Google's products don't work as well & also why it can no longer compete or innovate. Google's terrible AI is not the reason for these layoffs. Google's mass layoff have a chilling effect on workers. The message is that if they make any waves or stand up for their rights, they will be replaced. The goal is not to innovate. The goal is to cut costs while minimally maintaining products the entire world is forced to use. Since users have no options, they dont need good products.
I am sure workers try as hard as they can due to the massive power imbalance of having your citizenship status tied to your job. Tech has literally replaced the population of an entire region with H1 visas for one reason only, to cut costs. After starting a severe homeless crisis & destroying a state, Google is now moving to the cheap labor in India & Mexico. This is called transnationalism & US corporations have been doing since the 70s. It might seem like this could be good for India, but Google has no interest in bringing India up. Google only wants to make sure it always has a cheap, desperate pool of labor to exploit. This is the real reason for Googles constant layoffs. Google has been breaking US antitrust & tax laws for years. Its now blatantly breaking US labor laws & neither CA or the US govt cares. The US seems to be more interested in protecting the worst monopoly in history. The only reason Google makes money is by selling user data to anyone & with predatory ads. I am certain US enemies are very aware of the huge data breach thats likely to happen through the sketchy staffing agencies Google uses & the sheer number of unvetted temporary employees that revolve in and out of Googles doors.
Nah. This isn't the reason. The reasons to quality drops are economical / just a result of how anyone runs the place.
Here are some reasons why quality drops with foreign / powerless workers:
* Job is an asset. More so in poorer countries where even a low-paid US job makes a huge difference in terms of earnings in local currency. This is also, to a lesser degree what happens to visa workers. Fear to speak up. Fear to say anything that contradicts boss' plan. Losing a job like this has much more severe repercussions to the employee than if they were locals who can simply move on to another job just like the one they were fired from.
* Comprehension. No matter how good employee's English is, it's still the second language. It will make communication difficult. Beside the language, it's also often that employees who live in poorer countries have never seen either the equipment they are writing for, nor the customers who are going to use their products because simply don't exist in their countries. We rely on such shared experiences when we communicate the goals or when omitting details we even don't explicitly think about, while to the foreigners this could be completely unknown and unexpected.
* Work ethics are different between cultures. Vertical relationships in work hierarchies can be very different in different countries, which can easily prevent vital information from reaching its target. The desirable properties of employees are evaluated differently. Also, different cultures will have different ways to slack, which may not be easily recognizable to the other side.
----
In other words: it's hard to reliably transfer ideas (s.a. requirements, acceptance criteria, compensation etc.) across cultures, and this leads to failures. It's not necessary to put the blame on just one part of the team: both teams fail to communicate, and to ensure quality... but this also means that either teams' complaints are very legitimate and relate to some objective reality. Although some may start jumping to conclusions that try to explain this through racial stereotypes... actually trying to interpret the real problems through the scope of racial stereotype is what's bad about said stereotype.
The parent comment is about Amazon employees in India.
Your point #1 contradicts itself when you say "if they were locals who can simply move on to another job" --> Indians working India are the "locals" who can move onto another job. And Indian tech industry is very well developed, its not difficult to find another job, certainly not for those working in MAANG companies.
Entirely disagree with point #2, people can learn a language if they use it long enough. And Indians are no strangers to speaking multiple languages. The bilingual population of India exceeds the total population of US.
Its also extremely ignorant (maybe even racist) to suggest that people in India have not seen the equipment or the customers. Frankly, this is the most abhorrent part of your comment for me. Like I said, ignorance, hatred, and racism seeps through in any conversation.
Also, if a company care so much about quality of work, they can ship the equipment to India. Or does shipping not exist there either? Lastly, speaking of Amazon, which equipment is this exactly? Or what customers?
I somewhat agree with your point #3, but for a company like Amazon the hiring process is pretty much standardized. Its leetcode, leadership principles and system design for the higher levels. How much variation in evaluation can there be for such a standardized process?
> Although some may start jumping to conclusions that try to explain this through racial stereotypes...
And it needs to be called out. Unfortunately, it has become all to acceptable to be racist against Indians online. Even in channels like hacker news.
> Your point #1 contradicts itself when you say "if they were locals who can simply move on to another job"
OK, I need to clarify: another equivalent job. If you are local in the US, then all local jobs are "somewhat" equivalent (of course they are different, but they are within the same range). But, if you work in India (or any similar country) for an international company, or for the local Indian company -- that's a world of difference.
I'm not from India, but I know this situation from Eastern Europe. India wouldn't be very different in this regard.
Disagree. India has a vibrant startup ecosystem that is growing everyday and has produced some good companies like Zomato, Swiggy, Meesho, Zoho, Postman etc and their pay is definitely "somewhat" equivalent for the India cost of living.
In addition to the Indian startups like the ones I mentioned above, India is also a favored outsourcing destination and, because of the population its a huge market for many companies. Most global tech companies have development offices in India and pay good enough salaries for the local market. I'd say that in terms of raw numbers US >> India, but in terms of mobility and options and pay that matches cost of living, they are pretty much the same, with US trying to reduce employee mobility via hostile visa programs.
I am not Eastern European, but I have not heard of many eastern european startups that made it to billions of users. Nor do I hear it as a favored outsourcing destination, not nearly as favored as India. So its not surprising that its hard to find equivalent jobs over there.
> While you can name half a dozen of them, there are thousands that are nothing like that.
lol Isn't that the story of startups anywhere on earth?
Anyway, I don't think you understood my point. All I am saying is that there are "somewhat equivalent" options for job seekers in India. And that the market in US and India is not that different and Indian market is certainly not like eastern european market.
> Well, if it's an Indian startup targeting an international market: it's an international company in the making.
Well technically one can get to a Billion users without ever having to think of the international market.
In this tech job environment the US google employee is willing to do as many 11:30 nights as needed to keep his high paying tech job, and management knows it
Management is dumb if they think that. You can't announce year long continuous layoffs, and expect people to work hard. What will the hard working employees get in return if they get laid off? Most US Google Employees are smart people, they should know that now is the time to prepare to get off that tech island, and quiet quitting is the way.
RTO has been instituted and there not much you can do to prepare for a whole career change when in the office…
And esp for those with families they might be dependent on big tech comp to support their family in high CoL areas, else have to move their kids and school or make big lifestyle downgrades
Management holds the cards and they know it. Lesson for workers is to live way below your means while you still can
Last I checked google was in hybrid mode. That is 3 days a week in office max. Also, Last I checked a week was 7 days. Lastly, its not whole career change. Switching from Google to Netflix as a software engineer is not a career change.
I disagree that management holds the cards. Jobs are being threatened whether you work hard or not. You can double your productivity and still be cut in the next round of layoffs (and suffer burnout, stress, depression etc). In such a situation, it makes sense to quiet quit and prepare yourself for the time when you do get cut. Besides savings, the lesson here is to prioritize self over a job every day. In fact, if management did held the cards, they'd make the move that increases productivity and morale, not alienates the entire workforce.
Also I think those with families should be extra motivated to interview elsewhere in the current climate. They should be more scared of getting laid off and ending up jobless than having to move to another city with a new job.
You will get laid off whether you perform or not is the general rule right now. Thus I feel the best move for employees is to prioritize and prepare for what comes after lay offs.
There are quite a few defined benefit pension funds and 401k/IRAs that depend on the publicly listed businesses’s continuous long term price increases to meet people’s goals of being able to use their “assets” to buy the quality of life they want in retirement.
Certainly does not seem like the “short term” needful to me. US tech stocks are basically carrying a large portion of politically active US voters past the finish line.
Are they trying to show that India's workplace is more compliant and they'll just do what corp types will tell them?