7 ms·

The 5-year limit to being a coder in India?

39 points by bootload 16y ago

spudlyo 16y ago
"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?
- k3dz 16y ago
  A crore is 10 million (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore)
  - sethg 16y ago
    ...and according to coinmill.com, 1 crore Indian rupees is roughly US$220K, or €175K, or £150K. I never realized that my in-laws were so cheap. :-)
    - throw_away 16y ago
      I don't quite understand. Is the guy saying that if he gets his stamp, then he can marry this particular woman whose parents will pay them a 1 crore dowry, but otherwise he can't marry her? or is he saying that if he gets the stamp they can get the 1 crore dowry, but otherwise, he will still marry the same woman, but her parents will gift them less than a 1 crore dowry? or is he talking in the generic sense that if he has the stamp, then he would be elgible to marry an arbitrary, non-specified woman whose parents would pay a 1 crore dowry?
      - luckystrike 16y ago
        He is talking in the generic sense. A person who wants to get 'paid' would marry any gal whose family can cough up that much money.
- blahedo 16y ago
  > Why wasn't he offered the job Presumably because he now seemed to be interested in the company only for its US connection, and might leave once he had his passport stamp. > what is a crore* dowry?* A lot of money: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore
- ahk 16y ago
  Expecting a dowry is indicative of an atavistic belief system. Doesn't usually go well with an ability to work or perform in a modern environment.
- sree_nair 16y ago
  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.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - kksm19820117 16y ago
    Love-Marriage (Name for the "not arraged by families" marriage) is still a No-No in some parts of india. Corrected that for you.
- kksm19820117 16y ago
  I recall one fellow from Gujarat I met at engineering college who was in it because the degree would earn him a better dowry. He explained it thus: 1. If you have a B.E. degree, you get a INR 2000000 dowry alongwith a 800cc Maruti Suzuki automobile. 2. If you have a MBA degree, you get a INR 3500000 dowry, alongwith a Maruti Suzuki Esteem, or a Tata Indica. 3. If you have a M.D degree, you get a INR 5000000 dowry, alongwith a Maruti Suzuki Esteem / Tata Indica, and a furnished apartment. 4. If you have completed IAS school, you get a INR 7500000 dowry, alongwith a luxury car, and a rowhouse/bungalow. Apparently, the way the parents reason when it comes to sending their kid to college is: if sending him to college costs me such and such, what will the returns on such an investment be?
narrator 16y ago
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.
- prototype56 16y ago
  This has nothing to do with caste system. India doesn't have the social safety net like the west, so people tend to be more conservative, for example if you get injured at work , you are screwed for rest of your life , no disability benefits like in the west . Believe it or not I went half my life without knowing what my caste is, no one cares about caste at least in the cities .
  - talonx 16y ago
    >> No one cares about caste at least in the cities True to some extent, but most Indians remain conservative, cities or villages.
  - sree_nair 16y ago
    >> "no one cares about caste at least in the cities" I find this to be reasonably close, till it comes to marriage. Very few families wholeheartedly agree for an Inter caste marriage.
- GBond 16y ago
  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.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - awa 16y ago
drac 16y ago
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.
michaelfairley 16y ago
"...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)?
- jey 16y ago
  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.
  - michaelfairley 16y ago
    I feel like there's a lot more talk of "following one's dream" than there is actually approval of people who do so, outside of normal tolerances. Many of my friends at university were forced into engineering/pre-med by their parents. Also. outside of the Bay Area, telling people you want to do a startup gets responses of extreme confusion and discouragement.
    - jey 16y ago
      Yes, but the difference is that the "normal tolerances" are completely different in the two cases.
  - plinkplonk 16y ago
    "As an "ABCD", i.e. American-born child of Indian immigrants, " the expansion of ABCD is "American Born Confused Desi" Where Desi == "Indian" :-)
    - jey 16y ago
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
psranga 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    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.
awa 16y ago
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 16y ago
  "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.
lonewolfaka9 16y ago
lets put an limit on companies that they cant work more than 5 year :D harami saale
dododo 16y ago
why would you want to be a programmer for more than 5 years if managers view the position with such disdain?

39 points by bootload 16y ago

"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?

k3dz 16y ago
A crore is 10 million (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore)
- sethg 16y ago
  ...and according to coinmill.com, 1 crore Indian rupees is roughly US$220K, or €175K, or £150K. I never realized that my in-laws were so cheap. :-)
  - throw_away 16y ago
    I don't quite understand. Is the guy saying that if he gets his stamp, then he can marry this particular woman whose parents will pay them a 1 crore dowry, but otherwise he can't marry her? or is he saying that if he gets the stamp they can get the 1 crore dowry, but otherwise, he will still marry the same woman, but her parents will gift them less than a 1 crore dowry? or is he talking in the generic sense that if he has the stamp, then he would be elgible to marry an arbitrary, non-specified woman whose parents would pay a 1 crore dowry?
    - luckystrike 16y ago
      He is talking in the generic sense. A person who wants to get 'paid' would marry any gal whose family can cough up that much money.
blahedo 16y ago
> Why wasn't he offered the job Presumably because he now seemed to be interested in the company only for its US connection, and might leave once he had his passport stamp. > what is a crore* dowry?* A lot of money: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore
ahk 16y ago
Expecting a dowry is indicative of an atavistic belief system. Doesn't usually go well with an ability to work or perform in a modern environment.
sree_nair 16y ago
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.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- kksm19820117 16y ago
  Love-Marriage (Name for the "not arraged by families" marriage) is still a No-No in some parts of india. Corrected that for you.
kksm19820117 16y ago
I recall one fellow from Gujarat I met at engineering college who was in it because the degree would earn him a better dowry. He explained it thus: 1. If you have a B.E. degree, you get a INR 2000000 dowry alongwith a 800cc Maruti Suzuki automobile. 2. If you have a MBA degree, you get a INR 3500000 dowry, alongwith a Maruti Suzuki Esteem, or a Tata Indica. 3. If you have a M.D degree, you get a INR 5000000 dowry, alongwith a Maruti Suzuki Esteem / Tata Indica, and a furnished apartment. 4. If you have completed IAS school, you get a INR 7500000 dowry, alongwith a luxury car, and a rowhouse/bungalow. Apparently, the way the parents reason when it comes to sending their kid to college is: if sending him to college costs me such and such, what will the returns on such an investment be?

narrator 16y ago

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.

prototype56 16y ago
This has nothing to do with caste system. India doesn't have the social safety net like the west, so people tend to be more conservative, for example if you get injured at work , you are screwed for rest of your life , no disability benefits like in the west . Believe it or not I went half my life without knowing what my caste is, no one cares about caste at least in the cities .
- talonx 16y ago
  >> No one cares about caste at least in the cities True to some extent, but most Indians remain conservative, cities or villages.
- sree_nair 16y ago
  >> "no one cares about caste at least in the cities" I find this to be reasonably close, till it comes to marriage. Very few families wholeheartedly agree for an Inter caste marriage.
GBond 16y ago
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.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- awa 16y ago

drac 16y ago

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.

michaelfairley 16y ago

"...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)?

jey 16y ago
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.
- michaelfairley 16y ago
  I feel like there's a lot more talk of "following one's dream" than there is actually approval of people who do so, outside of normal tolerances. Many of my friends at university were forced into engineering/pre-med by their parents. Also. outside of the Bay Area, telling people you want to do a startup gets responses of extreme confusion and discouragement.
  - jey 16y ago
    Yes, but the difference is that the "normal tolerances" are completely different in the two cases.
- plinkplonk 16y ago
  "As an "ABCD", i.e. American-born child of Indian immigrants, " the expansion of ABCD is "American Born Confused Desi" Where Desi == "Indian" :-)
  - jey 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

psranga 16y ago

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 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.

awa 16y ago

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 16y ago
"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.

lonewolfaka9 16y ago

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

dododo 16y ago

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