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I'll summarize my experiences. (1) (Too far removed) Engineers in India / China mostly work on projects meant for Western markets. They do not always understan

I'll summarize my experiences. (1) (Too far removed) Engineers in India / China mostly work on projects meant for Western markets. They do not always understand the problems that the project is trying to solve. They rarely get to see it work in the wild. They can't feel proud of creating something they will never see in action. If the project is a huge success, the engineers who created it will almost never be rewarded. Under these circumstances, it is hard to care. (2) (Culture) The culture prioritizes seniority over performance. Manager is always right. If you are a 10x engineer and your manager is mediocre but always right, good luck navigating the potential issues. (3) (Wrong incentives) Most software engineers work for outsourcing companies. These companies get paid for delivering projects. Size of project matters. The incentive is to inflate the projects and create as much work as possible, maintainability be damned.

rxin 8y ago
This is definitely not the case for China.
- abhinai 8y ago
  Which part?
  - KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago
    All 3. Biggest problem in Chinese software is ageism against the old, much less seniority.
    - sdrothrock 8y ago
      Ageism and too much deference to seniority can coexist; for example, a 23-year-old giving in to a 28-year-old who's obviously wrong.
      - sdrothrock 8y ago
        I'm too late to edit, but this is also incredibly common with just a difference of a single year in many Asian countries. You'll see it in the Japanese senpai/kouhai relationship, which affects not only classmates, but people who join a company in different years.
    - nonamechicken 8y ago
      Ageism is a huge thing in India too when it comes to hiring, especially in the IT consultancies. Since they want to ahow cheap rates to their customers, they hire a lot of 0-6 year experienced folks. It becomes harder once you cross 10 years.
    - abhinai 8y ago
      You may be right. My experience came from a rather famous and elite team that worked for me in China. It may not be a representative experience anymore.
  - throwaywaslkdjf 8y ago
    "Most software engineers work for outsourcing companies." This just isn't true in China. Just go to New Delhi and Beijing and you will find there is a vast different in IT culture in both countries.
    - kamaal 8y ago
      New Delhi, doesn't have a very great tech scene. Blame pollution. You can die out of meditation in New Delhi. Beat that. The only company that ever sort of existed in New Delhi, was Snapdeal, and they pretty much shut shop as of now.
      - worldexplorer 8y ago
        They are many product(established and high paying) companies in NCR region especially Gurugram(cyber hub).
- wxyyxc1992 8y ago
  Maybe true in China
  - throwaywaslkdjf 8y ago
    "Maybe true in China" is not an argument. I find comments like these not helpful and disturbing. The amount of blind dislike for other countries without a proper argument makes me read less and less of hacker news.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      "Other countries"? The person you're responding to is Chinese.
      - throwayaslkdjfl 8y ago
        So he can't be American because he is Chinese? Think for a sec what you are actually saying. You are confusing ethnicity with country. Those two don't equate.
        icebraining 8y ago
        The profile says they work for Alibaba in NanJing. I'm pretty sure that's not in America.
maxxxxx 8y ago
"Most software engineers work for outsourcing companies. " Is this still true? I have heard that years ago it was prestigious to work for the likes of Infosys but now the best engineers work for Indian startups and the outsourcing companies only get average ones or worse. This seems in line with the people my company gets from outsourcing companies. They all seem pretty clueless but the direct hires are quite good.
- kamaal 8y ago
  >>I have heard that years ago it was prestigious to work for the likes of Infosys It is, even now. Walk in to any engineering college, and ask where most people want to work. Another dark untold truth of Engineering in India is, Electronics/Electrical branches have a lot better quality students, than CSE/InfoScience. Sometimes it's like night-day. This is because a degree in EE/ECE gives you a diverse range of career options once you pass out. So in the ascending order of ranks in entrance exams, first EE/ECE seats are full. In many cases there are situations where EE/ECE candidates even in tier 2/3 colleges are better than CS students in top colleges. Outsourcing companies discovered this long back. There is no logic in paying 5x market salaries to CS candidates, when you get 2x better candidates at 1/5th the price. Secondly, Indian product companies aren't exactly engineering intensive companies. If you get a job in something like FB or Google straight out of college, you are good. For any body else who has to go into Indian product companies, you work on ancient dinosaur era tech. When compared to this, many a times in outsourcing firms you are likely to find better quality of work. This happens all the time. Many times FAANG companies hire these CS top college people, and make them work as sysadmins/SDETs. While some EE/ECE whom they look down upon is working in a code intensive project in a outsourcing firm. So as a safe bet, playing your cards well. And keeping a good outlook for a large section of crowd, outsourcing companies still work well. Also look at this, if you are optimizing for money straight out of college, and not skills. Then within a decade you will be beaten by those whom you look down upon. Of course none of this applies if you get into management.
  - kkarakk 8y ago
    i'd say most managers from india are pretty worthless if i talk from a purely experience based domain knowledge perspective, it's four years of college education they don't pay attention to followed by 2 years of a job they don't pay attention to and then ka-ching MBA PROGRAM followed by doing whatever the company that hires them wants them to do. lots of wasted education and experience is basically pointless.
xte 8y ago
Thanks for that summary, personally I regularly say that "productive Asia" and India gets, unfortunately not only for them but for the entire humanity, the worse of UK/USA business model and push it to the extreme, than someone always reply that I'm racist and do not understand when I counter-reply that I do talk about business models and imposed culture, not people and that's interchangeable with ANY damn nation and population... If we look at the history India (as a whole subcontinents) produce one of the most advanced math in the world, China probably discover more thing in navigation century before Europe and now... We are all, easter and western in a race toward a new middle age...
amriksohata 8y ago
I'm in the UK and relate to all of this
chillacy 8y ago
Can you give some context? Around when and where did you work? I’m suspicious of vague answers that somehow apply to both China and India and don’t mention timeframe (China is very different now than 10 years ago or even 3)
thetechlead 8y ago
All three are not true at least for China. I'm guessing your experience mostly comes from working with outsourcing companies from these two countries. Most notable companies in China are doing their own stuff, focusing on the local market and not outsourcing. Some are truly innovative and leading the trend. Here's a good channel to learn a bit about Chinese tech scene https://www.abacusnews.com/ https://www.abacusnews.com/
eric24234 8y ago
You did not say it explicitly but your comment hints that indian devs are below mediocre. I will share my perspective as a native guy. My experience is 15 years in dev(mostly c++) experience worked in 6 different companies and have taken up contract gigs in erlang and android(writing ejabberd extensions). Infosys, wipro, tcs and other service based companies have really below mediocre dev's. But other than that the enterprise org's such as emc square, oracle, hp etc have dev's from mediocre to good. The Big Four company dev's (especially amazon) are definitely above mediocre. One observation is while working at enterprise org's i have never seen any 10x people(like the admiration type) on the US or European companies. Only read peoples blog posts. So it seems the 10x people only exist at Big Four or they move there quickly before.
- john53563443 8y ago
  True in my experience. US and Europe programmers from enterprise organisations complaning about quality of Indian programmers is not justified.

rxin 8y ago

This is definitely not the case for China.

abhinai 8y ago
Which part?
- KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago
  All 3. Biggest problem in Chinese software is ageism against the old, much less seniority.
  - sdrothrock 8y ago
    Ageism and too much deference to seniority can coexist; for example, a 23-year-old giving in to a 28-year-old who's obviously wrong.
    - sdrothrock 8y ago
      I'm too late to edit, but this is also incredibly common with just a difference of a single year in many Asian countries. You'll see it in the Japanese senpai/kouhai relationship, which affects not only classmates, but people who join a company in different years.
  - nonamechicken 8y ago
    Ageism is a huge thing in India too when it comes to hiring, especially in the IT consultancies. Since they want to ahow cheap rates to their customers, they hire a lot of 0-6 year experienced folks. It becomes harder once you cross 10 years.
  - abhinai 8y ago
    You may be right. My experience came from a rather famous and elite team that worked for me in China. It may not be a representative experience anymore.
- throwaywaslkdjf 8y ago
  "Most software engineers work for outsourcing companies." This just isn't true in China. Just go to New Delhi and Beijing and you will find there is a vast different in IT culture in both countries.
  - kamaal 8y ago
    New Delhi, doesn't have a very great tech scene. Blame pollution. You can die out of meditation in New Delhi. Beat that. The only company that ever sort of existed in New Delhi, was Snapdeal, and they pretty much shut shop as of now.
    - worldexplorer 8y ago
      They are many product(established and high paying) companies in NCR region especially Gurugram(cyber hub).
wxyyxc1992 8y ago
Maybe true in China
- throwaywaslkdjf 8y ago
  "Maybe true in China" is not an argument. I find comments like these not helpful and disturbing. The amount of blind dislike for other countries without a proper argument makes me read less and less of hacker news.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    "Other countries"? The person you're responding to is Chinese.
    - throwayaslkdjfl 8y ago
      So he can't be American because he is Chinese? Think for a sec what you are actually saying. You are confusing ethnicity with country. Those two don't equate.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        The profile says they work for Alibaba in NanJing. I'm pretty sure that's not in America.

maxxxxx 8y ago

"Most software engineers work for outsourcing companies. " Is this still true? I have heard that years ago it was prestigious to work for the likes of Infosys but now the best engineers work for Indian startups and the outsourcing companies only get average ones or worse. This seems in line with the people my company gets from outsourcing companies. They all seem pretty clueless but the direct hires are quite good.

kamaal 8y ago
>>I have heard that years ago it was prestigious to work for the likes of Infosys It is, even now. Walk in to any engineering college, and ask where most people want to work. Another dark untold truth of Engineering in India is, Electronics/Electrical branches have a lot better quality students, than CSE/InfoScience. Sometimes it's like night-day. This is because a degree in EE/ECE gives you a diverse range of career options once you pass out. So in the ascending order of ranks in entrance exams, first EE/ECE seats are full. In many cases there are situations where EE/ECE candidates even in tier 2/3 colleges are better than CS students in top colleges. Outsourcing companies discovered this long back. There is no logic in paying 5x market salaries to CS candidates, when you get 2x better candidates at 1/5th the price. Secondly, Indian product companies aren't exactly engineering intensive companies. If you get a job in something like FB or Google straight out of college, you are good. For any body else who has to go into Indian product companies, you work on ancient dinosaur era tech. When compared to this, many a times in outsourcing firms you are likely to find better quality of work. This happens all the time. Many times FAANG companies hire these CS top college people, and make them work as sysadmins/SDETs. While some EE/ECE whom they look down upon is working in a code intensive project in a outsourcing firm. So as a safe bet, playing your cards well. And keeping a good outlook for a large section of crowd, outsourcing companies still work well. Also look at this, if you are optimizing for money straight out of college, and not skills. Then within a decade you will be beaten by those whom you look down upon. Of course none of this applies if you get into management.
- kkarakk 8y ago
  i'd say most managers from india are pretty worthless if i talk from a purely experience based domain knowledge perspective, it's four years of college education they don't pay attention to followed by 2 years of a job they don't pay attention to and then ka-ching MBA PROGRAM followed by doing whatever the company that hires them wants them to do. lots of wasted education and experience is basically pointless.

xte 8y ago

Thanks for that summary, personally I regularly say that "productive Asia" and India gets, unfortunately not only for them but for the entire humanity, the worse of UK/USA business model and push it to the extreme, than someone always reply that I'm racist and do not understand when I counter-reply that I do talk about business models and imposed culture, not people and that's interchangeable with ANY damn nation and population... If we look at the history India (as a whole subcontinents) produce one of the most advanced math in the world, China probably discover more thing in navigation century before Europe and now... We are all, easter and western in a race toward a new middle age...

amriksohata 8y ago

I'm in the UK and relate to all of this

chillacy 8y ago

Can you give some context? Around when and where did you work? I’m suspicious of vague answers that somehow apply to both China and India and don’t mention timeframe (China is very different now than 10 years ago or even 3)

thetechlead 8y ago

All three are not true at least for China. I'm guessing your experience mostly comes from working with outsourcing companies from these two countries. Most notable companies in China are doing their own stuff, focusing on the local market and not outsourcing. Some are truly innovative and leading the trend. Here's a good channel to learn a bit about Chinese tech scene https://www.abacusnews.com/ https://www.abacusnews.com/

eric24234 8y ago

You did not say it explicitly but your comment hints that indian devs are below mediocre. I will share my perspective as a native guy. My experience is 15 years in dev(mostly c++) experience worked in 6 different companies and have taken up contract gigs in erlang and android(writing ejabberd extensions). Infosys, wipro, tcs and other service based companies have really below mediocre dev's. But other than that the enterprise org's such as emc square, oracle, hp etc have dev's from mediocre to good. The Big Four company dev's (especially amazon) are definitely above mediocre. One observation is while working at enterprise org's i have never seen any 10x people(like the admiration type) on the US or European companies. Only read peoples blog posts. So it seems the 10x people only exist at Big Four or they move there quickly before.

john53563443 8y ago
True in my experience. US and Europe programmers from enterprise organisations complaning about quality of Indian programmers is not justified.