4 ms·

This whole article sounds like a hit piece against Indians. "I can personally vouch that your average Indian IT engineer is very ethnocentric, clannish, and com

This whole article sounds like a hit piece against Indians. "I can personally vouch that your average Indian IT engineer is very ethnocentric, clannish, and completely unamerican in every sense of the word", ...., sounds legitimate. I've worked in many IT departments all over America. Yes there were many Indians who worked there, but i don't think the reasons for this is as nefarious as this article makes it sound. In general when i was working for a small company, like 80% of the resume we got were Indians (Just by pure % alone, we would have had to hire an Indian). Do people of same ethnic groups show a unconscious bias for people of their kin ? Yes, but you will find this among any group of people. Wasn't there an experiment where a White(Anglo) sounding name got more callbacks for a job interview than a black sounding name? In my experience, there was no Brahamin sitting up top as an overlord, and the Indians i met were like any other group I've met, most were decent, hard working, intelligent people.

ajross 7y ago
> Wasn't there an experiment where a White(Anglo) sounding name got more callbacks for a job interview than a black sounding name? There was. And it was really bad there, and deserved to be called out. Likewise women in programming, etc... For the same reason, it's bad here, and pointing out the bias is certainly not "a hit piece against Indians".
- belltaco 7y ago
  One is a research study and the other plucks cherry picked anecdotes from Quora.
- strikelaserclaw 7y ago
  If it was a slightly balanced article which pointed out some of problems in the IT industry with regards to Indians, i would have fully endorsed it and added my opinions on it, but it turned into essentially a one dimensional attack backed by Quora quotes.
throwaway6502 7y ago
> "I can personally vouch that your average Indian IT engineer is very ethnocentric, clannish, and completely unamerican in every sense of the word" Honestly I can attest to this from big tech. It's anecdotal but my experience is that Indian engineers will self-organize into their own teams, start bringing LOTS of people on both remote and in-sourced, and effectively push anyone out who's not Indian by implementing super authoritarian leadership structures where everyone's vague on their standing in the company. Those leadership structures often push non-H1B visa holders out because the quality of work plummets, and they don't want to put up with VERY terse management (ie: the type that will call you at 10:30pm screaming at you because your overseas Indian counterpart can't read the English documentation you wrote and now it's your problem). I've now seen this at one old-school Midwest aeronautical corp, one startup trying to save costs, and one "big-tech" bay area company most people would recognize. This article very much speaks to me on something I have seen in my life.
- strikelaserclaw 7y ago
  I've worked for a bunch of companies (i'm a us citizen), and I've never had this problem. These days it actually seems like companies ONLY want to hire Citizens or GC holders. Pretty much everywhere i applied to when i wanted to change jobs this year asked if i was a Citizen/GC Holder. I know a h1b guy whose company got bought out and they fired all the H1B's, the guy sent out like 300 resumes before finally getting 1 interview and he told me it will take him 20/30 years to get his GreenCard. From what i know about him, life as a H1B is essentially a slavish like existence.
  - throwaway6502 7y ago
    > I know a h1b guy whose company got bought out and they fired all the H1B's, the guy sent out like 300 resumes before finally getting 1 interview. Yeah that's by design. Companies like the ones I've worked/contracted for want the H1B visa holders is because it's incredibly risky/etc. for them to find work if they're laid off, fired, need to find another position, etc. I think the max time they even get to search is 6 months (I've also heard 3!) - would need to fact check this. Simply put - the organic parts of the US job market literally just don't work for H1Bs. It's wrong, and I hate how they pay these guys approx. 60% (less if outsourced!) of what I make only to require more hours from them. If you're a citizen/greenie then the US job market magically works for you hah. It's as simple as that.

ajross 7y ago

> Wasn't there an experiment where a White(Anglo) sounding name got more callbacks for a job interview than a black sounding name? There was. And it was really bad there, and deserved to be called out. Likewise women in programming, etc... For the same reason, it's bad here, and pointing out the bias is certainly not "a hit piece against Indians".

belltaco 7y ago
One is a research study and the other plucks cherry picked anecdotes from Quora.
strikelaserclaw 7y ago
If it was a slightly balanced article which pointed out some of problems in the IT industry with regards to Indians, i would have fully endorsed it and added my opinions on it, but it turned into essentially a one dimensional attack backed by Quora quotes.

throwaway6502 7y ago

> "I can personally vouch that your average Indian IT engineer is very ethnocentric, clannish, and completely unamerican in every sense of the word" Honestly I can attest to this from big tech. It's anecdotal but my experience is that Indian engineers will self-organize into their own teams, start bringing LOTS of people on both remote and in-sourced, and effectively push anyone out who's not Indian by implementing super authoritarian leadership structures where everyone's vague on their standing in the company. Those leadership structures often push non-H1B visa holders out because the quality of work plummets, and they don't want to put up with VERY terse management (ie: the type that will call you at 10:30pm screaming at you because your overseas Indian counterpart can't read the English documentation you wrote and now it's your problem). I've now seen this at one old-school Midwest aeronautical corp, one startup trying to save costs, and one "big-tech" bay area company most people would recognize. This article very much speaks to me on something I have seen in my life.

strikelaserclaw 7y ago
I've worked for a bunch of companies (i'm a us citizen), and I've never had this problem. These days it actually seems like companies ONLY want to hire Citizens or GC holders. Pretty much everywhere i applied to when i wanted to change jobs this year asked if i was a Citizen/GC Holder. I know a h1b guy whose company got bought out and they fired all the H1B's, the guy sent out like 300 resumes before finally getting 1 interview and he told me it will take him 20/30 years to get his GreenCard. From what i know about him, life as a H1B is essentially a slavish like existence.
- throwaway6502 7y ago
  > I know a h1b guy whose company got bought out and they fired all the H1B's, the guy sent out like 300 resumes before finally getting 1 interview. Yeah that's by design. Companies like the ones I've worked/contracted for want the H1B visa holders is because it's incredibly risky/etc. for them to find work if they're laid off, fired, need to find another position, etc. I think the max time they even get to search is 6 months (I've also heard 3!) - would need to fact check this. Simply put - the organic parts of the US job market literally just don't work for H1Bs. It's wrong, and I hate how they pay these guys approx. 60% (less if outsourced!) of what I make only to require more hours from them. If you're a citizen/greenie then the US job market magically works for you hah. It's as simple as that.