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> 3,500 engineering schools across the country, and about 90% of graduates do not have the programming skills to work in software engineering, according to one

> 3,500 engineering schools across the country, and about 90% of graduates do not have the programming skills to work in software engineering, according to one study. The "study" is by 'Aspiring Minds' - an Indian company that sells buggy web-based pre-interview filtering tests as a service. It is in Aspiring Minds interest to portray Indian graduates as incompetent to make Indian employers buy their pre-interview filtering services. Aspiring Minds tested engineering students from all fields (including chemical, mechanical and civil) to make up the misleading '90% of Indian graduates are stupid' headlines. It worked. The headlines went viral and people still quote their misleading study. The coding part of the test was to submit compile-able Java code through an HTML input without any syntax highlighting or formatting. Needless to say most chemical and civil engineering graduates will not be able to do that. I was a CS student at an Indian engineering college. I was forced to take an Aspiring Minds test. The test was buggy and had no feedback. I probably failed. But today I'm a full-stack developer in Denmark. Most of my graduating class have good jobs and almost half of us work overseas.

the_pwner224 6y ago
> But today I'm a full-stack developer in Denmark. Would you mind sharing more details about this? Were your recruited or did you seek out overseas employment? I'm Indian but in the US since a young age; I'll be finishing my CS education next year and would like to leave this country.
- rusticpenn 6y ago
  Europe is pretty welcoming. There is a huge shortage of software engineers (of acceptable quality) here.
  - siscia 6y ago
    Well it is also true that wage are lower than in the US. So if you are young without many families bonds makes a lot of sense to seek employment oversea. If Europe started to pay better money, then there would not be such lack of engineers.
    - igorkraw 6y ago
      Gonna defend Europe a bit more here, I'd wager there are soft benefits which aren't as easily appreciated as cash. On Europe you make less, but you also get out of the meat grinder much earlier. If you are a median person (which most likely, we all are), then your expected value will be about the same, at most a bit lower cash wise than in the US. But even that is debatable, in most of (western) Europe we don't treat active shooters as a matter of normal life, the cities are made for humans not cars and employee rights are a thing. And looking at the worst case, Europe wins: a medical emergency will not bankrupt you, if you call the cops they won't shoot you etc. And on a political level, having more than 2 parties and a wider overton window is quote nice. If you think of yourself as a human and social being, not a shark or worker bee, I think Europe isn't too bad. But I recognize that dollar amounts and funding for new ventures is still in the US, or China nowadays. And all the stuff I cited are things at odds with the pure capitalist system some people seem to want to live in, and so might not actually be desirable for all
      - plandis 6y ago
        I expected this kind of lazy analysis to appear on Reddit but not on Hacker News. > If you are a median person (which most likely, we all are), then your expected value will be about the same, at most a bit lower cash wise than in the US. In my experience wage offers were significantly lower in Europe when I was potentially looking about a year ago. levels.fyi seems to be pretty in line with my pay experience in the US and that’s not anywhere close to the pay I was offered or researched in the EU. > Europe we don't treat active shooters as a matter of normal life People in the US certainly do not treat active shooters as a matter of normal life. Have you ever considered that it makes the new explicitly because it’s a rare thing that people do not expect? > the cities are made for humans not cars and employee rights are a thing. I think you would find that most technology companies are in cities with walkability/public transit in the US. I think you would also find that software engineers are not treated poorly as well. > And looking at the worst case, Europe wins: a medical emergency will not bankrupt you Medical insurance at tech companies I’ve worked for in the US are very good. For example, I pay $20/mo and the theoretical maximum I would pay for insurance in any given year is $3000. > if you call the cops they won't shoot you Again, I think you’re treating news as proof that this is a common occurrence. It gets reported explicitly because it is not ———— I’m not saying the US is perfect because it certainly isn’t. No place is perfect. But, I think that you would find that the US is a very nice place to live for the upper half of the middle class and above and software engineering would definitely put you in that category in the US.
  - brnt 6y ago
    More precisely: a shortage of software engineers willing to work for low wages. Its far more interesting to move into management roles overhere. Tons of devs leave for the US if they wanna stay in software. Germany and the UK have most chance of solid pay. It is a public secret that Indians are recruited simply because they are not as insistent on making 60k+.
Aperocky 6y ago
Ha I was given one of those when I graduated and interviewed for some random firm (in US), I don't know if it's Aspiring Minds but it was clearly from India. They really go to an extreme length to monitor the tested and I felt very uncomfortable during the whole thing. The camera's on, Document.hasFocus() is obviously also on, I use multiple screen and you can't move your mouse out of that screen. The test questions are repetitive recital garbage that ask you to recite java syntax and concepts. All in all I would judge it as a complete failure in selecting for technical talent. All you need to prepare for this is to recite some book about locks or thread and names. And have the coding ability to write hello world level programs in Java without a linter or autocomplete, god forbid you forgot how to use Scanner interface. I might sound salty, but I didn't need that job and I'm in a much better position today. My opinion is that those filtering tests are loads of crap.
JAlexoid 6y ago
"It is in Aspiring Minds interest to portray Indian graduates as incompetent to make Indian employers buy their pre-interview filtering services." They really don't need to do anything. Indian graduates, in my experience, have done everything to screw up quality standings of Indian IT education.

the_pwner224 6y ago

> But today I'm a full-stack developer in Denmark. Would you mind sharing more details about this? Were your recruited or did you seek out overseas employment? I'm Indian but in the US since a young age; I'll be finishing my CS education next year and would like to leave this country.

rusticpenn 6y ago
Europe is pretty welcoming. There is a huge shortage of software engineers (of acceptable quality) here.
- siscia 6y ago
  Well it is also true that wage are lower than in the US. So if you are young without many families bonds makes a lot of sense to seek employment oversea. If Europe started to pay better money, then there would not be such lack of engineers.
  - igorkraw 6y ago
    Gonna defend Europe a bit more here, I'd wager there are soft benefits which aren't as easily appreciated as cash. On Europe you make less, but you also get out of the meat grinder much earlier. If you are a median person (which most likely, we all are), then your expected value will be about the same, at most a bit lower cash wise than in the US. But even that is debatable, in most of (western) Europe we don't treat active shooters as a matter of normal life, the cities are made for humans not cars and employee rights are a thing. And looking at the worst case, Europe wins: a medical emergency will not bankrupt you, if you call the cops they won't shoot you etc. And on a political level, having more than 2 parties and a wider overton window is quote nice. If you think of yourself as a human and social being, not a shark or worker bee, I think Europe isn't too bad. But I recognize that dollar amounts and funding for new ventures is still in the US, or China nowadays. And all the stuff I cited are things at odds with the pure capitalist system some people seem to want to live in, and so might not actually be desirable for all
    - plandis 6y ago
      I expected this kind of lazy analysis to appear on Reddit but not on Hacker News. > If you are a median person (which most likely, we all are), then your expected value will be about the same, at most a bit lower cash wise than in the US. In my experience wage offers were significantly lower in Europe when I was potentially looking about a year ago. levels.fyi seems to be pretty in line with my pay experience in the US and that’s not anywhere close to the pay I was offered or researched in the EU. > Europe we don't treat active shooters as a matter of normal life People in the US certainly do not treat active shooters as a matter of normal life. Have you ever considered that it makes the new explicitly because it’s a rare thing that people do not expect? > the cities are made for humans not cars and employee rights are a thing. I think you would find that most technology companies are in cities with walkability/public transit in the US. I think you would also find that software engineers are not treated poorly as well. > And looking at the worst case, Europe wins: a medical emergency will not bankrupt you Medical insurance at tech companies I’ve worked for in the US are very good. For example, I pay $20/mo and the theoretical maximum I would pay for insurance in any given year is $3000. > if you call the cops they won't shoot you Again, I think you’re treating news as proof that this is a common occurrence. It gets reported explicitly because it is not ———— I’m not saying the US is perfect because it certainly isn’t. No place is perfect. But, I think that you would find that the US is a very nice place to live for the upper half of the middle class and above and software engineering would definitely put you in that category in the US.
- brnt 6y ago
  More precisely: a shortage of software engineers willing to work for low wages. Its far more interesting to move into management roles overhere. Tons of devs leave for the US if they wanna stay in software. Germany and the UK have most chance of solid pay. It is a public secret that Indians are recruited simply because they are not as insistent on making 60k+.

Aperocky 6y ago

Ha I was given one of those when I graduated and interviewed for some random firm (in US), I don't know if it's Aspiring Minds but it was clearly from India. They really go to an extreme length to monitor the tested and I felt very uncomfortable during the whole thing. The camera's on, Document.hasFocus() is obviously also on, I use multiple screen and you can't move your mouse out of that screen. The test questions are repetitive recital garbage that ask you to recite java syntax and concepts. All in all I would judge it as a complete failure in selecting for technical talent. All you need to prepare for this is to recite some book about locks or thread and names. And have the coding ability to write hello world level programs in Java without a linter or autocomplete, god forbid you forgot how to use Scanner interface. I might sound salty, but I didn't need that job and I'm in a much better position today. My opinion is that those filtering tests are loads of crap.

JAlexoid 6y ago

"It is in Aspiring Minds interest to portray Indian graduates as incompetent to make Indian employers buy their pre-interview filtering services." They really don't need to do anything. Indian graduates, in my experience, have done everything to screw up quality standings of Indian IT education.