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I've also heard rumors about discrimination by Indian managers against non-Indian employees at the largest employers in my city. I'm inclined to believe this is

by jrsj 4y ago

I've also heard rumors about discrimination by Indian managers against non-Indian employees at the largest employers in my city. I'm inclined to believe this is true as I've heard from multiple people who worked there that most of engineering management consists of upper caste Indians now but that group represents a relatively small minority of engineering as a whole. I wonder if these two things are connected. In some cases is this going beyond just caste discrimination and becoming something like a recreation of a caste system within the company itself? And why are we incapable of even discussing whether or not these things are happening despite them being blatantly illegal?

upupandup 4y ago
> Indian managers against non-Indian employees This happens all the time in Canada. When you have a large ethnic majority and they start identifying with the language and start bringing toxic work culture with management fully aware of the issues and exploiting this. For example for a startup I worked for in Vancouver had a large Chinese/Russian majority in the development team. They would stay behind past working hours and require me to do the same. When I left early they reported me. They also started to bully and talking only in Chinese or Russian. It was absolutely a shock and not a surprise why Canada has a brain drain going on. I don't even have any beef with these groups since I have friends from those community that grew up here but for whatever reason, those guys at that startup specifically chose to isolate ppl that didn't speak their language. It was a modern day sweatshop and it was weird seeing even Taiwanese engineers who also grew up here for less than a decade participate in this toxic behavior. My mistake was expecting Canadian work culture and expecting others to follow it and the management who were white canadians knew exactly their culture and exploited it. Just more and more reasons to leave Vancouver. Happened to my friend who were with Indian engineers too, funny thing is they discriminate based on caste which confuses a lot of Indians from island nations, south america.
- jackling 4y ago
  "not a surprise why Canada has a brain drain going on" As a fellow Canadian, I really doubt this is the reason Canada is having "brain drain" problems. I'm in Toronto, not Vancouver, and I have never heard anyone leaving the country because of bad management. It's usually just for money.
  - chjahi92 4y ago
    It’s likely part of the problem. I stomached making less in Canada, but I couldn’t stomach making 50% less in Canada and being poorly managed by a racist. (I’m a Canadian too, speaking from my own experience border hopping for work.)
- Tiktaalik 4y ago
  Sounds like you had a terrible experience at an awful company but I've never seen anything like this in my 15+ years of working in tech in Vancouver and I'm not sure we should take your experience to be extrapolated to a greater Vancouver or Canada trend in general. Canada and multi-ethnic diversity go hand in hand. I've always worked at companies with plenty of people of Asian and South Asian heritage. Never noticed any cliques myself. Maybe because I've only worked at relatively smallish companies that are sub 400 people?
  - upupandup 4y ago
    The thing is this is not limited to the tech industry but in all areas of life in Vancouver which contributes to low social trust and lack of belonging or a commonly shared identity. The Canadian multiculturalism model is broken and increasing number of immigrants, PR and Canadian citizens are leaving Canada in record numbers. One positive of a melting pot culture is that there are common boundaries that define what is and what isn't. In Canada we do not have this and the post-state ideology that Trudeau dynasty has pushed resulted in a highly fragmented, silo'ed, patchwork of cultures that live separately and do not identify with Canadian values. If you've only worked in tech, you won't get to see the entire picture of this city and nation like I have done starting with blue collar work. I've had relatives who were bullied and working conditions worsened on purpose simply because they didn't speak the same language as their counterparts who didn't bother using English at work with an indifferent management that were exploiting the cheap labour to suppress wages. Nobody wants to work in this type of environment very long and who wants to keep paying taxes to a broken system for less pay and more stress? Still water runs deep and you won't know if you can't know.
zo1 4y ago
It's abundantly clear that any discrimination against non-favored groups is ignored and in cases promoted/celebrated. Heck, I live in a country with anti-white and pro-black laws/regulations. Minorities here plainly get denied jobs due to the color of their skin and no one bats an eye. I'm all for fairness for all, no matter their race, but seeing what I've seen in person is very eye opening. I no longer have sympathy for DEI and other such initiatives because they will always be targeted against white people and males, no matter the state of equity/fairness in the world.
- thot_experiment 4y ago
  white + male is still obviously the best build for life and it still needs more nerfs, but the devs are all playing white male and think the balance is fine
  - secondcoming 4y ago
    Are you saying that the Indians are acting as though they're 'White Males'?
    - kixiQu 4y ago
      Parent comment said: > I no longer have sympathy for DEI and other such initiatives because they will always be targeted against white people and males, no matter the state of equity/fairness in the world.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    At Google, whites are underrepresented in engineering roles. In 2022, 36% of tech hires were white, about half their national population. Asians on the other hand, made up 55% of tech hires despite making up 6% of the population [1]. Why do an underrepresented group deserve a "nerf" while vastly overrepresented groups do not? Certainly, there are demographics influences at play: higher Asian concentration in California, higher rates of graduation in tech fields. But all this DEI talk really makes one wonder if race-based hiring isn't at play here. It's really interesting how often people claim there's bias in hiring, but opposed anonymized hiring and other measures that eliminate the ability to discriminate between applicants. 1. https://about.google/belonging/diversity-annual-report/2022/ https://about.google/belonging/diversity-annual-report/2022/
SauciestGNU 4y ago
This rings somewhat true but I have no proof. What I do know is that when I was searching for a new job recently is I had nearly 100% success making it to a full loop interview with non-Indian hiring managers/tech screeners, and I never advanced in the hiring process when the initial manager screening me was Indian.
- jrsj 4y ago
  I've seen something similar from the other side except it appeared to be religious discrimination. We had a new CTO who was Pakistani and not a single candidate we interviewed made it past a phone screen with him who wasn't Muslim. They were primarily Pakistani as well but also Iranian. It was a very bizarre thing to watch and my coworker who reported this to HR was reprimanded for "racism" and let go soon after.
treis 4y ago
Happened at one of my previous jobs too. We called them the Indian Mafia because it was like Cosa Nostra minus the crime.
- jrsj 4y ago
  I think we sort of ignore this as an industry because we still look at DE&I primarily through the lense of representation and proportions and not in terms of actual power being wielded for the benefit of an in-group at the expense of the out-group. You don't need to be an outright majority to wield political power like that. And it can easily go against industry wide trends in the context of a specific company too if cliques like this form.
  - malermeister 4y ago
    In the US diversity is also seen through an oversimplifying lense of "race". Serbs, Croats and Bosnians are all "white", but there's a good chance they won't get along. Similarly, Pakistanis and Indians are both "South Asian" etc etc
  - treis 4y ago
    It's also because it's not exactly racial discrimination. They didn't hire almost all Indians because they thought white/black/hispanic people were inferior. At least I don't think they did. It was more network based and as immigrants their network were mostly other immigrants. Plus there's a lot of discrimination going the other way where American born developers got the preference. Again, not really due to racism (at least AFAICT) but more because of culture & language barriers.

by jrsj 4y ago

upupandup 4y ago

> Indian managers against non-Indian employees This happens all the time in Canada. When you have a large ethnic majority and they start identifying with the language and start bringing toxic work culture with management fully aware of the issues and exploiting this. For example for a startup I worked for in Vancouver had a large Chinese/Russian majority in the development team. They would stay behind past working hours and require me to do the same. When I left early they reported me. They also started to bully and talking only in Chinese or Russian. It was absolutely a shock and not a surprise why Canada has a brain drain going on. I don't even have any beef with these groups since I have friends from those community that grew up here but for whatever reason, those guys at that startup specifically chose to isolate ppl that didn't speak their language. It was a modern day sweatshop and it was weird seeing even Taiwanese engineers who also grew up here for less than a decade participate in this toxic behavior. My mistake was expecting Canadian work culture and expecting others to follow it and the management who were white canadians knew exactly their culture and exploited it. Just more and more reasons to leave Vancouver. Happened to my friend who were with Indian engineers too, funny thing is they discriminate based on caste which confuses a lot of Indians from island nations, south america.

jackling 4y ago
"not a surprise why Canada has a brain drain going on" As a fellow Canadian, I really doubt this is the reason Canada is having "brain drain" problems. I'm in Toronto, not Vancouver, and I have never heard anyone leaving the country because of bad management. It's usually just for money.
- chjahi92 4y ago
  It’s likely part of the problem. I stomached making less in Canada, but I couldn’t stomach making 50% less in Canada and being poorly managed by a racist. (I’m a Canadian too, speaking from my own experience border hopping for work.)
Tiktaalik 4y ago
Sounds like you had a terrible experience at an awful company but I've never seen anything like this in my 15+ years of working in tech in Vancouver and I'm not sure we should take your experience to be extrapolated to a greater Vancouver or Canada trend in general. Canada and multi-ethnic diversity go hand in hand. I've always worked at companies with plenty of people of Asian and South Asian heritage. Never noticed any cliques myself. Maybe because I've only worked at relatively smallish companies that are sub 400 people?
- upupandup 4y ago
  The thing is this is not limited to the tech industry but in all areas of life in Vancouver which contributes to low social trust and lack of belonging or a commonly shared identity. The Canadian multiculturalism model is broken and increasing number of immigrants, PR and Canadian citizens are leaving Canada in record numbers. One positive of a melting pot culture is that there are common boundaries that define what is and what isn't. In Canada we do not have this and the post-state ideology that Trudeau dynasty has pushed resulted in a highly fragmented, silo'ed, patchwork of cultures that live separately and do not identify with Canadian values. If you've only worked in tech, you won't get to see the entire picture of this city and nation like I have done starting with blue collar work. I've had relatives who were bullied and working conditions worsened on purpose simply because they didn't speak the same language as their counterparts who didn't bother using English at work with an indifferent management that were exploiting the cheap labour to suppress wages. Nobody wants to work in this type of environment very long and who wants to keep paying taxes to a broken system for less pay and more stress? Still water runs deep and you won't know if you can't know.

zo1 4y ago

It's abundantly clear that any discrimination against non-favored groups is ignored and in cases promoted/celebrated. Heck, I live in a country with anti-white and pro-black laws/regulations. Minorities here plainly get denied jobs due to the color of their skin and no one bats an eye. I'm all for fairness for all, no matter their race, but seeing what I've seen in person is very eye opening. I no longer have sympathy for DEI and other such initiatives because they will always be targeted against white people and males, no matter the state of equity/fairness in the world.

thot_experiment 4y ago
white + male is still obviously the best build for life and it still needs more nerfs, but the devs are all playing white male and think the balance is fine
- secondcoming 4y ago
  Are you saying that the Indians are acting as though they're 'White Males'?
  - kixiQu 4y ago
    Parent comment said: > I no longer have sympathy for DEI and other such initiatives because they will always be targeted against white people and males, no matter the state of equity/fairness in the world.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  At Google, whites are underrepresented in engineering roles. In 2022, 36% of tech hires were white, about half their national population. Asians on the other hand, made up 55% of tech hires despite making up 6% of the population [1]. Why do an underrepresented group deserve a "nerf" while vastly overrepresented groups do not? Certainly, there are demographics influences at play: higher Asian concentration in California, higher rates of graduation in tech fields. But all this DEI talk really makes one wonder if race-based hiring isn't at play here. It's really interesting how often people claim there's bias in hiring, but opposed anonymized hiring and other measures that eliminate the ability to discriminate between applicants. 1. https://about.google/belonging/diversity-annual-report/2022/ https://about.google/belonging/diversity-annual-report/2022/

SauciestGNU 4y ago

This rings somewhat true but I have no proof. What I do know is that when I was searching for a new job recently is I had nearly 100% success making it to a full loop interview with non-Indian hiring managers/tech screeners, and I never advanced in the hiring process when the initial manager screening me was Indian.

jrsj 4y ago
I've seen something similar from the other side except it appeared to be religious discrimination. We had a new CTO who was Pakistani and not a single candidate we interviewed made it past a phone screen with him who wasn't Muslim. They were primarily Pakistani as well but also Iranian. It was a very bizarre thing to watch and my coworker who reported this to HR was reprimanded for "racism" and let go soon after.

treis 4y ago

Happened at one of my previous jobs too. We called them the Indian Mafia because it was like Cosa Nostra minus the crime.

jrsj 4y ago
I think we sort of ignore this as an industry because we still look at DE&I primarily through the lense of representation and proportions and not in terms of actual power being wielded for the benefit of an in-group at the expense of the out-group. You don't need to be an outright majority to wield political power like that. And it can easily go against industry wide trends in the context of a specific company too if cliques like this form.
- malermeister 4y ago
  In the US diversity is also seen through an oversimplifying lense of "race". Serbs, Croats and Bosnians are all "white", but there's a good chance they won't get along. Similarly, Pakistanis and Indians are both "South Asian" etc etc
- treis 4y ago
  It's also because it's not exactly racial discrimination. They didn't hire almost all Indians because they thought white/black/hispanic people were inferior. At least I don't think they did. It was more network based and as immigrants their network were mostly other immigrants. Plus there's a lot of discrimination going the other way where American born developers got the preference. Again, not really due to racism (at least AFAICT) but more because of culture & language barriers.