16 ms·

looks the other way when Indian director has all Indian SDMs reporting to him It’s all lip service. Nepotism is rampant at FAANG

dam_broke_it 4y ago
dimitrios1 4y ago
- wnolens 4y ago
  I agree most are hard working and no complaints, but that isn't necessarily the best quality. I so often have to speak up against BS because my 90+% Indian team is too passive. I'm also an immigrant, so same work authorization concern.
- greatpostman 4y ago
  Dude I’ve watched this show go on for a decade. Been at two faangs, it’s the same story over and over
- myth_drannon 4y ago
  More like desperate H1Bs that are afraid to shake the boat because one wrong move and they are out of the country. We shouldn't celebrate slave mentality.
  - dimitrios1 4y ago
    Again, I pre-empted these types of debates by saying we can split hairs on why this is. I am not denying this is the case for some, but also it's not the entire picture. I know plenty non-H1Bs that fit this bill, and there have been plenty of articles written on the rise of the Indian-American worker, especially in the tech sector https://www.southasiamonitor.org/spotlight/unprecedented-rise-indian-american-ceo-corporate-america https://www.southasiamonitor.org/spotlight/unprecedented-ris..., use your favorite search engine for a plethora of other recent articles on the subject.
    - 310260 4y ago
      These scenarios are the case for many Indian people and others working in the US. It's not an edge case. There are no hairs to split when immigration and citizenship status are integral to why people might act the way they do...
      - dimitrios1 4y ago
        It's how migrant families (including my own) always have been here. They have always been willing to put in more, even when they clearly are aware they are being taken advantaged of (by the American standards, of course). I am 1st generation, and I can tell you right now, I would never work 13 hour days every week for years on end without a vacation like my father did. And that's a good thing, of course. But again, my comment was intended to be an observation more than anything.
    - __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
      I've noticed the same kind of trend, except in my case it's not working out the same way. My Indian team mates are happy to diligently put in the hours, but it has been difficult to convince them that they should instead rock boat a little in cases where those hours aren't clearly helping anybody. 20 well thought out hours > 40 hours running tests you know will pass. It's a pity that discussing cultural differences as things that can be an asset or a hindrance is taboo. I surely have my own inherited hang-ups and it would be helpful to have it pointed out every now and then.
- frostwarrior 4y ago
  You are treading dangerous waters here. Why paying a decent wage and have a nice work-life balance when there are people in the 3rd word working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week and for pennies? Worker's rights should expand towards the world, not the other way around.
  - dimitrios1 4y ago
    There's a balance to have. I tried to focus more on tech industry. Tech industry is paying well beyond decent wage. You have to take things in perspective. You are comparing apples to oranges. Again I am not disagreeing with expanding workers rights. Beyond any of these discussions, I was attempting to make an objective observation: The current status of American corporations value those who will put in more hours, and in general, are less demanding. It's just kind of the facts. Again, we can debate why this is ad nasuem, H1Bs, migrant labor in general, history of labor unions, capitalism, etc etc etc etc. But as it stands today, someone who will tell their boss "yes, I'll get that done", especially after hours or beyond standard expectations will get promoted more often than not. It's just the way it is. It's not a statement of right/wrong.
    - lostgame 4y ago
      >> But as it stands today, someone who will tell their boss "yes, I'll get that done", especially after hours or beyond standard expectations will get promoted more often than not. It's just the way it is. That is…unfortunately, exactly the opposite of what happens more often than not. More often than not - promotions are accrued through social credit and personal preference. You will quite often see the hardest working people get passed by for a promotion for the manager’s friend, etc. Your ‘objective observation’ is…not accurate. If this was the way it was - we wouldn’t need laws related to racism, sexism, etc in hiring practices. I don’t know what kind of idealistic fantasy America you’re imagining up, but in the real one that exists on Earth these are serious problems.
      - frostwarrior 4y ago
        Not everything is corruption and cronyism. There are cases where the one that gets the promotion it's the one that sells themselves the most, instead of the "overengineer". Being assertive, going straight to the solution and inspiring security is something that boosts a developer's career a lot. Some people mistake that being a good professional is saying "yes" to everything and putting endless extra hours behind the code. And often that isn't the case.
- ggdxdswgb 4y ago
  Attributing characterstics to popultions of hundreds of millions based on anecdotal data from a handful cannot be accurate, just perpetuates stereotypes and doesn't help.
  - dimitrios1 4y ago
    If you are stereotypically a hard worker, selfless, and familial, this is bad and doesn't help? Doesn't help what?
    - honkdaddy 4y ago
      In this specific case sure, most Indians probably wouldn't be offended by being associated with those qualities because they're almost universally positive. It very quickly gets murky though, since most racial or geographical stereotypes _aren't_ totally positive, and making observations about different groups will usually end up drawing the ire of at least a couple folks.
- malfist 4y ago
  > Meanwhile, your Indian coworkers are quietly putting in the hours day in and day out Hours != Getting things done. You can have your butt in the chair 9/9/6 and be less productive than someone who only works 30 hours a week. There's a reason senior leadership promotions is about being a force multiplier and not the number of hours we put in. Measuring number of hours as productivity is the way to burn out.
eatbitseveryday 4y ago
At a large semiconductor company, the same could be said for many groups: Chinese hiring other Chinese, one group hiring native Americans mostly, others with Hispanic origin…
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Human tribalism is, unfortunately, present everywhere. Every country and every company.
  - raverbashing 4y ago
    True. At a minor scale, all this is fine. People do hire colleagues from previous jobs or from the same Uni, for example But there's a limit and managers, etc need to be very aware. You can't just have one person hiring all their acquaintances
- rhexs 4y ago
  A Native American group? I mean damn, that’s gotta be so rare I’d almost support it. Or did you mean an American company hiring Americans? That’d be pretty rare too.
  - dj_gitmo 4y ago
    A lot of US semiconductor fabs are in New Mexico. Some were even built on Navajo land. It's an industry where Native Americans were well represented.
    - AlotOfReading 4y ago
      Which fabs are in NM other than Intel's 11x (and maybe Sandia)? Wikipedia [1] doesn't list anything, but I also don't see many smaller, exotic technology fabs on there. I'm really curious where they could site a fab on the Navajo reservation because of how profoundly inadequate most of the infrastructure is even for typical American households, let alone a fab. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat...
ramesh31 4y ago
>looks the other way when Indian director has all Indian SDMs reporting to him I've seen it happen so many times now that I can call it ahead of time. Critical mass is when you get a VP. From there, you go from representational levels to >50% Indian in a matter of months.
- eweise 4y ago
  Happened at my last company. They hired an Indian CTO and before long, all the management under him was Indian. He basically made life unbearable for the existing leaders until they quit and then brought in someone he knew. Seemed like blatant racism to me.
ValentineC 4y ago
I don't know if it's nepotism, but Changi Business Park [1], a tech hub in Singapore, is nicknamed Chennai Business Park [2], for much of the same reason outlined in this thread. [1] http://www.changibusinesspark.com/ http://www.changibusinesspark.com/ [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=chennai+business+park https://www.google.com/search?q=chennai+business+park
colechristensen 4y ago
Having done many interviews around silicon valley, the demographics of companies definitely seem very ... themed. Not necessarily monochromatic for a particular ethnic group, but a small set of ethic groups usually overwhelmingly represented. And at that, this wasn't a thing that seemed particularly biased towards one theme.
- mmmpop 4y ago
  Maybe not the exact place for this, but after a few years of working with "near-shore" development groups in Latin America, I can't believe how white the leadership is. For all who think the US is #1 awful place for non-White folks, just look at Brazil.
- drstewart 4y ago
  Brazilians. I know of one group of ~4 that basically follows the leader (a Director / CXO type) to every position. Whenever he moves, they all inevitable end up at the same exact company within 1-3 months. It's actually impressive how consistent their resumes are going back a decade or so.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    That is something that always happens, regardless of nation, race or religion.
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      To some extent, people don‘t quit jobs, they quit managers. In the same sense the opposite can be true.
  - zekrioca 4y ago
    I know many North Americans and Europeans who do the same.
- themanmaran 4y ago
  They always travel in groups of five... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-b7-fLOjlY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-b7-fLOjlY
strikelaserclaw 4y ago
its cause indian managers can have fiefdoms with other indians under them. total power.
thankful69 4y ago
If it is, is kept very secret between Indian employees, most American engineers (at least I would) will raise the issue. I don't care how high the is Director, I would just tell him that he is being racist , at his face, if he gets me fired, I would sue the company in a second. I have never seen this non-sense at FAANG in the 7 years I have worked here (Amazon first, then Google).
- oefrha 4y ago
  It’s not a secret? I recall having a discussion on this with a bunch of SV engineers a decade ago at a potluck and almost everyone observed how Indian managers tend to hire Indians at their respective companies.
  - thankful69 4y ago
    Oh yeah, I was referring to discrimination in the workplace itself. So far all Indians I have met are amazing people, and I have not seen any type of discrimination against other Indians, otherwise I will whine very loud for sure.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
I love when there is a position that sounds awesome but then says something like: "Hispanic or other underprivileged groups are encouraged to apply". It's legal to say that out loud?
- teakettle42 4y ago
  The most charitable interpretation is that they are attempting to increase representation in the pipeline of candidates, such that their unbiased, neutral selection process will naturally produce outcomes representative of their candidate pool. That’s legal. In reality, when you have companies literally setting hiring targets on the basis of protected characteristics? It’s very unlikely that the selection process is neutral to those protected characteristics, which is not legal.
- pm90 4y ago
  Yes it is, because statistically they do not.
ajross 4y ago
To be fair: nepotism is rampant everywhere, and has been throughout history. How many groups have you worked in or seen where everyone got recruited from the same set of schools? Where everyone used to work together at some other company? The difference with what you're seeing is all down to who is allowed to be nepotistic. When south asian engineers were predominantly junior immigrants, you didn't notice anything wrong. Now the casteists are doing the hiring too. But the effect is the same.
- eweise 4y ago
  Nepotism where everyone hired is the same race is called racism.
amzn-throw 4y ago
Since we're sharing anecdotes and that's good enough for this thread, here's my own: I'm a white guy - pretty much a typical one. My manager is a white guy - possibly even more typical, follow along North American Dude Stereotypes for both of us. For most of the last 2 years, he had 8 reports - 3 managers, 3 product managers, and 2 principal engineers (me being one of them). I was the only white guys out of 8 - the rest were all Indian. Why? Because the other 6 were the best people for the job. They applied for it (some external, some internal), and we hired them, cuz they were rad (and still are). Demographically, that just happens sometimes, including all-Indian reports

dam_broke_it 4y ago

dimitrios1 4y ago

wnolens 4y ago
I agree most are hard working and no complaints, but that isn't necessarily the best quality. I so often have to speak up against BS because my 90+% Indian team is too passive. I'm also an immigrant, so same work authorization concern.
greatpostman 4y ago
Dude I’ve watched this show go on for a decade. Been at two faangs, it’s the same story over and over
myth_drannon 4y ago
More like desperate H1Bs that are afraid to shake the boat because one wrong move and they are out of the country. We shouldn't celebrate slave mentality.
- dimitrios1 4y ago
  Again, I pre-empted these types of debates by saying we can split hairs on why this is. I am not denying this is the case for some, but also it's not the entire picture. I know plenty non-H1Bs that fit this bill, and there have been plenty of articles written on the rise of the Indian-American worker, especially in the tech sector https://www.southasiamonitor.org/spotlight/unprecedented-rise-indian-american-ceo-corporate-america https://www.southasiamonitor.org/spotlight/unprecedented-ris..., use your favorite search engine for a plethora of other recent articles on the subject.
  - 310260 4y ago
    These scenarios are the case for many Indian people and others working in the US. It's not an edge case. There are no hairs to split when immigration and citizenship status are integral to why people might act the way they do...
    - dimitrios1 4y ago
      It's how migrant families (including my own) always have been here. They have always been willing to put in more, even when they clearly are aware they are being taken advantaged of (by the American standards, of course). I am 1st generation, and I can tell you right now, I would never work 13 hour days every week for years on end without a vacation like my father did. And that's a good thing, of course. But again, my comment was intended to be an observation more than anything.
  - __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
    I've noticed the same kind of trend, except in my case it's not working out the same way. My Indian team mates are happy to diligently put in the hours, but it has been difficult to convince them that they should instead rock boat a little in cases where those hours aren't clearly helping anybody. 20 well thought out hours > 40 hours running tests you know will pass. It's a pity that discussing cultural differences as things that can be an asset or a hindrance is taboo. I surely have my own inherited hang-ups and it would be helpful to have it pointed out every now and then.
frostwarrior 4y ago
You are treading dangerous waters here. Why paying a decent wage and have a nice work-life balance when there are people in the 3rd word working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week and for pennies? Worker's rights should expand towards the world, not the other way around.
- dimitrios1 4y ago
  There's a balance to have. I tried to focus more on tech industry. Tech industry is paying well beyond decent wage. You have to take things in perspective. You are comparing apples to oranges. Again I am not disagreeing with expanding workers rights. Beyond any of these discussions, I was attempting to make an objective observation: The current status of American corporations value those who will put in more hours, and in general, are less demanding. It's just kind of the facts. Again, we can debate why this is ad nasuem, H1Bs, migrant labor in general, history of labor unions, capitalism, etc etc etc etc. But as it stands today, someone who will tell their boss "yes, I'll get that done", especially after hours or beyond standard expectations will get promoted more often than not. It's just the way it is. It's not a statement of right/wrong.
  - lostgame 4y ago
    >> But as it stands today, someone who will tell their boss "yes, I'll get that done", especially after hours or beyond standard expectations will get promoted more often than not. It's just the way it is. That is…unfortunately, exactly the opposite of what happens more often than not. More often than not - promotions are accrued through social credit and personal preference. You will quite often see the hardest working people get passed by for a promotion for the manager’s friend, etc. Your ‘objective observation’ is…not accurate. If this was the way it was - we wouldn’t need laws related to racism, sexism, etc in hiring practices. I don’t know what kind of idealistic fantasy America you’re imagining up, but in the real one that exists on Earth these are serious problems.
    - frostwarrior 4y ago
      Not everything is corruption and cronyism. There are cases where the one that gets the promotion it's the one that sells themselves the most, instead of the "overengineer". Being assertive, going straight to the solution and inspiring security is something that boosts a developer's career a lot. Some people mistake that being a good professional is saying "yes" to everything and putting endless extra hours behind the code. And often that isn't the case.
ggdxdswgb 4y ago
Attributing characterstics to popultions of hundreds of millions based on anecdotal data from a handful cannot be accurate, just perpetuates stereotypes and doesn't help.
- dimitrios1 4y ago
  If you are stereotypically a hard worker, selfless, and familial, this is bad and doesn't help? Doesn't help what?
  - honkdaddy 4y ago
    In this specific case sure, most Indians probably wouldn't be offended by being associated with those qualities because they're almost universally positive. It very quickly gets murky though, since most racial or geographical stereotypes _aren't_ totally positive, and making observations about different groups will usually end up drawing the ire of at least a couple folks.
malfist 4y ago
> Meanwhile, your Indian coworkers are quietly putting in the hours day in and day out Hours != Getting things done. You can have your butt in the chair 9/9/6 and be less productive than someone who only works 30 hours a week. There's a reason senior leadership promotions is about being a force multiplier and not the number of hours we put in. Measuring number of hours as productivity is the way to burn out.

eatbitseveryday 4y ago

At a large semiconductor company, the same could be said for many groups: Chinese hiring other Chinese, one group hiring native Americans mostly, others with Hispanic origin…

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Human tribalism is, unfortunately, present everywhere. Every country and every company.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  True. At a minor scale, all this is fine. People do hire colleagues from previous jobs or from the same Uni, for example But there's a limit and managers, etc need to be very aware. You can't just have one person hiring all their acquaintances
rhexs 4y ago
A Native American group? I mean damn, that’s gotta be so rare I’d almost support it. Or did you mean an American company hiring Americans? That’d be pretty rare too.
- dj_gitmo 4y ago
  A lot of US semiconductor fabs are in New Mexico. Some were even built on Navajo land. It's an industry where Native Americans were well represented.
  - AlotOfReading 4y ago
    Which fabs are in NM other than Intel's 11x (and maybe Sandia)? Wikipedia [1] doesn't list anything, but I also don't see many smaller, exotic technology fabs on there. I'm really curious where they could site a fab on the Navajo reservation because of how profoundly inadequate most of the infrastructure is even for typical American households, let alone a fab. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat...

ramesh31 4y ago

>looks the other way when Indian director has all Indian SDMs reporting to him I've seen it happen so many times now that I can call it ahead of time. Critical mass is when you get a VP. From there, you go from representational levels to >50% Indian in a matter of months.

eweise 4y ago
Happened at my last company. They hired an Indian CTO and before long, all the management under him was Indian. He basically made life unbearable for the existing leaders until they quit and then brought in someone he knew. Seemed like blatant racism to me.

ValentineC 4y ago

I don't know if it's nepotism, but Changi Business Park [1], a tech hub in Singapore, is nicknamed Chennai Business Park [2], for much of the same reason outlined in this thread. [1] http://www.changibusinesspark.com/ http://www.changibusinesspark.com/ [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=chennai+business+park https://www.google.com/search?q=chennai+business+park

colechristensen 4y ago

Having done many interviews around silicon valley, the demographics of companies definitely seem very ... themed. Not necessarily monochromatic for a particular ethnic group, but a small set of ethic groups usually overwhelmingly represented. And at that, this wasn't a thing that seemed particularly biased towards one theme.

mmmpop 4y ago
Maybe not the exact place for this, but after a few years of working with "near-shore" development groups in Latin America, I can't believe how white the leadership is. For all who think the US is #1 awful place for non-White folks, just look at Brazil.
drstewart 4y ago
Brazilians. I know of one group of ~4 that basically follows the leader (a Director / CXO type) to every position. Whenever he moves, they all inevitable end up at the same exact company within 1-3 months. It's actually impressive how consistent their resumes are going back a decade or so.
- hef19898 4y ago
  That is something that always happens, regardless of nation, race or religion.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    To some extent, people don‘t quit jobs, they quit managers. In the same sense the opposite can be true.
- zekrioca 4y ago
  I know many North Americans and Europeans who do the same.
themanmaran 4y ago
They always travel in groups of five... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-b7-fLOjlY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-b7-fLOjlY

strikelaserclaw 4y ago

its cause indian managers can have fiefdoms with other indians under them. total power.

thankful69 4y ago

If it is, is kept very secret between Indian employees, most American engineers (at least I would) will raise the issue. I don't care how high the is Director, I would just tell him that he is being racist , at his face, if he gets me fired, I would sue the company in a second. I have never seen this non-sense at FAANG in the 7 years I have worked here (Amazon first, then Google).

oefrha 4y ago
It’s not a secret? I recall having a discussion on this with a bunch of SV engineers a decade ago at a potluck and almost everyone observed how Indian managers tend to hire Indians at their respective companies.
- thankful69 4y ago
  Oh yeah, I was referring to discrimination in the workplace itself. So far all Indians I have met are amazing people, and I have not seen any type of discrimination against other Indians, otherwise I will whine very loud for sure.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

I love when there is a position that sounds awesome but then says something like: "Hispanic or other underprivileged groups are encouraged to apply". It's legal to say that out loud?

teakettle42 4y ago
The most charitable interpretation is that they are attempting to increase representation in the pipeline of candidates, such that their unbiased, neutral selection process will naturally produce outcomes representative of their candidate pool. That’s legal. In reality, when you have companies literally setting hiring targets on the basis of protected characteristics? It’s very unlikely that the selection process is neutral to those protected characteristics, which is not legal.
pm90 4y ago
Yes it is, because statistically they do not.

ajross 4y ago

To be fair: nepotism is rampant everywhere, and has been throughout history. How many groups have you worked in or seen where everyone got recruited from the same set of schools? Where everyone used to work together at some other company? The difference with what you're seeing is all down to who is allowed to be nepotistic. When south asian engineers were predominantly junior immigrants, you didn't notice anything wrong. Now the casteists are doing the hiring too. But the effect is the same.

eweise 4y ago
Nepotism where everyone hired is the same race is called racism.

amzn-throw 4y ago

Since we're sharing anecdotes and that's good enough for this thread, here's my own: I'm a white guy - pretty much a typical one. My manager is a white guy - possibly even more typical, follow along North American Dude Stereotypes for both of us. For most of the last 2 years, he had 8 reports - 3 managers, 3 product managers, and 2 principal engineers (me being one of them). I was the only white guys out of 8 - the rest were all Indian. Why? Because the other 6 were the best people for the job. They applied for it (some external, some internal), and we hired them, cuz they were rad (and still are). Demographically, that just happens sometimes, including all-Indian reports