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In the early 1990s when I came here, the prevailing wisdom was that its categorically better to immigrate to the US from India if you get a chance. India was to

by dxbydt 4y ago

In the early 1990s when I came here, the prevailing wisdom was that its categorically better to immigrate to the US from India if you get a chance. India was too far back in the tech space, too much bureaucracy, corruption, red-tape etc etc... In the 2020s, the consensus is quite mixed. A lot of people I personally worked with, who successfully got their visas and green cards, have given it all up and gone straight back to India because that's where the action is. It was quite baffling to me because it takes a lot of work to get these documents. But after a few trips to India, I must say it makes a lot of sense. The startup funding situation, tech jobs hiring scenario, cost of living, telecom, healthcare, no prevalence of gun culture...every aspect is much better in India currently than the US. If you have high 6 low 7 figure USD saved up, and not too deeply tied to the US, you should consider moving back if you want to tap into a potential windfall. That said, if you only have 5 figure USD, coming to the US is the better option if you can swing it. If you're already here on a visa, stay frugal & grow that nest egg. Going back with a 5 figure sum is quite risky unless you have some solid contacts in the startup space or are ok with the Indian job scene. Interviews over there are insanely competitive. 500+ LC. Kids just stay at home grinding LC all day. There are dedicated youtube channels in Hindi & other regional lang telling you how to dynamic program, backtrack, div & conquer, two pointer....its a whole different scene.

sremani 4y ago
People are making an error based on the past 20 years of debt binge and capital flooding that took over the world. When the FDI dries up, India is a very weird place. The energy costs will put a number in Asia and Europe in the next decade with dramatic food security challenges. Overall, at macro level, US beats India, but are there positive offshoots in some niches.. perhaps!
- naravara 4y ago
  The US may beat India in macro level economic factors for quite a while to come, but for a more senior professional with a marketable resume I think it's not too hard to find the positive niches. Honestly the main thing that keeps me from moving back is quality of life concerns with traffic, air quality, and noise pollution.
  - radicaldreamer 4y ago
    I think the pollution, weather, water quality, noise, dust, and overall lack of high quality public spaces is a big deal. India is amazing and dynamic in a lot of ways, but there are major intangibles to account for (like how much one values a quiet evening walk in fresh air).
    - Ar-Curunir 4y ago
      You don't have to live in a Delhi or a Mumbai or a Bangalore. Cities like Dehradun, Ranchi, and more provide many of these amenities.
      - sremani 4y ago
        The most important amenity is Employment. Only a small portion of people would move to tier-2 seconds and that too because of familial ties not some over whelming amenities. By and large NRIs moving back from US end up in the usual metros at least in the beginning.
      - jitix 4y ago
        I grew up in a state capital and lived in 2 metro cities and honestly the infrastructure was better in my home city in terms of electricity, water and flooding. But there are very few tech jobs, which gives the 2-3 employers there huge leverage due to the lack of job mobility. Hopefully between fibre penetration and WFH culture things will improve.
      - spaceman_2020 4y ago
        Man there is really nothing much to do in these smaller cities. It gets boring very fast. There is also a culture that’s very socially intrusive. People will drop in on you unannounced randomly. Which is great if you’re a socially extroverted person but if you want to get some work done, not the best case scenario
- rakejake 4y ago
  Not all countries are blessed with the nature's bounty that the US is blessed with. I agree Energy is something India will be working on furiously in the coming decade. I presume both nuclear and renewable will be expanded rapidly. In the interim, India does have good relationships with most energy producing countries (Russia, Saudi). What food security challenges does India have? India has been much poorer in the past and hasn't had any food security issues in a long time.
  - jamal-kumar 4y ago
    I remember when the price of onions went from well under a dollar for a single large onion to about a dollar or more for a large one when there was an enormous amount of flooding in india around 2019-2020, ruining their crops. Apparently the onion is a huge staple out there compared to the Americas and so they needed to source onions from pretty much everywhere else. It sounds like a trivial price increase maybe to some people in more affluent countries but some in Latin America, it was a pretty challenging price increase. My personal groceries bill is about 25$usd per week, meat vegetables and a bit of cereal goods. Used to be less within a decade ago, but hey what can you do - North America I was paying closer to 100
  - eldaisfish 4y ago
    India is entirely dependent on the monsoon for fresh water. When combined with a warming climate, this is a disaster waiting to happen. I am 100% confident that we will live to see the days when food scarcity returns to India. Mind you, indian soils are some of the most fertile in the world so this really is an alarming scenario. India's past issues with food scarcity were due to a combination of mismanagement and theft. Partly the british empire and partly the lack of skills in India. Widespread crop failures haven't been a thing for a while now.
  - wowokay 4y ago
    I feel like a good relationship with Russia is not a plus for India right now.
    - vkou 4y ago
- weatherlite 4y ago
  India is getting Russian oil pretty cheap now as far as I know, and most likely Iran as well. The U.S is not immune to the energy problem btw, Shale oil is getting more expensive because all the easy spots were already used.
  - sremani 4y ago
    I cannot argue here. What would go wrong, if Russian Oil and Gas are foundational to your Energy Security. Let me call Angela Merkel.
    - weatherlite 4y ago
      It's very unlikely Russia will do anything to mess up what they have going with China and India...because they don't have much other alternatives. I am not talking morals here ... I am calling it as it is. This has nothing to do with morals.
      - bluGill 4y ago
        If Russia did reasonable things they wouldn't have attacked Ukraine. Since we are talking about a Russia willing to do stupid things there is no reason to believe they won't mess with India or China.
        weatherlite 4y ago
        > If Russia did reasonable things they wouldn't have attacked Ukraine If the U.S did reasonable things they wouldn't have attacked Iraq.
        ss2003 4y ago
        Attacking Iraq was a very, very bad idea. Attacking Ukraine is suicidal.
        4y ago
candiodari 4y ago
What's "LC" ?
- advisedwang 4y ago
  LeetCode I think
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
eldaisfish 4y ago
be careful generalising india because anything that one can claim, the opposite is also true. A major reason countries like the USA and the UK flourish is stability. Stability is not something india has and that is a very difficult thing to put a price on. Indian capital markets are not transparent though that is less of an issue for startups. What should be telling is the number of "Indian" startups that are registered in places like Singapore. I have to rain on your parade but there are many aspects of life in India that money cannot solve. I am no fan of the USA either but the "gun culture" thing is a strawman that doesn't affect daily life in the cities. It is certainly a problem but not a problem that many make it out to be. Be careful with the healthcare argument too. India's legal and police systems are a joke and their healthcare system is cheap but kills millions every year due to medical negligence. The US healthcare system - for all its flaws - has some of the best outcomes provided you have enough money to access it.
- okasaki 4y ago
  The UK isn't thriving - 18% inflation, low salaries (except in the money laundering industry), bad and very expensive housing, no infrastructure investment, etc.
  - cromka 4y ago
    > no infrastructure investment I think one could say anything about UK these days, but lack of infrastructure investment? Seriously? UK compared to the US, it's like 50 years of difference. And I'd argue it's still ahead of most of the old EU, too.
    - throw0821374 4y ago
      .
      - ralphmelish 4y ago
        Get a license for what? I don't really understand the relationship between bureaucracy and buying a book... You can buy anything you like from anywhere in the world, pay your duty online, and have it delivered to your door. I did it a couple of times with DHL, Royal Mail, and never had any issues.
cercatrova 4y ago
One reason not to go back to India: climate change and heat. People are basically burning alive there and due to the high population, many people will starve in the coming decades as droughts cause crop failures. This will cause food and water wars as rising instability of the subcontinent means many people will need asylum. The area will not be geopolitically, financially, or otherwise stable in such a time. If I were a betting person, I'd move as close to the poles as possible in the coming future.
- frontman1988 4y ago
  Not to forget the air pollution. The PM 2.5 levels are morbidly high. Millions of deaths are linked to air pollution. People in their 40s,50s are increasingly dying of cardiac arrest, more and more kids have asthama and other lung diseases. Delhi is literally a gas chamber, even Bangalore air is mostly at unhealthy level. Given the population density and increasing industrialization, this problem is only going to increase in the next 10-15 years.
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    This is the thing for me. You couldn't pay me a million dollars a year to live/work in Gurgaon (Ok, maybe a million for a year or two, but then I'd be out). It is the place that comes closest to Blade Runner in my mind. Every time I went outside I felt like the air was trying to kill me. All of the giant hulking new offices and extremely little green space are like right out of some post apocalyptic nightmare.
- YetAnotherNick 4y ago
  > People are basically burning alive there and due to the high population This is only true for poor people. It might sound bad, but average Indian live much worse life than someone who could afford/have skills to visit US.
  - cercatrova 4y ago
    Yes, however due to there being significantly more poor people than rich people, especially tech workers, there will be antagonizing behavior in the future. There will be country-wide instability, and even if you're rich, a comparatively rich country like in Europe or the US will be substantially more stable than one with a higher degree of income inequality.
jitix 4y ago
I worked in the US and felt that H1B status was very insecure so I tried to start my own company in India in 2020, and also explored the job and housing market. I agree 100% with all the great financial and work-related competitive points you've highlighted but I believe it misses the human and quality of life factors. Things that really affected my mental health in India during that time: 1. Food: Lack of variety in food and food ingredients. I like to eat out and cook different cuisines (Japanese to Korean to Middle eastern to French to Northern European). Beef is a major issue in India and fresh sushi can be a hit or miss even in Balgalore. And nothing is available if you're outside of the major metro cities. 2. Prices: If you're in Bangalore you do get a wide variety of food including beef dishes but equivalent quality restaurants and bars in India have the similar range prices as the US (I used to live in the south so it might not be apples to apples). Same goes for food ingredients - e.g. Almond milk and cheddar cheese costs the same in India as in the US. 3. Traffic and honking: Even sitting in an Uber for 30 mins can be maddening for me. Not to mention people actually yell obscenities at each other in traffic jams. 4. Interruptions: India still has power cuts, water supply and flooding issues and the bigger the city (with more opportunities) the worse these problems are. The gated communities in the metros alleviate many of these issues but then you're paying $1000 or more per month in rent or purchase for $600-700K. So same as most developed countries. My conclusion was that if you got somewhat acclimated to the having a better QoL in the west (which is different than standard of living) you really need to try living there for a few months and see if it makes financial sense, because you'll be paying western prices on a Indian salary. As always YMMV depending on your preferences. I myself ended up moving to Canada. edit: fixed typo
- stainforth 4y ago
  Sounds like those points are all ripe opportunities for startups of their own no? Just a matter of identifying market gaps, I'm sure that's why US companies have hired so many Indians, just simple filling of needs and not some other mechanic as to way the world works.
  - fn-mote 4y ago
    Pretty sure you forgot the /s but just in case: a startup to fix "power cuts, water supply and flooding issues"? Like "startup government". I guess that's what the gated communities are?
anukin 4y ago
Even though it can be agreed that coming back to India is a good option for most many Indians, it is also to be noted that Indian political games within Indian orgs make it super hard to do anything. IMO the only reason to go back to India should be to start on your own with your trusted friends. If you think you can work in India and contribute positively think again.
- milchek 4y ago
  Genuinely curious what Indian political games within Indian orgs means? Are they vastly different from politics and culture in western orgs?
hello_moto 4y ago
> 500+ LC. Kids just stay at home grinding LC all day. There are dedicated youtube channels in Hindi & other regional lang telling you how to dynamic program, backtrack, div & conquer, two pointer....its a whole different scene. That's because it is a deeply rooted culture/attitude of the people in India (or other developing countries): intellectual one-upmanship (i.e.: my "brain" is bigger than yours). Nobody wants to be perceived to acquire something (a job, a house, anything) easily; people want to have a sense of the greatest achievement after a tough grind.
- jitix 4y ago
  This is something that is really concerning to me. If everybody is pushed towards a STEM job the market becomes saturated affecting salaries (and the associated "prestige" in Indian society). And to top it off young children are forced to give up their childhood to pursue Byjus and other scams that prey on the parents' emotions. I grew up in the professional class in India and a lot of thinking is plain irrational and just driven by a herd mentality and superiority complex. Just toxicity all around tbh. If someone wants to become a travel photographer and is happy with the job and the lifestyle why push them towards a soul sucking STEM job where they may not even excel? But somehow having a low paying "engineer" job is somewhat better than a higher paying "artist" job in their eyes. And to those reading from outside of India: WITCH company jobs are actually considered prestigious in India. Maybe not by those who frequent HN (bubbles everywhere) but the vast majority of STEM graduates and their communities.
  - tintedfireglass 4y ago
    how in the world is working in Infosys or Wipro prestigious. you are just a robot doing some repetitive task for some random dude on the other side of the world
    - namaria 4y ago
      Because it's compared to lower classes sweeping the streets or dumpster diving.
- 4y ago
pastor_bob 4y ago
> Interviews over there are insanely competitive. Why is it then that it's common understanding that Indian teams are usually bad? Why are they so difficult to deal with and why do they produce bad code?
- harshalizee 4y ago
  Because you get what you pay for. A significant number of engineers that FAANGM and a lot of others brings into the US from their Indian offices are top-notch. The salaries they pay in India are in the $60k-130k range which is incredibly good there. Same with a lot of good startups and core engineering firms. The off-shore consultancies you might be familiar with are sweat shops that are a dime a dozen with engineers coming and going a revolving door. They're optimized to make a quick buck with as cheap labor as possible. Just like the US firms that hires them.
- bluGill 4y ago
  There a over a billion people in India, and tech is where the young have been going for a while. In any large population you willhave good and bad people. In the US the bad move to something else, but in India there isn't a something else better than working for a place that will hire you cheap to produce bad code. There are a lot of bad engineers in India, but if you can weed through them and are willing to pay there are a lot of great ones too.
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 4y ago
  Body/team leasing is nearly always shit quality, doesn't matter if it's from India or not. You can try to pay folk in India much less than you can get away with in e.g. Europe though.
  - 8ytecoder 4y ago
    I've had some good experience hiring contractors. It all depends on what the goal is. If the goal is high quality work there are shops for that and if the goal is for a big enterprise to manage costs and de-risk themselves by hiring contractors as easy-to-let-go resources, you get exactly that. I've dealt with both and the latter is just extremely frustrating made infinitely worse by dealing with the timezone. If you've seen job placements in top tier colleges in India, it's obvious that none of the body shops ever get even a small percentage of graduates wanting to join. They're always the last choice even for the less academically inclined. It has been the case since at least 2005. Until then these companies still had some sway and were hiring some good candidates. Now they're coasting on their "account winning" architects who then transfer all day-to-day stuff to some of the most tough to deal with engineers.
LZ_Khan 4y ago
Is that why my LeetCode ranking is always so depressingly abysmal? My solutions are always bottom 25% of speed and space usage, and the pass rate for some of their questions are way higher than my average.
- runlevel1 4y ago
  It might be like the old adage says: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- TrackerFF 4y ago
  Lots of people just copy/paste the optimal solution, and submit.
cyanydeez 4y ago
Aside from the same far right nationalists making headway in authoritarian, it probably would be great
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  I haven't tracked Indian politics, but they are comparing India with the US here. After Trump, you think India could be doing worse? That's saying something.
  - random314 4y ago
    They are literally building concentration camps for Citizens. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/2/how-is-it-human-indias-largest-detention-centre-almost-ready https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/2/how-is-it-human-indi... https://www.telegraphindia.com/north-east/another-goalpara-camp-inmate-dies/cid/1733097 https://www.telegraphindia.com/north-east/another-goalpara-c...
yieldcrv 4y ago
May I ask, how fast are the exits if I was to invest in India companies? One thing that turned me off from US venture capital was the culture of delaying exits to the stock market, compared to the 90s when Microsoft/Netscape/Amazon all IPO'd at like $30 million market caps and rallied and there was so much upside and liquidity. Is there a culture like that in India right now, or something similar? I really like how the Matic/Polygon team achieved "unicorn" status while in India and stayed in the scene (I heard they moved to UAE since). I don't care that its crypto, I care that its tech and moving fast. Is the action just in Bangalore or is it all over or a few other tech hubs?
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  The exit scene is very rough actually. Indian investors are conservative and the public markets don’t have much appetite for loss making companies. Silicon Valley accounting chicanery such as “adjusted EBITDA” don’t fly here - investors demand PAT - Profits After Tax. Many of the current crop of unicorns have been waiting for years for an exit. If the current funding downturn continues, there is a good chance most of these will wind down without ever getting an exit.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    that’s very insightful! I’ll look further into it
spaceman_2020 4y ago
If you have high 6 or low 7 figure USD saved up, you can retire in nearly any location in India already.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
whatarethembits 4y ago
Let’s not forget that all of this only applies if you’re of the “right” religion. There’s a thick glass ceiling in vast majority of Indian professional world if your name sounds a certain way, no matter how good you might be. We like to ignore this facet but on the ground level, this is the obvious reality. Around election time one has to worry whether their family member who has gone out for an errand will return in one piece. Yes I know you might’ve not have to worry about this particular aspect (HN crowd is generally a lot more privileged), but it’s the ground reality for a large number of people. Families will literally take out loans against their entire sum of generational wealth for a mere chance to leave India, that takes pretty strong push factors than just “status” within community. In summary, outside a handful of big cities, and if you belong to the “right” religion, life is incredibly rough for the majority. There is simply no comparison when choosing to plant one’s roots in India vs a western country. It’s great to visit, but not to build a family life. Yet.
- lozenge 4y ago
  I'm surprised I scrolled this far and nobody mentioned gender as a factor either.
- cubancigar11 4y ago
  > Around election time one has to worry whether their family member who has gone out for an errand will return in one piece. Oh really. What a joke
29athrowaway 4y ago
> no prevalence of gun culture Let's compare crime rates, rates of conviction, police corruption, judicial corruption, etc. and see what place is safer to live in. > Kids just stay at home grinding LC all day. That's sad. I would rather study a computer science subject that helps me create something of value. Do you think Linus Torvalds, John Carmack, Dennis Ritchie, and others spent their days grinding Leetcode? no. If they did, you would not know about them today. They spent their days improving their craft by creating and delivering value. All of the people grinding Leetcode will be replaced in a couple of years by Github Copilot anyways. > its a whole different scene Sure, it is. A scene obsessed with passing interviews rather than what comes after you accept the offer. A scene obsessed with entering a MAANG and total compensation. A corruption of the software engineering discipline.
ystad 4y ago
I agree with most, except the quality of my life. I find my general quality of life to be better. Access to clean air, a great commute, education, a more relaxed lifestyle, better treatment for women in public in the US as compared to India Of course this is highly contextual, but this my opinion
osigurdson 4y ago
>> Kids just stay at home grinding LC all day Those kids should start their own unicorns instead of grinding LC all day. That would be a much better use of their intelligence.
- 29athrowaway 4y ago
  After spending years grinding LeetCode... 1) they will join Meta and be a cannon fodder developer for a PHP coder that never excelled at those puzzles, Mark Zuckerberg. 2) a Github Copilot user will wipe the floor with them. Being good at LeetCode puzzles will be as practical as being able to mentally calculate square roots. Just a party trick for low rating TV shows.
  - chakkepolja 4y ago
    Doesn't matter. That's the most important thing that helps to get job here. Insane competition and qualifying questions for even low paying jobs are around LC medium.
    - 29athrowaway 4y ago
      Let's change the interview process then.
  - leetcode5ucks10 4y ago
    Doesn't matter. When I joined CS degree I also thought like you did. Now looking at insane competition, the kids who can't write a real program if their life depends upon it, constantly getting better internship and job offers than me, I believe I was wrong. No one cares. People who interview are also likely Leetcode kids. So they will ask some obscure question from 14th page of Leetcode to flex, so the probability of passing is almost proportional to amount of time you grind. If I have a chance to go back to year 1, I focus on Leetcode. Fundamentals be damned. In this industry no one has an incentive to care about efficiency. If they did, we wouldn't be gambling with right candidate answering an obscuring question from some 10+ page of Leetcode or Hackerrank. Now someone from outside India can reply to this with their usual justifications. To be clear, I don't hate DSA questions. Just pointing out as your leetcodes get harder, you tend to select people who do leetcode whole day than those who are good at DSA and also good at programming. Edit: and yes, "if you're good at DSA you should be able to answer the obscure question". Dude obscure question will be LC hard or upper end of medium. The kid who does Leetcode 3 hours a day already seen the question and remembers the answer too, and there are n > 10 kids like that.
capybara_2020 4y ago
A lot of that rings true. Other than healthcare. It can be a nightmare finding a good doctor in India. The way most doctors behave can be insulting plus a lot of them are truly incompetent or corrupt. There are no real consequences to any of that. Most private hospitals are out to maximize how much they are earn from you and unnecessary procedures are the norm. As just one data point, check out the ratio of natural births to c-sections in India in private hospitals.
- webmobdev 4y ago
  While I agree that for-profit hospitals do have a lot of money-minded doctors (I hesitate to call them corrupt, as desire to earn more is normal in every field), I disagree with you completely that from the healthcare point of view India is a negative. India has excellent healthcare facilities and very good doctors (in the city) - and most importantly it is affordable for the upper-middle class even without insurance (in the sense that it won't bankrupt you). Medical insurance is also comparatively cheaper and makes healthcare quite affordable, even for the middle-class. It's a huge positive compared to the US. (Your point about C-sections though is very valid and I too consider it extremely unethical that many doctors now treat it as a norm and less seriously - there are too many C-sections done unnecessarily both because of greed and for an over worked doctors convenience.)
  - redditor98654 4y ago
    Personal anecdote, but most of my wife’s friends in India have themselves opted to go with a c-section. Mainly to avoid a tough labor and be able to plan ahead. My wife gave birth naturally here in the US where it is not an option unless medically necessary. In India patients can choose it seems and doctors allow it because it is a higher bill for them as well.
    - webmobdev 4y ago
      Yes, this seems to be becoming common too as a perception has been generated that it is a "minor surgery". One of my relative too opted for C-section because someone close to her frightened her that natural childbirth is horribly painful and really bad experience. At no point did the doctor tried to dissuade her from having a c-section or explain to her the potential danger to her and her baby's health if she underwent it.
smeagull 4y ago
I know people in tech who have gone back to Pakistan rather than stay in the US.

by dxbydt 4y ago

sremani 4y ago

People are making an error based on the past 20 years of debt binge and capital flooding that took over the world. When the FDI dries up, India is a very weird place. The energy costs will put a number in Asia and Europe in the next decade with dramatic food security challenges. Overall, at macro level, US beats India, but are there positive offshoots in some niches.. perhaps!

naravara 4y ago
The US may beat India in macro level economic factors for quite a while to come, but for a more senior professional with a marketable resume I think it's not too hard to find the positive niches. Honestly the main thing that keeps me from moving back is quality of life concerns with traffic, air quality, and noise pollution.
- radicaldreamer 4y ago
  I think the pollution, weather, water quality, noise, dust, and overall lack of high quality public spaces is a big deal. India is amazing and dynamic in a lot of ways, but there are major intangibles to account for (like how much one values a quiet evening walk in fresh air).
  - Ar-Curunir 4y ago
    You don't have to live in a Delhi or a Mumbai or a Bangalore. Cities like Dehradun, Ranchi, and more provide many of these amenities.
    - sremani 4y ago
      The most important amenity is Employment. Only a small portion of people would move to tier-2 seconds and that too because of familial ties not some over whelming amenities. By and large NRIs moving back from US end up in the usual metros at least in the beginning.
    - jitix 4y ago
      I grew up in a state capital and lived in 2 metro cities and honestly the infrastructure was better in my home city in terms of electricity, water and flooding. But there are very few tech jobs, which gives the 2-3 employers there huge leverage due to the lack of job mobility. Hopefully between fibre penetration and WFH culture things will improve.
    - spaceman_2020 4y ago
      Man there is really nothing much to do in these smaller cities. It gets boring very fast. There is also a culture that’s very socially intrusive. People will drop in on you unannounced randomly. Which is great if you’re a socially extroverted person but if you want to get some work done, not the best case scenario
rakejake 4y ago
Not all countries are blessed with the nature's bounty that the US is blessed with. I agree Energy is something India will be working on furiously in the coming decade. I presume both nuclear and renewable will be expanded rapidly. In the interim, India does have good relationships with most energy producing countries (Russia, Saudi). What food security challenges does India have? India has been much poorer in the past and hasn't had any food security issues in a long time.
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  I remember when the price of onions went from well under a dollar for a single large onion to about a dollar or more for a large one when there was an enormous amount of flooding in india around 2019-2020, ruining their crops. Apparently the onion is a huge staple out there compared to the Americas and so they needed to source onions from pretty much everywhere else. It sounds like a trivial price increase maybe to some people in more affluent countries but some in Latin America, it was a pretty challenging price increase. My personal groceries bill is about 25$usd per week, meat vegetables and a bit of cereal goods. Used to be less within a decade ago, but hey what can you do - North America I was paying closer to 100
- eldaisfish 4y ago
  India is entirely dependent on the monsoon for fresh water. When combined with a warming climate, this is a disaster waiting to happen. I am 100% confident that we will live to see the days when food scarcity returns to India. Mind you, indian soils are some of the most fertile in the world so this really is an alarming scenario. India's past issues with food scarcity were due to a combination of mismanagement and theft. Partly the british empire and partly the lack of skills in India. Widespread crop failures haven't been a thing for a while now.
- wowokay 4y ago
  I feel like a good relationship with Russia is not a plus for India right now.
  - vkou 4y ago
weatherlite 4y ago
India is getting Russian oil pretty cheap now as far as I know, and most likely Iran as well. The U.S is not immune to the energy problem btw, Shale oil is getting more expensive because all the easy spots were already used.
- sremani 4y ago
  I cannot argue here. What would go wrong, if Russian Oil and Gas are foundational to your Energy Security. Let me call Angela Merkel.
  - weatherlite 4y ago
    It's very unlikely Russia will do anything to mess up what they have going with China and India...because they don't have much other alternatives. I am not talking morals here ... I am calling it as it is. This has nothing to do with morals.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      If Russia did reasonable things they wouldn't have attacked Ukraine. Since we are talking about a Russia willing to do stupid things there is no reason to believe they won't mess with India or China.
      - weatherlite 4y ago
        > If Russia did reasonable things they wouldn't have attacked Ukraine If the U.S did reasonable things they wouldn't have attacked Iraq.
        ss2003 4y ago
        Attacking Iraq was a very, very bad idea. Attacking Ukraine is suicidal.
        4y ago

candiodari 4y ago

What's "LC" ?

advisedwang 4y ago
LeetCode I think
deleted 4y ago
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eldaisfish 4y ago

be careful generalising india because anything that one can claim, the opposite is also true. A major reason countries like the USA and the UK flourish is stability. Stability is not something india has and that is a very difficult thing to put a price on. Indian capital markets are not transparent though that is less of an issue for startups. What should be telling is the number of "Indian" startups that are registered in places like Singapore. I have to rain on your parade but there are many aspects of life in India that money cannot solve. I am no fan of the USA either but the "gun culture" thing is a strawman that doesn't affect daily life in the cities. It is certainly a problem but not a problem that many make it out to be. Be careful with the healthcare argument too. India's legal and police systems are a joke and their healthcare system is cheap but kills millions every year due to medical negligence. The US healthcare system - for all its flaws - has some of the best outcomes provided you have enough money to access it.

okasaki 4y ago
The UK isn't thriving - 18% inflation, low salaries (except in the money laundering industry), bad and very expensive housing, no infrastructure investment, etc.
- cromka 4y ago
  > no infrastructure investment I think one could say anything about UK these days, but lack of infrastructure investment? Seriously? UK compared to the US, it's like 50 years of difference. And I'd argue it's still ahead of most of the old EU, too.
  - throw0821374 4y ago
    .
    - ralphmelish 4y ago
      Get a license for what? I don't really understand the relationship between bureaucracy and buying a book... You can buy anything you like from anywhere in the world, pay your duty online, and have it delivered to your door. I did it a couple of times with DHL, Royal Mail, and never had any issues.

cercatrova 4y ago

One reason not to go back to India: climate change and heat. People are basically burning alive there and due to the high population, many people will starve in the coming decades as droughts cause crop failures. This will cause food and water wars as rising instability of the subcontinent means many people will need asylum. The area will not be geopolitically, financially, or otherwise stable in such a time. If I were a betting person, I'd move as close to the poles as possible in the coming future.

frontman1988 4y ago
Not to forget the air pollution. The PM 2.5 levels are morbidly high. Millions of deaths are linked to air pollution. People in their 40s,50s are increasingly dying of cardiac arrest, more and more kids have asthama and other lung diseases. Delhi is literally a gas chamber, even Bangalore air is mostly at unhealthy level. Given the population density and increasing industrialization, this problem is only going to increase in the next 10-15 years.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  This is the thing for me. You couldn't pay me a million dollars a year to live/work in Gurgaon (Ok, maybe a million for a year or two, but then I'd be out). It is the place that comes closest to Blade Runner in my mind. Every time I went outside I felt like the air was trying to kill me. All of the giant hulking new offices and extremely little green space are like right out of some post apocalyptic nightmare.
YetAnotherNick 4y ago
> People are basically burning alive there and due to the high population This is only true for poor people. It might sound bad, but average Indian live much worse life than someone who could afford/have skills to visit US.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  Yes, however due to there being significantly more poor people than rich people, especially tech workers, there will be antagonizing behavior in the future. There will be country-wide instability, and even if you're rich, a comparatively rich country like in Europe or the US will be substantially more stable than one with a higher degree of income inequality.

jitix 4y ago

I worked in the US and felt that H1B status was very insecure so I tried to start my own company in India in 2020, and also explored the job and housing market. I agree 100% with all the great financial and work-related competitive points you've highlighted but I believe it misses the human and quality of life factors. Things that really affected my mental health in India during that time: 1. Food: Lack of variety in food and food ingredients. I like to eat out and cook different cuisines (Japanese to Korean to Middle eastern to French to Northern European). Beef is a major issue in India and fresh sushi can be a hit or miss even in Balgalore. And nothing is available if you're outside of the major metro cities. 2. Prices: If you're in Bangalore you do get a wide variety of food including beef dishes but equivalent quality restaurants and bars in India have the similar range prices as the US (I used to live in the south so it might not be apples to apples). Same goes for food ingredients - e.g. Almond milk and cheddar cheese costs the same in India as in the US. 3. Traffic and honking: Even sitting in an Uber for 30 mins can be maddening for me. Not to mention people actually yell obscenities at each other in traffic jams. 4. Interruptions: India still has power cuts, water supply and flooding issues and the bigger the city (with more opportunities) the worse these problems are. The gated communities in the metros alleviate many of these issues but then you're paying $1000 or more per month in rent or purchase for $600-700K. So same as most developed countries. My conclusion was that if you got somewhat acclimated to the having a better QoL in the west (which is different than standard of living) you really need to try living there for a few months and see if it makes financial sense, because you'll be paying western prices on a Indian salary. As always YMMV depending on your preferences. I myself ended up moving to Canada. edit: fixed typo

stainforth 4y ago
Sounds like those points are all ripe opportunities for startups of their own no? Just a matter of identifying market gaps, I'm sure that's why US companies have hired so many Indians, just simple filling of needs and not some other mechanic as to way the world works.
- fn-mote 4y ago
  Pretty sure you forgot the /s but just in case: a startup to fix "power cuts, water supply and flooding issues"? Like "startup government". I guess that's what the gated communities are?

anukin 4y ago

Even though it can be agreed that coming back to India is a good option for most many Indians, it is also to be noted that Indian political games within Indian orgs make it super hard to do anything. IMO the only reason to go back to India should be to start on your own with your trusted friends. If you think you can work in India and contribute positively think again.

milchek 4y ago
Genuinely curious what Indian political games within Indian orgs means? Are they vastly different from politics and culture in western orgs?

hello_moto 4y ago

> 500+ LC. Kids just stay at home grinding LC all day. There are dedicated youtube channels in Hindi & other regional lang telling you how to dynamic program, backtrack, div & conquer, two pointer....its a whole different scene. That's because it is a deeply rooted culture/attitude of the people in India (or other developing countries): intellectual one-upmanship (i.e.: my "brain" is bigger than yours). Nobody wants to be perceived to acquire something (a job, a house, anything) easily; people want to have a sense of the greatest achievement after a tough grind.

jitix 4y ago
This is something that is really concerning to me. If everybody is pushed towards a STEM job the market becomes saturated affecting salaries (and the associated "prestige" in Indian society). And to top it off young children are forced to give up their childhood to pursue Byjus and other scams that prey on the parents' emotions. I grew up in the professional class in India and a lot of thinking is plain irrational and just driven by a herd mentality and superiority complex. Just toxicity all around tbh. If someone wants to become a travel photographer and is happy with the job and the lifestyle why push them towards a soul sucking STEM job where they may not even excel? But somehow having a low paying "engineer" job is somewhat better than a higher paying "artist" job in their eyes. And to those reading from outside of India: WITCH company jobs are actually considered prestigious in India. Maybe not by those who frequent HN (bubbles everywhere) but the vast majority of STEM graduates and their communities.
- tintedfireglass 4y ago
  how in the world is working in Infosys or Wipro prestigious. you are just a robot doing some repetitive task for some random dude on the other side of the world
  - namaria 4y ago
    Because it's compared to lower classes sweeping the streets or dumpster diving.
4y ago

pastor_bob 4y ago

> Interviews over there are insanely competitive. Why is it then that it's common understanding that Indian teams are usually bad? Why are they so difficult to deal with and why do they produce bad code?

harshalizee 4y ago
Because you get what you pay for. A significant number of engineers that FAANGM and a lot of others brings into the US from their Indian offices are top-notch. The salaries they pay in India are in the $60k-130k range which is incredibly good there. Same with a lot of good startups and core engineering firms. The off-shore consultancies you might be familiar with are sweat shops that are a dime a dozen with engineers coming and going a revolving door. They're optimized to make a quick buck with as cheap labor as possible. Just like the US firms that hires them.
bluGill 4y ago
There a over a billion people in India, and tech is where the young have been going for a while. In any large population you willhave good and bad people. In the US the bad move to something else, but in India there isn't a something else better than working for a place that will hire you cheap to produce bad code. There are a lot of bad engineers in India, but if you can weed through them and are willing to pay there are a lot of great ones too.
isbvhodnvemrwvn 4y ago
Body/team leasing is nearly always shit quality, doesn't matter if it's from India or not. You can try to pay folk in India much less than you can get away with in e.g. Europe though.
- 8ytecoder 4y ago
  I've had some good experience hiring contractors. It all depends on what the goal is. If the goal is high quality work there are shops for that and if the goal is for a big enterprise to manage costs and de-risk themselves by hiring contractors as easy-to-let-go resources, you get exactly that. I've dealt with both and the latter is just extremely frustrating made infinitely worse by dealing with the timezone. If you've seen job placements in top tier colleges in India, it's obvious that none of the body shops ever get even a small percentage of graduates wanting to join. They're always the last choice even for the less academically inclined. It has been the case since at least 2005. Until then these companies still had some sway and were hiring some good candidates. Now they're coasting on their "account winning" architects who then transfer all day-to-day stuff to some of the most tough to deal with engineers.

LZ_Khan 4y ago

Is that why my LeetCode ranking is always so depressingly abysmal? My solutions are always bottom 25% of speed and space usage, and the pass rate for some of their questions are way higher than my average.

runlevel1 4y ago
It might be like the old adage says: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
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TrackerFF 4y ago
Lots of people just copy/paste the optimal solution, and submit.

cyanydeez 4y ago

Aside from the same far right nationalists making headway in authoritarian, it probably would be great

_carbyau_ 4y ago
I haven't tracked Indian politics, but they are comparing India with the US here. After Trump, you think India could be doing worse? That's saying something.
- random314 4y ago
  They are literally building concentration camps for Citizens. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/2/how-is-it-human-indias-largest-detention-centre-almost-ready https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/2/how-is-it-human-indi... https://www.telegraphindia.com/north-east/another-goalpara-camp-inmate-dies/cid/1733097 https://www.telegraphindia.com/north-east/another-goalpara-c...

yieldcrv 4y ago

May I ask, how fast are the exits if I was to invest in India companies? One thing that turned me off from US venture capital was the culture of delaying exits to the stock market, compared to the 90s when Microsoft/Netscape/Amazon all IPO'd at like $30 million market caps and rallied and there was so much upside and liquidity. Is there a culture like that in India right now, or something similar? I really like how the Matic/Polygon team achieved "unicorn" status while in India and stayed in the scene (I heard they moved to UAE since). I don't care that its crypto, I care that its tech and moving fast. Is the action just in Bangalore or is it all over or a few other tech hubs?

spaceman_2020 4y ago
The exit scene is very rough actually. Indian investors are conservative and the public markets don’t have much appetite for loss making companies. Silicon Valley accounting chicanery such as “adjusted EBITDA” don’t fly here - investors demand PAT - Profits After Tax. Many of the current crop of unicorns have been waiting for years for an exit. If the current funding downturn continues, there is a good chance most of these will wind down without ever getting an exit.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  that’s very insightful! I’ll look further into it

spaceman_2020 4y ago

If you have high 6 or low 7 figure USD saved up, you can retire in nearly any location in India already.

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whatarethembits 4y ago

Let’s not forget that all of this only applies if you’re of the “right” religion. There’s a thick glass ceiling in vast majority of Indian professional world if your name sounds a certain way, no matter how good you might be. We like to ignore this facet but on the ground level, this is the obvious reality. Around election time one has to worry whether their family member who has gone out for an errand will return in one piece. Yes I know you might’ve not have to worry about this particular aspect (HN crowd is generally a lot more privileged), but it’s the ground reality for a large number of people. Families will literally take out loans against their entire sum of generational wealth for a mere chance to leave India, that takes pretty strong push factors than just “status” within community. In summary, outside a handful of big cities, and if you belong to the “right” religion, life is incredibly rough for the majority. There is simply no comparison when choosing to plant one’s roots in India vs a western country. It’s great to visit, but not to build a family life. Yet.

lozenge 4y ago
I'm surprised I scrolled this far and nobody mentioned gender as a factor either.
cubancigar11 4y ago
> Around election time one has to worry whether their family member who has gone out for an errand will return in one piece. Oh really. What a joke

29athrowaway 4y ago

> no prevalence of gun culture Let's compare crime rates, rates of conviction, police corruption, judicial corruption, etc. and see what place is safer to live in. > Kids just stay at home grinding LC all day. That's sad. I would rather study a computer science subject that helps me create something of value. Do you think Linus Torvalds, John Carmack, Dennis Ritchie, and others spent their days grinding Leetcode? no. If they did, you would not know about them today. They spent their days improving their craft by creating and delivering value. All of the people grinding Leetcode will be replaced in a couple of years by Github Copilot anyways. > its a whole different scene Sure, it is. A scene obsessed with passing interviews rather than what comes after you accept the offer. A scene obsessed with entering a MAANG and total compensation. A corruption of the software engineering discipline.

ystad 4y ago

I agree with most, except the quality of my life. I find my general quality of life to be better. Access to clean air, a great commute, education, a more relaxed lifestyle, better treatment for women in public in the US as compared to India Of course this is highly contextual, but this my opinion

osigurdson 4y ago

>> Kids just stay at home grinding LC all day Those kids should start their own unicorns instead of grinding LC all day. That would be a much better use of their intelligence.

29athrowaway 4y ago
After spending years grinding LeetCode... 1) they will join Meta and be a cannon fodder developer for a PHP coder that never excelled at those puzzles, Mark Zuckerberg. 2) a Github Copilot user will wipe the floor with them. Being good at LeetCode puzzles will be as practical as being able to mentally calculate square roots. Just a party trick for low rating TV shows.
- chakkepolja 4y ago
  Doesn't matter. That's the most important thing that helps to get job here. Insane competition and qualifying questions for even low paying jobs are around LC medium.
  - 29athrowaway 4y ago
    Let's change the interview process then.
- leetcode5ucks10 4y ago
  Doesn't matter. When I joined CS degree I also thought like you did. Now looking at insane competition, the kids who can't write a real program if their life depends upon it, constantly getting better internship and job offers than me, I believe I was wrong. No one cares. People who interview are also likely Leetcode kids. So they will ask some obscure question from 14th page of Leetcode to flex, so the probability of passing is almost proportional to amount of time you grind. If I have a chance to go back to year 1, I focus on Leetcode. Fundamentals be damned. In this industry no one has an incentive to care about efficiency. If they did, we wouldn't be gambling with right candidate answering an obscuring question from some 10+ page of Leetcode or Hackerrank. Now someone from outside India can reply to this with their usual justifications. To be clear, I don't hate DSA questions. Just pointing out as your leetcodes get harder, you tend to select people who do leetcode whole day than those who are good at DSA and also good at programming. Edit: and yes, "if you're good at DSA you should be able to answer the obscure question". Dude obscure question will be LC hard or upper end of medium. The kid who does Leetcode 3 hours a day already seen the question and remembers the answer too, and there are n > 10 kids like that.

capybara_2020 4y ago

A lot of that rings true. Other than healthcare. It can be a nightmare finding a good doctor in India. The way most doctors behave can be insulting plus a lot of them are truly incompetent or corrupt. There are no real consequences to any of that. Most private hospitals are out to maximize how much they are earn from you and unnecessary procedures are the norm. As just one data point, check out the ratio of natural births to c-sections in India in private hospitals.

webmobdev 4y ago
While I agree that for-profit hospitals do have a lot of money-minded doctors (I hesitate to call them corrupt, as desire to earn more is normal in every field), I disagree with you completely that from the healthcare point of view India is a negative. India has excellent healthcare facilities and very good doctors (in the city) - and most importantly it is affordable for the upper-middle class even without insurance (in the sense that it won't bankrupt you). Medical insurance is also comparatively cheaper and makes healthcare quite affordable, even for the middle-class. It's a huge positive compared to the US. (Your point about C-sections though is very valid and I too consider it extremely unethical that many doctors now treat it as a norm and less seriously - there are too many C-sections done unnecessarily both because of greed and for an over worked doctors convenience.)
- redditor98654 4y ago
  Personal anecdote, but most of my wife’s friends in India have themselves opted to go with a c-section. Mainly to avoid a tough labor and be able to plan ahead. My wife gave birth naturally here in the US where it is not an option unless medically necessary. In India patients can choose it seems and doctors allow it because it is a higher bill for them as well.
  - webmobdev 4y ago
    Yes, this seems to be becoming common too as a perception has been generated that it is a "minor surgery". One of my relative too opted for C-section because someone close to her frightened her that natural childbirth is horribly painful and really bad experience. At no point did the doctor tried to dissuade her from having a c-section or explain to her the potential danger to her and her baby's health if she underwent it.

smeagull 4y ago

I know people in tech who have gone back to Pakistan rather than stay in the US.