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Infosys asked HR not to hire 'Indian-origin candidates', 'women with children'

172 points by webmobdev 4y ago

webmobdev 4y ago
This seems like a management fuck-up. It's kind of funny because indian outsourcing companies like Infosys, TCS, etc. have often been accused of hiring a disproportionately high percentage of South Asians and Indians within the United States. In fact, this same company named here (Infosys) has also been earlier accused of favouring asians and not hiring "stupid Americans" - https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/indian-it-firm-accused-of-discrimination-against-stupid-americans/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/india... ... Looks like Infy management wanted to fix this problem (or at least appear to do so) and add more diversity but fell foul of US laws by explicitly communicating their desires to HR.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- raincom 4y ago
  In this particular case, Infy wanted to hire non-Indians for executive positions so that they can sign more deals.
  - webmobdev 4y ago
    I don't find this surprising - I remember that one case study often discussed in indian MBA courses showed that in a European country, indian-origin salespersons often performed worse than salespersons who are local citizens.
aliqot 4y ago
How does this differ from companies and elected officials openly saying right now that females and minorities are preferred for X position, like vice president of USA or CEO of Reddit?
- seper8 4y ago
  It doesn't, but you can't discriminate against white men. /s
  - dendriti 4y ago
    Folks, this is not difficult to understand unless you're deliberately being obtuse. There's legal and illegal discrimination. Some forms of legal discrimination do amount to discrimination against White people. When we say "Discrimination is wrong" we are almost always talking about illegal discrimination. Just crying out that "But.... but you said discrimination is wrong!" really isn't the 'argument' you think it is.
    - Swenrekcah 4y ago
      Many don’t even acknowledge that their policies are discriminatory. But it’s still a good argument to point out that discriminatory diversity policies are discriminatory. Because that forces those that advocate for them to lay out their justifications and also at what point the policy is no longer needed. I’m not against affirmative action where it makes sense, but it’s a heavy handed policy and as such needs very good justification and constant re-evaluation.
      - aliqot 4y ago
        Affirmative action is bigotry of low expectations by another name. Imagine if I were a minority doctor who benefited from this, my patients will always wonder if I'm less-than. Nobody wants to go to a cardiologist that was bottom of their class, so why instill that doubt and call it a leg up?
        Swenrekcah 4y ago
        Sure, but it’s usually not like that though. All the people who get into med-school are talented even though the selection process was unfair in this regard. Like I said, this can be an overall good. For example, let’s say I run a small software shop where everybody is male. Now, it’s not likely that a woman would accept a job offer because of the environment. So if I were the boss I’d hold off on hiring until I can get three people at the same time and work hard to make all of them women, to the point I wouldn’t look at male applicants. After that the workplace would hopefully be more balanced and for the next hire gender wouldn’t matter. Is this unfair towards the men applying? It absolutely is, and that’s why I would only consider this as a one-time thing for a clear and specific goal. This is in the context of a small private company, I believe nationwide policies need specific goals and targets infinitely more.
DisjointedHunt 4y ago
Wow, while this has been an open secret forever that HR recruiting for senior executives is highly "picky" going to racial lines, i found this hard to read. Lets hope for a better future where ignorant hate like this doesn't exist as much as it does today. People deserve more than being judged on the basis of the circumstances of their birth.
anon23anon 4y ago
Wow - so Indian companies hires all Indians even in American offices. CEO gets caught on a hot mike saying they don't want to hire stupid Americans which forces said CEO to change hiring policy but they blunder it and tell HR not to hire Indian candidates which back fires.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- yrgulation 4y ago
  Wow you are right he did say that. Had to google it to confirm. How is that not racist? And why is racism so prevalent among indians?
  - NayamAmarshe 4y ago
    > And why is racism so prevalent among indians? This statement almost seems ironic...
    - yrgulation 4y ago
      Almost but its not. I’ve observed this behaviour in the brexit debate in the uk as well. I dont know if its the stockholm syndrome but some do very well enjoy racist remarks about other nationalities or “races”.
  - JoeAltmaier 4y ago
    Don't get ahead of yourself there. Racial preferences are very common around the world. It becomes part of self-worth to value one's cohort above those that are seen as opressive. Such as the ubiquitous western culture in media. Anyway, the melting pot of the USA has created a dialog about race that may be missing or very small elsewhere. Witness the apparent race-tone-deaf attitudes in Japanese mainstream, where being Japanese is so obviously superior to everyone else its baked into plots and dialog without apparently even noticing.
    - 4y ago
dominotw 4y ago
> and candidates aged 50 or above. Ageism is so bad they didn't even bother include the complete sentence in the headline. My main 'career goal' at the moment is find an exit path out of software development. Nothing else really matters. Its now or never.
- abledon 4y ago
  learn COBOL, lots of old contractors over here :)
- chii 4y ago
  an exit path is one where you earn enough from your career to obtain passive income and retire - preferably early enough to still have mental and physical strength left to do what you are passionate about, without having to worry about finances.
  - notacoward 4y ago
    While that is a good path (the one I took BTW), an exit path could also mean transitioning to a different moderately-lucrative career. Or perhaps even the same career in a different business. I know quite a few people who avoid 90% of tech-industry BS by doing fairly basic kinds of automation and web stuff for other kinds of companies, local governments, or non-profits. They don't make anywhere near unicorn money, of course, but they're still well above median and generally seem happier than other people I know who are still in The Grind. If you already have some savings from those intense years, you can let them compound while the easier job takes care of current expenses.
- bkav 4y ago
  What about federal jobs? The pay is definitely lower but it comes with amazing health insurance, you can stay for the rest of your career, move wherever you want, & they can’t really afford to be ageist—they don’t have enough candidates.
- 93po 4y ago
  there's a really short character limit for headlines on HN
yalogin 4y ago
Infosys is based in India and so naturally they get a lot of candidates of Indian origin. That is just how referrals work. May be they wanted to hire diverse candidates but the huge issue is the ask about not hiring women with children and people over 50. I wonder how common this is in the valley, particularly not hiring people over 50
- sk0g 4y ago
  I've had Infosys and TCS reach out to me, and when pressed for salary figures said the upper end was a half of my current salary, and this is in Australia. I'm not even on a particularly high salary, could have gotten a ~30% pay rise had I joined an industry I wasn't keen on... Not convinced it isn't some sort of legal obligation thing to bring in cheap labour, or just preying on people who need a quick job to maintain their visa obligations. Offering {minimum_wage + 30%} for a software engineer with a few years of experience seems like an exercise in futility otherwise.
temptemptemp111 4y ago
anovikov 4y ago
I seen it so many times. Indian companies try to avoid hiring Indians whenever they can do otherwise (i.e. for better paying positions). There are good and bad explanations for that, but all of them politically incorrect.
- germandiago 4y ago
  I would not get the point of someone telling me what I should do wirh my investment, home, or property of any kind. If I do NOT want to put MY money somewhere actively that is not discrimination. In fact it is denying the freedom to choose. I do not care they hire all indians or no indians. Same for any other combination. Because they are incurrimg the cost of doing so.
yrgulation 4y ago
Companies such as infosys creep me out.
- sidcool 4y ago
  Why so?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
mkl95 4y ago
I was a consultant for an American company that also hired dozens of cheap consultants from development countries. Mostly India but also neighbouring countries and some Eastern European countries. Indians were by far the hardest to work with. They ghosted women systematically which was a nightmare for our project manager. They also lied shamelessly about their qualifications which led to absurd situations. The problem doesn't lie in hiring Indian people though. It's in hiring cheap labour for the sake of it. If you want to get from point A to point B you either hire people who can do it or you don't. If you believe those guys have actually been delivering quality software for a decade with some technology despite being dirt cheap, you are just an idiot.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- notart666 4y ago
  Many of them just can't speak English correctly. Only a small percentage of the individuals who speak English at a proficient level of those who do, they predominately come from very wealthy upper caste families and now you have a new problem. And well. When it comes to caste, many Indians simply believe it to not exist anymore in India because of how deeply engrained it is in their social classes they never notice it.
  - philliphaydon 4y ago
    I don’t understand the English thing. I lived in Singapore for 10 years and have heard so many words pronounced wrong. To give an example one of my ex coworkers used to say the word swap as sw-app. Another one said return as ret-urn. I did ask them and they said they are taught phonics and so they just say the words how they are written. English is such a turd language. We have so many rules and then all those rules get broken all the time. (Despite the English thing which didn’t get in the way of working together, my single team are the best team I’ve ever had in my career and I’ll really miss them)
    - alephnerd 4y ago
29athrowaway 4y ago
In all my years working in software, I have only had 2 colleagues with white hair. It is clear there are many older engineers out there that are having a hard time getting a job. Whatever is going on, it's clear there's a system in place to remove the older guys. Then, breaking news: HR fucking sucks everywhere. That's the whole idea of HR in the first place. It's a legal shield for the company, it has nothing to do with improving people's lives. All fucking HR surveys have the objective of removing unhappy employees and are not anonymous, talking to HR about a problem is another way in which unsatisfied employees get detected and kicked out of companies. HR fucking sucks.
- Bakary 4y ago
  The solution could be to increase stress so that employees get white hair at an earlier phase of their lives.
- dmix 4y ago
  I've done a lot of hiring for startups and I rarely (if ever) got resumes from older people. I just assumed the JS/Ruby tech stack I worked for the last decades isn't being learned by the older demographic.
buzzwords 4y ago
If all companies try to hire from the same small pool say women in tech. Don't they have to compete with each other? And therefore pay them more than others? I have been wondering about this, but always too scared to ask it as it comes a cross as an attack. I assure you it's not an attack but a genuine question.
- pjc50 4y ago
  The pool is not of a fixed size, and there's no evidence of women being paid a premium to fulfil a quota. Conversely, there's plenty of evidence of both individual and systematic discrimination against women candidates and women "thought leaders" in tech.
  - buzzwords 4y ago
    Oh wow, really? So the women in tech is a growing pool? Enough to stop companies paying premium to fulfil quotas?
    - broken_glass 4y ago
      "To stop" - sounds like you are quiet sure that they are paying females more. From experience - no, there is no bonus, companies I know have flat basic rates for juniors, and raises based on company situation/personal achievements (or lack of them).
    - webmobdev 4y ago
      No. Unfortunately, one of the sad truth is that companies hire women because they can pay them less than their male counterpart. It's a fact that women earn less than men in almost all industries.
    - Jcowell 4y ago
      No it’s that companies aren’t paying a premium to fulfill quotas in the first place. The “quota” hire is being paid the same salary that a “non-quota” hire would.
perfecthjrjth 4y ago
Infosys wants non-Indians for sales positions, but Indians for code-monkeys, scrum masters, project managers, etc.
dartharva 4y ago
This entire comment section seems to have gone down the drain to Reddit-tier exchanges. People giving their own false commentary on broad topics just for the sake of it without even trying to understand contexts, this is totally not expected on HN.
- pdimitar 4y ago
  Same was happening during the pandemic and it was much worse even.
- alephnerd 4y ago
  Agreed! I’ve complained about this before recently on HN and was flagged for this. Also, a lot of these accounts appear to be new accounts (less than 1 year tenure on HN), so most charitably they might be users who aren’t used to the norms on HN. On a separate note, Dang can you please moderate this entire section? The dog whistles and mean spirited comments on here are insane.
  - the_doctah 4y ago
    Ironically, "dog whistle" has become a dog whistle for censorship. At least you didn't hide the intent.
- rchaud 4y ago
  The top comments as of 10:50AM ET are openly backing and rationalizing discriminatory hiring practices. Compare that to the reaction to IBM pushing out over-50s: empathy and compassion. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19507447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19507447 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24471903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24471903
thumbsup-_- 4y ago
Unfortunately not hiring married women with kids or asking women about their plan to have kids, not hiring older candidates or candidates with sick family members is a common practice in India. Glad that these evil companies are being called out in other parts of the world
- nonamechicken 4y ago
  I don't believe this at all. I see the exact opposite happening in my Indian company. They are encouraging women leaders so much. I am right now working with one who climbed 2 grades in 2-3 years (which normally would take several years), and she has an all female team now (which is discriminatory by the way). Her male Indian bosses encourage and support her so much, while my male managers treat me (a male) like shit most of the time. Indian companies are required to give paid maternity leave of 26 weeks by the way. https://www.startuphrtoolkit.com/maternity-leave-in-india/ https://www.startuphrtoolkit.com/maternity-leave-in-india/
  - MisterSandman 4y ago
    I find it hard to believe that you live and work in India and don't believe this. It's literally everywhere, I'm glad your company isn't like that but even spending 15 minutes talking to someone working at an MNC will tell you that this is unfortunately common. And India offering maternity leave does nothing to solve the prejudice against women by hiring managers.
  - thumbsup-_- 4y ago
    Glad to hear your company is a good employer. This is just a guess but is it an Indian tech company? Culture is changing for sure but what’s happening at tech companies doesn’t shows the full picture (though it is also true the other way around). I know several women who were asked about their plan to start family in their job interview. I was myself asked a few years back about my family background and I decided to hide that my father was ill. The fact that India doesn’t have strong labor laws allows all this to happen. Many existing laws were created for factories and the way they are worded they exclude many present day industries. Also, this is all when considering white collar jobs. Blue collar jobs are just another level of misery. Again, happy for you but there are people who have suffered because of these practices.
rossdavidh 4y ago
So, I have only my own limited, American, anecdotal experience, but I did work for Infosys for a little while, so I suppose I should share that here. We were a team of less than a dozen developers, and we had a woman, who as I recall was a mother, as one of our devs. Not saying this means it didn't happen elsewhere in Infosys.
- rossdavidh 4y ago
  ...forgot to say that the woman in question was Indian.
nonamechicken 4y ago
Infosys stopped hiring Indians in US at least 2-3 years ago, may be before President Trump moved out. Al their job ads (in Indeed) would have this line: "U.S. citizens and those authorized to work in the U.S. are encouraged to apply. We are unable to sponsor at this time." Example: https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=b8ca8d3db6e11c9e https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=b8ca8d3db6e11c9e Majority of those who need visa sponsorship are Indians & Chinese. And this is not just Infosys. I have seen the same wording in job ads of many American companies. My friend who worked in Infosys told me that they were so desperate to hire Americans that they conducted a job fair and if selected, they would give offer letter on the same day. I am pretty sure Infosys did this because of all the negative media about them preferring to hire Indians in US causing Americans to loose jobs.
- llampx 4y ago
  The irony of having to do affirmative action to hire the majority in the country you are operating in.
velavar 4y ago
As an Indian woman that studied and worked for a bit in India, this is not surprising at all. When prepping for job placements in my University, we would sometimes practice answers to questions around why they should hire a woman who might just get married and leave the company for her kids. I remember the recruiter for a multinational company asking me this very question and 22-year old me desperately trying to convince her that I was not interested in having kids. I now understand that this is more tied to the country's culture than the companies themselves. If everyone around you can discuss this without blinking, it becomes normal to ask such questions I suppose. I've been in the US for the last 7 years now and as a woman in my thirties, it's an incredible relief that nobody ever asks me my plans for kids and the like in my interviews! I know that my child-bearing age shouldn't be a factor, but thanks to my past experiences, I'm always wondering if the decisions behind the scenes are silently taking this into account. Edit: my personal experiences may be different even from someone of the same gender/age/origin. Please consider this with a pinch of salt :)
- falkda 4y ago
  From wired " So unless nature is working contrarily in South Asia, something about the culture of the Indian educational system and tech industry is more hospitable to women than the American one". Seems directly opposite to what you state. That too 8 years ago. Too many fakes stories been peddled here. https://www.wired.com/2014/08/silicon-valley-sexism/ https://www.wired.com/2014/08/silicon-valley-sexism/
rchaud 4y ago
Seeing as how this article didn't even link to the court filing, here you go: https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/10/04/prejean_infosys_complaint.pdf https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/10/04/prejean_infosys_complaint.... Excerpt: > 85. After approximately a month, Plaintiff had a complete partner list and began taking meetings with partners regarding their hiring needs. > 86. Consistently in these meeting with Plaintiff, partners talked openly about their hiring prejudices and discrimination preferences. 87. These illegal criteria were more important to partners than anything else. 88. Plaintiff consistently heard from at least a dozen partners, to her shock, that they preferred not to hire additional consultants of Indian national origin, that they wanted women without children at home, and candidates not approaching 50. > 89. These preferences were open and notorious and seemed to be the company culture. > 90. In each of her meetings Plaintiff apprised the partners that they were advancing illegal criteria and that she would not act on them. > 91. Among the partners who endorsed illegal criteria were Defendants Kurtz and Albright, who expressly stated them to Plaintiff.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
I am a bit sad to read some of the comments in this thread. I’ve had the privilege to work with really high-functiong engineers, from many cultures, including Japan, India, Germany, Romania, Russia, Mexico, Colombia, Pakistan, Egypt, Ukraine, Poland, Ireland, China, Israel, Iran, Viet Nam, UK, Spain, Italy, France, etc. Many were women. Most folks we worked with (of any gender) were parents, because we tended to work with experienced people. That was mostly because the corporation I worked for, had high standards. They didn’t just throw money at people that looked good. They made sure that we hired the best (but they were cheap -relying on their reputation, so hiring was a pain). As far as I know, they never outsourced to save money (my team was actually an “outsourced” team). They hired people that could do the work necessary. I have come to realize that this was a real aberration. I am sad to know that. There were many frustrations in that company, but it was still a signal Honor to work there. I wish folks the best, and hope that the tech industry can get past the problems that, I suspect, have actually been caused by all the money being made.
WirelessGigabit 4y ago
[flagged]
- webmobdev 4y ago
  Everyone of us has such personal guidelines / biases when it comes to social interactions. We all form such conscious and unconscious biases about certain community based on whom we interact with and it is ok up to a point, if you don't take them too seriously (or these biases can become narrower and fundamentalist). Working with people of different culture always requires us to step out of our comfort zone to varying degree. Obviously this is uncomfortable. But as with any learned behaviour, avoidance only exacerbates the issue and practising it more and more makes it easier.
amriksohata 4y ago
All the talk of not hiring people of certain backgrounds, ghosting women etc. Is not restricted to Infosys. Working in many British companies I have seen this at rampant scale, the only difference is it's not officially spoken or written but often wrapped up with some other excuse like "oh they weren't the right fit"
known 4y ago
Ava4312 4y ago

172 points by webmobdev 4y ago

This seems like a management fuck-up. It's kind of funny because indian outsourcing companies like Infosys, TCS, etc. have often been accused of hiring a disproportionately high percentage of South Asians and Indians within the United States. In fact, this same company named here (Infosys) has also been earlier accused of favouring asians and not hiring "stupid Americans" - https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/indian-it-firm-accused-of-discrimination-against-stupid-americans/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/india... ... Looks like Infy management wanted to fix this problem (or at least appear to do so) and add more diversity but fell foul of US laws by explicitly communicating their desires to HR.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
raincom 4y ago
In this particular case, Infy wanted to hire non-Indians for executive positions so that they can sign more deals.
- webmobdev 4y ago
  I don't find this surprising - I remember that one case study often discussed in indian MBA courses showed that in a European country, indian-origin salespersons often performed worse than salespersons who are local citizens.

aliqot 4y ago

How does this differ from companies and elected officials openly saying right now that females and minorities are preferred for X position, like vice president of USA or CEO of Reddit?

seper8 4y ago
It doesn't, but you can't discriminate against white men. /s
- dendriti 4y ago
  Folks, this is not difficult to understand unless you're deliberately being obtuse. There's legal and illegal discrimination. Some forms of legal discrimination do amount to discrimination against White people. When we say "Discrimination is wrong" we are almost always talking about illegal discrimination. Just crying out that "But.... but you said discrimination is wrong!" really isn't the 'argument' you think it is.
  - Swenrekcah 4y ago
    Many don’t even acknowledge that their policies are discriminatory. But it’s still a good argument to point out that discriminatory diversity policies are discriminatory. Because that forces those that advocate for them to lay out their justifications and also at what point the policy is no longer needed. I’m not against affirmative action where it makes sense, but it’s a heavy handed policy and as such needs very good justification and constant re-evaluation.
    - aliqot 4y ago
      Affirmative action is bigotry of low expectations by another name. Imagine if I were a minority doctor who benefited from this, my patients will always wonder if I'm less-than. Nobody wants to go to a cardiologist that was bottom of their class, so why instill that doubt and call it a leg up?
      - Swenrekcah 4y ago
        Sure, but it’s usually not like that though. All the people who get into med-school are talented even though the selection process was unfair in this regard. Like I said, this can be an overall good. For example, let’s say I run a small software shop where everybody is male. Now, it’s not likely that a woman would accept a job offer because of the environment. So if I were the boss I’d hold off on hiring until I can get three people at the same time and work hard to make all of them women, to the point I wouldn’t look at male applicants. After that the workplace would hopefully be more balanced and for the next hire gender wouldn’t matter. Is this unfair towards the men applying? It absolutely is, and that’s why I would only consider this as a one-time thing for a clear and specific goal. This is in the context of a small private company, I believe nationwide policies need specific goals and targets infinitely more.

DisjointedHunt 4y ago

Wow, while this has been an open secret forever that HR recruiting for senior executives is highly "picky" going to racial lines, i found this hard to read. Lets hope for a better future where ignorant hate like this doesn't exist as much as it does today. People deserve more than being judged on the basis of the circumstances of their birth.

anon23anon 4y ago

Wow - so Indian companies hires all Indians even in American offices. CEO gets caught on a hot mike saying they don't want to hire stupid Americans which forces said CEO to change hiring policy but they blunder it and tell HR not to hire Indian candidates which back fires.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yrgulation 4y ago
Wow you are right he did say that. Had to google it to confirm. How is that not racist? And why is racism so prevalent among indians?
- NayamAmarshe 4y ago
  > And why is racism so prevalent among indians? This statement almost seems ironic...
  - yrgulation 4y ago
    Almost but its not. I’ve observed this behaviour in the brexit debate in the uk as well. I dont know if its the stockholm syndrome but some do very well enjoy racist remarks about other nationalities or “races”.
- JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  Don't get ahead of yourself there. Racial preferences are very common around the world. It becomes part of self-worth to value one's cohort above those that are seen as opressive. Such as the ubiquitous western culture in media. Anyway, the melting pot of the USA has created a dialog about race that may be missing or very small elsewhere. Witness the apparent race-tone-deaf attitudes in Japanese mainstream, where being Japanese is so obviously superior to everyone else its baked into plots and dialog without apparently even noticing.
  - 4y ago

dominotw 4y ago

> and candidates aged 50 or above. Ageism is so bad they didn't even bother include the complete sentence in the headline. My main 'career goal' at the moment is find an exit path out of software development. Nothing else really matters. Its now or never.

abledon 4y ago
learn COBOL, lots of old contractors over here :)
chii 4y ago
an exit path is one where you earn enough from your career to obtain passive income and retire - preferably early enough to still have mental and physical strength left to do what you are passionate about, without having to worry about finances.
- notacoward 4y ago
  While that is a good path (the one I took BTW), an exit path could also mean transitioning to a different moderately-lucrative career. Or perhaps even the same career in a different business. I know quite a few people who avoid 90% of tech-industry BS by doing fairly basic kinds of automation and web stuff for other kinds of companies, local governments, or non-profits. They don't make anywhere near unicorn money, of course, but they're still well above median and generally seem happier than other people I know who are still in The Grind. If you already have some savings from those intense years, you can let them compound while the easier job takes care of current expenses.
bkav 4y ago
What about federal jobs? The pay is definitely lower but it comes with amazing health insurance, you can stay for the rest of your career, move wherever you want, & they can’t really afford to be ageist—they don’t have enough candidates.
93po 4y ago
there's a really short character limit for headlines on HN

yalogin 4y ago

Infosys is based in India and so naturally they get a lot of candidates of Indian origin. That is just how referrals work. May be they wanted to hire diverse candidates but the huge issue is the ask about not hiring women with children and people over 50. I wonder how common this is in the valley, particularly not hiring people over 50

sk0g 4y ago
I've had Infosys and TCS reach out to me, and when pressed for salary figures said the upper end was a half of my current salary, and this is in Australia. I'm not even on a particularly high salary, could have gotten a ~30% pay rise had I joined an industry I wasn't keen on... Not convinced it isn't some sort of legal obligation thing to bring in cheap labour, or just preying on people who need a quick job to maintain their visa obligations. Offering {minimum_wage + 30%} for a software engineer with a few years of experience seems like an exercise in futility otherwise.

temptemptemp111 4y ago

anovikov 4y ago

I seen it so many times. Indian companies try to avoid hiring Indians whenever they can do otherwise (i.e. for better paying positions). There are good and bad explanations for that, but all of them politically incorrect.

germandiago 4y ago
I would not get the point of someone telling me what I should do wirh my investment, home, or property of any kind. If I do NOT want to put MY money somewhere actively that is not discrimination. In fact it is denying the freedom to choose. I do not care they hire all indians or no indians. Same for any other combination. Because they are incurrimg the cost of doing so.

yrgulation 4y ago

Companies such as infosys creep me out.

sidcool 4y ago
Why so?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

mkl95 4y ago

I was a consultant for an American company that also hired dozens of cheap consultants from development countries. Mostly India but also neighbouring countries and some Eastern European countries. Indians were by far the hardest to work with. They ghosted women systematically which was a nightmare for our project manager. They also lied shamelessly about their qualifications which led to absurd situations. The problem doesn't lie in hiring Indian people though. It's in hiring cheap labour for the sake of it. If you want to get from point A to point B you either hire people who can do it or you don't. If you believe those guys have actually been delivering quality software for a decade with some technology despite being dirt cheap, you are just an idiot.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
notart666 4y ago
Many of them just can't speak English correctly. Only a small percentage of the individuals who speak English at a proficient level of those who do, they predominately come from very wealthy upper caste families and now you have a new problem. And well. When it comes to caste, many Indians simply believe it to not exist anymore in India because of how deeply engrained it is in their social classes they never notice it.
- philliphaydon 4y ago
  I don’t understand the English thing. I lived in Singapore for 10 years and have heard so many words pronounced wrong. To give an example one of my ex coworkers used to say the word swap as sw-app. Another one said return as ret-urn. I did ask them and they said they are taught phonics and so they just say the words how they are written. English is such a turd language. We have so many rules and then all those rules get broken all the time. (Despite the English thing which didn’t get in the way of working together, my single team are the best team I’ve ever had in my career and I’ll really miss them)
  - alephnerd 4y ago

29athrowaway 4y ago

In all my years working in software, I have only had 2 colleagues with white hair. It is clear there are many older engineers out there that are having a hard time getting a job. Whatever is going on, it's clear there's a system in place to remove the older guys. Then, breaking news: HR fucking sucks everywhere. That's the whole idea of HR in the first place. It's a legal shield for the company, it has nothing to do with improving people's lives. All fucking HR surveys have the objective of removing unhappy employees and are not anonymous, talking to HR about a problem is another way in which unsatisfied employees get detected and kicked out of companies. HR fucking sucks.

Bakary 4y ago
The solution could be to increase stress so that employees get white hair at an earlier phase of their lives.
dmix 4y ago
I've done a lot of hiring for startups and I rarely (if ever) got resumes from older people. I just assumed the JS/Ruby tech stack I worked for the last decades isn't being learned by the older demographic.

buzzwords 4y ago

If all companies try to hire from the same small pool say women in tech. Don't they have to compete with each other? And therefore pay them more than others? I have been wondering about this, but always too scared to ask it as it comes a cross as an attack. I assure you it's not an attack but a genuine question.

pjc50 4y ago
The pool is not of a fixed size, and there's no evidence of women being paid a premium to fulfil a quota. Conversely, there's plenty of evidence of both individual and systematic discrimination against women candidates and women "thought leaders" in tech.
- buzzwords 4y ago
  Oh wow, really? So the women in tech is a growing pool? Enough to stop companies paying premium to fulfil quotas?
  - broken_glass 4y ago
    "To stop" - sounds like you are quiet sure that they are paying females more. From experience - no, there is no bonus, companies I know have flat basic rates for juniors, and raises based on company situation/personal achievements (or lack of them).
  - webmobdev 4y ago
    No. Unfortunately, one of the sad truth is that companies hire women because they can pay them less than their male counterpart. It's a fact that women earn less than men in almost all industries.
  - Jcowell 4y ago
    No it’s that companies aren’t paying a premium to fulfill quotas in the first place. The “quota” hire is being paid the same salary that a “non-quota” hire would.

perfecthjrjth 4y ago

Infosys wants non-Indians for sales positions, but Indians for code-monkeys, scrum masters, project managers, etc.

dartharva 4y ago

This entire comment section seems to have gone down the drain to Reddit-tier exchanges. People giving their own false commentary on broad topics just for the sake of it without even trying to understand contexts, this is totally not expected on HN.

pdimitar 4y ago
Same was happening during the pandemic and it was much worse even.
alephnerd 4y ago
Agreed! I’ve complained about this before recently on HN and was flagged for this. Also, a lot of these accounts appear to be new accounts (less than 1 year tenure on HN), so most charitably they might be users who aren’t used to the norms on HN. On a separate note, Dang can you please moderate this entire section? The dog whistles and mean spirited comments on here are insane.
- the_doctah 4y ago
  Ironically, "dog whistle" has become a dog whistle for censorship. At least you didn't hide the intent.
rchaud 4y ago
The top comments as of 10:50AM ET are openly backing and rationalizing discriminatory hiring practices. Compare that to the reaction to IBM pushing out over-50s: empathy and compassion. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19507447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19507447 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24471903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24471903

thumbsup-_- 4y ago

Unfortunately not hiring married women with kids or asking women about their plan to have kids, not hiring older candidates or candidates with sick family members is a common practice in India. Glad that these evil companies are being called out in other parts of the world

nonamechicken 4y ago
I don't believe this at all. I see the exact opposite happening in my Indian company. They are encouraging women leaders so much. I am right now working with one who climbed 2 grades in 2-3 years (which normally would take several years), and she has an all female team now (which is discriminatory by the way). Her male Indian bosses encourage and support her so much, while my male managers treat me (a male) like shit most of the time. Indian companies are required to give paid maternity leave of 26 weeks by the way. https://www.startuphrtoolkit.com/maternity-leave-in-india/ https://www.startuphrtoolkit.com/maternity-leave-in-india/
- MisterSandman 4y ago
  I find it hard to believe that you live and work in India and don't believe this. It's literally everywhere, I'm glad your company isn't like that but even spending 15 minutes talking to someone working at an MNC will tell you that this is unfortunately common. And India offering maternity leave does nothing to solve the prejudice against women by hiring managers.
- thumbsup-_- 4y ago
  Glad to hear your company is a good employer. This is just a guess but is it an Indian tech company? Culture is changing for sure but what’s happening at tech companies doesn’t shows the full picture (though it is also true the other way around). I know several women who were asked about their plan to start family in their job interview. I was myself asked a few years back about my family background and I decided to hide that my father was ill. The fact that India doesn’t have strong labor laws allows all this to happen. Many existing laws were created for factories and the way they are worded they exclude many present day industries. Also, this is all when considering white collar jobs. Blue collar jobs are just another level of misery. Again, happy for you but there are people who have suffered because of these practices.

rossdavidh 4y ago

So, I have only my own limited, American, anecdotal experience, but I did work for Infosys for a little while, so I suppose I should share that here. We were a team of less than a dozen developers, and we had a woman, who as I recall was a mother, as one of our devs. Not saying this means it didn't happen elsewhere in Infosys.

rossdavidh 4y ago
...forgot to say that the woman in question was Indian.

nonamechicken 4y ago

Infosys stopped hiring Indians in US at least 2-3 years ago, may be before President Trump moved out. Al their job ads (in Indeed) would have this line: "U.S. citizens and those authorized to work in the U.S. are encouraged to apply. We are unable to sponsor at this time." Example: https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=b8ca8d3db6e11c9e https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=b8ca8d3db6e11c9e Majority of those who need visa sponsorship are Indians & Chinese. And this is not just Infosys. I have seen the same wording in job ads of many American companies. My friend who worked in Infosys told me that they were so desperate to hire Americans that they conducted a job fair and if selected, they would give offer letter on the same day. I am pretty sure Infosys did this because of all the negative media about them preferring to hire Indians in US causing Americans to loose jobs.

llampx 4y ago
The irony of having to do affirmative action to hire the majority in the country you are operating in.

velavar 4y ago

As an Indian woman that studied and worked for a bit in India, this is not surprising at all. When prepping for job placements in my University, we would sometimes practice answers to questions around why they should hire a woman who might just get married and leave the company for her kids. I remember the recruiter for a multinational company asking me this very question and 22-year old me desperately trying to convince her that I was not interested in having kids. I now understand that this is more tied to the country's culture than the companies themselves. If everyone around you can discuss this without blinking, it becomes normal to ask such questions I suppose. I've been in the US for the last 7 years now and as a woman in my thirties, it's an incredible relief that nobody ever asks me my plans for kids and the like in my interviews! I know that my child-bearing age shouldn't be a factor, but thanks to my past experiences, I'm always wondering if the decisions behind the scenes are silently taking this into account. Edit: my personal experiences may be different even from someone of the same gender/age/origin. Please consider this with a pinch of salt :)

falkda 4y ago
From wired " So unless nature is working contrarily in South Asia, something about the culture of the Indian educational system and tech industry is more hospitable to women than the American one". Seems directly opposite to what you state. That too 8 years ago. Too many fakes stories been peddled here. https://www.wired.com/2014/08/silicon-valley-sexism/ https://www.wired.com/2014/08/silicon-valley-sexism/

rchaud 4y ago

Seeing as how this article didn't even link to the court filing, here you go: https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/10/04/prejean_infosys_complaint.pdf https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/10/04/prejean_infosys_complaint.... Excerpt: > 85. After approximately a month, Plaintiff had a complete partner list and began taking meetings with partners regarding their hiring needs. > 86. Consistently in these meeting with Plaintiff, partners talked openly about their hiring prejudices and discrimination preferences. 87. These illegal criteria were more important to partners than anything else. 88. Plaintiff consistently heard from at least a dozen partners, to her shock, that they preferred not to hire additional consultants of Indian national origin, that they wanted women without children at home, and candidates not approaching 50. > 89. These preferences were open and notorious and seemed to be the company culture. > 90. In each of her meetings Plaintiff apprised the partners that they were advancing illegal criteria and that she would not act on them. > 91. Among the partners who endorsed illegal criteria were Defendants Kurtz and Albright, who expressly stated them to Plaintiff.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

I am a bit sad to read some of the comments in this thread. I’ve had the privilege to work with really high-functiong engineers, from many cultures, including Japan, India, Germany, Romania, Russia, Mexico, Colombia, Pakistan, Egypt, Ukraine, Poland, Ireland, China, Israel, Iran, Viet Nam, UK, Spain, Italy, France, etc. Many were women. Most folks we worked with (of any gender) were parents, because we tended to work with experienced people. That was mostly because the corporation I worked for, had high standards. They didn’t just throw money at people that looked good. They made sure that we hired the best (but they were cheap -relying on their reputation, so hiring was a pain). As far as I know, they never outsourced to save money (my team was actually an “outsourced” team). They hired people that could do the work necessary. I have come to realize that this was a real aberration. I am sad to know that. There were many frustrations in that company, but it was still a signal Honor to work there. I wish folks the best, and hope that the tech industry can get past the problems that, I suspect, have actually been caused by all the money being made.

WirelessGigabit 4y ago

[flagged]

webmobdev 4y ago
Everyone of us has such personal guidelines / biases when it comes to social interactions. We all form such conscious and unconscious biases about certain community based on whom we interact with and it is ok up to a point, if you don't take them too seriously (or these biases can become narrower and fundamentalist). Working with people of different culture always requires us to step out of our comfort zone to varying degree. Obviously this is uncomfortable. But as with any learned behaviour, avoidance only exacerbates the issue and practising it more and more makes it easier.

amriksohata 4y ago

All the talk of not hiring people of certain backgrounds, ghosting women etc. Is not restricted to Infosys. Working in many British companies I have seen this at rampant scale, the only difference is it's not officially spoken or written but often wrapped up with some other excuse like "oh they weren't the right fit"

known 4y ago

Ava4312 4y ago