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This is exactly the problem. Median income in India is $3.6/day. It takes very little training to have someone do work for $10/day, which is a three-fold incre
by frognumber 4y ago
This is exactly the problem.
Median income in India is $3.6/day. It takes very little training to have someone do work for $10/day, which is a three-fold increase in income and a huge boost to standard-of-living. That's call center, data entry, etc.
From there, it takes a moderate amount of effort to train someone to churn out low-quality code. That brings income to perhaps $100/day, which is a very decent standard-of-living in a low cost-of-living area. That's maybe 2 years of bootcamp-level training and 4 years at a low-quality university.
Most of the talent pool in India (and many other developing countries) is shaped like a pyramid, where top-tier talent exists, but it's hard to find the needle in the haystack. Interviewing is far from a perfect process.
It's not a problem which is quickly solvable. The amount of top-tier talent can grow exponentially, but low-tier talent can grow just as quickly for many years -- India has over a billion people.
It's not clear it's even a bad thing. At the end of the day, the transitions from $1 => $10 => $100/day are a lot more important than $100 => $1000, since they provide for access to decent food, housing, and medicine. It's okay to prioritize growth at the bottom.
Without prioritizing the top at all, at some point, you do hit the middle income trap, but that's a much still better place to be than $3.6/day median income.
- 908B64B197 4y ago> It's not a problem which is quickly solvable. The amount of top-tier talent can grow exponentially, but low-tier talent can grow just as quickly for many years -- India has over a billion people. What has grown faster: the number of IIT seats or the number of "technical colleges" and bootcamps?
- sacnoradhq 4y agoThere's a similar situation in the West where very capable talent don't want promotions because the expectations are too great for the increased amount of money / pain. At some point, it's better to sort-of coast at a lower level, work on side-projects intending to turn them into a viable startup.
- frognumber 4y agoThat's what I've been doing the past few years! I was demoted when COVID hit and a bunch of jobs in my company disappeared, and have been happy as a clam ever since.
- sacnoradhq 4y agoCool. The department I'm at has a lot of people who have been (t)here a while. Some of the IC6-7's come across as big fish in a tiny pond robotic sociopaths. Manager no. 1 (HR) is a pushy, luxury SUV-driving, former IC who doesn't know anything about me or my work yet offers "advice". Manager no. 2 (technical group) is a former IC who: - Still plays at being a lead IC while also supposedly being an overworked manager - Believes the world is orderly, the impact of work is entirely quantitative, and lacks theory of mind - Believes he has a monopoly on good ideas - Shoots down everyone else's ideas - Refuses to concede any point or apologize in any context Manager above them is a good guy, but all of his direct reports come across as a-holes. I'm ready to bounce because: - My coworkers don't value software engineering, curiosity, professional development, excellence, experience, aren't supportive in any sense, and not people I would socialize with... they're really boring. The ex team lead is a cool guy and one of the hardware integration people is my kind of properly socialized, hilarious troublemaker. - On-call preventable fires happen often, sometimes in the AM - "Too overworked" to do anything right the first time, so tech debt accumulates and there's no incentive to fix anything - "Too overworked" and yet there's no possibility of new hires - No one cares about the tech or language we have to use. Customers complain about it - Nothing fun happens at work. Ever