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Smart interviewing helps filter-out bad engineers. I don't know the situation in other countries. At my work (India), 3 days of back-to-back interviews typicall
by lake99 13y ago
Smart interviewing helps filter-out bad engineers. I don't know the situation in other countries. At my work (India), 3 days of back-to-back interviews typically yield one or two employable engineers. And our code is on-par with code from other branches of our MNC, as evidenced by global reviews and testing. The upper management sees this and steady increases our head-count.
It's as silly blaming "Indian" coders, as saying Indians are poor, don't eat cows, are Hindus, etc. We are a diverse lot. Perhaps more diverse than those in the west are used to, but that's how things are here.
One systemic problem I see in most companies that I have worked for is that the companies get structured to promote even those with about 5 years of work experience into management positions. That certainly isn't enough time to develop deep competence in some of the complicated technical fields. That's been changing slowly in the last few years though.
- jakejake 13y agoIt sounds like you probably work at a quality company with high standards. It's unfortunate that there are companies who don't practice the same diligence, yet you get all stereotyped together as Indian coders. In the US I have a totally different impression of Indian coders which I happen to know is shared by more than just myself. That is the Indian coders I have known were extremely smart and particularly good with incredibly complex code. One of my friends who got hired at a place where the team was mostly Indian confessed to me that he was somewhat intimidated to start because the team was "all these genius Indian coders" and he wanted to be sure he would hold up to their standards. I hope that does not sound racist. I thought it might be interesting counterpoint that Indian programmers located here in the US do not have a negative "bad coder" image that I'm aware of - quite the opposite in fact. I know this is a stereotype just as it is to stereotype outsourcing. But, I think most US programmers negative opinion is not directed at the programmers themselves, but rather the logistics and various other challenges of outsourcing.
- lake99 13y agoI believe the word "racist" is used only with a negative connotation, so I don't think that applies to your comment. But some of your colleagues seem to have a positive prejudice towards Indians. I have had European colleagues express such a positive prejudice towards (a regional caste of) Indians, a couple of times. (I assume those with negative prejudices preferred to remain quiet.) I merely expressed my own opinion to the contrary, rather than argue hard to correct them. You are probably right about the logistics of outsourcing. I have not been involved in either end of such a transaction.
- MayankGoyal 13y agoCan you tell me what company you work for, and if you hire freshers? I graduate next year and the only companies I've seriously considered applying for so far are located abroad. I just added my email address to my profile.
- lake99 13y agoSorry, Mayank. The company does hire freshers, but only through campus interviews. These interviews are typically at some universities in the four southern states. I have not come across a case where a fresh engineer joined us by any other means.
- MayankGoyal 13y agoAh, alright. Thanks for the response.