Ask HN: What has your experience been like with Indian developers?
I hear a lot of negative opinions on Indian developers in general on reddit and other forums, not sure what percentage of it is the vocal minority and what is reality. So asking the most sane group of people I know, what has your experience been with Indian developers ?
14 comments
Indian developers are just like other developers. You can find excellent ones, good ones, mediocre ones and horrid ones.
The reason they get a bit more negative publicity than others is because of the number of developers who are in the mediocre and horrid category.
The reason for that is a lot of young Indians getting into tech just because that is the easiest ticket to a decent income in a country like India where there are tons of young unemployed people striving for good jobs. Due to the population size, this number of young Indians is much larger than other countries.
So what I am saying that if you compare the excellent developers from India, they are on par with any other country. But most of the negativity comes from the excess availability of the bad ones which exist in other countries but much less due to the population differences and reasons for getting into tech.
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The reason they get a bit more negative publicity than others is because of the number of developers who are in the mediocre and horrid category.
The reason for that is a lot of young Indians getting into tech just because that is the easiest ticket to a decent income in a country like India where there are tons of young unemployed people striving for good jobs. Due to the population size, this number of young Indians is much larger than other countries.
So what I am saying that if you compare the excellent developers from India, they are on par with any other country. But most of the negativity comes from the excess availability of the bad ones which exist in other countries but much less due to the population differences and reasons for getting into tech.
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That's a good point. Even if the distribution of excellent to horrid developers is the same for India as for any other nationality - and I have no reason to think it isn't - the fact India has a high population and a higher percentage of their population going into development than Western nations means you're more likely to run into the not-so-excellent Indian developer. What you can't do is use the fact they're Indian to deduce a priori how good of a developer they are. You gotta figure that out on a case-by-case basis just as you do for everyone else.
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I have some recent experience with the "non bodyshop" side of Indian developers I can relate. Note these are all general observations and very anecdotal so consider with a grain of salt. I'm currently working for a Fortune 500 that offshored most of their development >10 years ago. The offshored firm is set up as a subsidiary of the parent, in India, for the purpose of employing workers there. I work daily with a team of 6 developers in India, and one architect/lead in the US. Here are some of the things I've noticed about my counterparts in India.
They are heavy on titles, and light on experience. The team has people with titles of architects, leads, and consultants, and a few engineer and senior engineer titles. But they're all in the code. They have experience with this particular company and this stack, but lack broad experience. For example configuring connection pools was something they struggled with.
From a technical perspective, they're good. I see them figure out some tough issues related to the tech they've been working with for a while. But when it comes to the real detailed level stuff (ie protocol level and framework internals) they don't have the depth I'd like to see. They frequently toss things to me that I feel like senior/arhcitects should be able to work through.
The business unit (US) that works with this team has a lot of trouble getting results from them. They've built themselves a lot of technical debt due to poor choice of frameworks architecture. Their system architecture is very complex, and instead of focusing on simplifying that, they muddle through, delivering little.
On a personal level, all the people I work with are great; friendly and professional. Overall I have a very favorable opinion of the southwest asians I've worked with now and in the past, great people, it's just a lot of times the senior developers lack the technical depth I'd expect to see.
They are heavy on titles, and light on experience. The team has people with titles of architects, leads, and consultants, and a few engineer and senior engineer titles. But they're all in the code. They have experience with this particular company and this stack, but lack broad experience. For example configuring connection pools was something they struggled with.
From a technical perspective, they're good. I see them figure out some tough issues related to the tech they've been working with for a while. But when it comes to the real detailed level stuff (ie protocol level and framework internals) they don't have the depth I'd like to see. They frequently toss things to me that I feel like senior/arhcitects should be able to work through.
The business unit (US) that works with this team has a lot of trouble getting results from them. They've built themselves a lot of technical debt due to poor choice of frameworks architecture. Their system architecture is very complex, and instead of focusing on simplifying that, they muddle through, delivering little.
On a personal level, all the people I work with are great; friendly and professional. Overall I have a very favorable opinion of the southwest asians I've worked with now and in the past, great people, it's just a lot of times the senior developers lack the technical depth I'd expect to see.
This question is incredibly broad, and has an element of bigotry. Most of the time, though, when people are talking about "Indians" they are talking about outsourcing shops. Outsourcing shops are stereotypically known to be difficult to work with, though in reality experiences may vary.
To answer your question, however, in my experience, I have met some software developers of Indian origin who are incredibly talented, and others who aren't so gifted. Just like every other nationality or race.
To answer your question, however, in my experience, I have met some software developers of Indian origin who are incredibly talented, and others who aren't so gifted. Just like every other nationality or race.
There are good and bad ones. My biggest problem was cultural. Its hard to have a discussion, they say yes when they mean no, you have to read their body language to. They will always see you as an authority. Its hard to have "sparring" sessions with them, because they quickly agree with you.
I think Troy Hunt's article on this is the go to: https://www.troyhunt.com/offshoring-roulette-lessons-from-ou...
On a personal note, living on the US east coast, I try to outsource work to eastern Europe or south America in order to keep time zones relatively in sync
On a personal note, living on the US east coast, I try to outsource work to eastern Europe or south America in order to keep time zones relatively in sync
From my experience, whenever a team of Indian developers are hit or miss, it's usually due to management not knowing how to communicate the goals clearly to them. And usually in conjunction with not realizing the people you pick to do the job are just as important as the budget.
I worked for a web development agency. I guess you can call it a typical outsourcing shop. The headcount of the US office is something like, two managers/C-levels for one local designer or one programmer. The majority of the programming gets done by Indians. Communication is very delayed. The management doesn't seem to care about follow-up with their clients after the website is done. A client even gave a bad review of the company saying that their SEO traffic dropped by 40% after the new launch and had to go with another agency to undo the damage.
I worked for a web development agency. I guess you can call it a typical outsourcing shop. The headcount of the US office is something like, two managers/C-levels for one local designer or one programmer. The majority of the programming gets done by Indians. Communication is very delayed. The management doesn't seem to care about follow-up with their clients after the website is done. A client even gave a bad review of the company saying that their SEO traffic dropped by 40% after the new launch and had to go with another agency to undo the damage.
I've had good experiences working with Indian developers, Indian recruiters is an entirely different story.
Like all others, some are good, some are ok, and some are not-good at all.
The only Indian developer I've personally worked with was great. Generalize from that what you will.