Misconceptions about Indian Programmers

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for ages, but never quite got around to do it. Yesterday, something happened that precipitated my will to open the thread.
Before I start, a little background information, I’ve held numerous positions in my 10 years of experience in IT (web development more specifically), and in most of the times my job implicated that had to manage people, in-house or external resources, as in outsourcing.

I have had the opportunity of working with people from all sorts of cultural and social backgrounds, from numerous countries, and it’s been an amazing fulfilling enriching experience.

With time, Outsourcing has become a major part of my business and I have managed to gather a very special group of people that I like to consider “my team”.

It took a long time (and money) to find the right people, but it was worth all the investment. So I have been working with the same team for a couple of years, and things started going well, but with time we couldn’t handle the work load and we needed grow.

Now, as my business expands, I started seeking new people to expand the team and to increase our production capacity, and I started to actively look for new faces. Yesterday, I found a talented programmer from France, and we reached a good reasonable rate deal, with a monthly wage that we both agreed was highly competitive. I announced him to the rest of the team everyone started to greet him.

The minute he realized that most of the programming team was from India, he contacted me tell me that he didn’t know he was going to be integrated into a team of 3rd World country programmers, that he was not an “Indian type” of resource, and if I wanted to work with him I would have to: A: Renegotiate our deal, B: Deal with him individually as a freelancer.

Now… the first thing that came to my mind (other then wishing that I was a serial killer at that moment) was what the heck is an “Indian type” of resource?? . And then I simply realized, that although this was the first time I have dealt with this type of prodigious, I have seen this before countless times.

Indian programmers have this stigma, almost karmic, that they provide low quality solutions, that they are not reliable, and professional. You see it everywhere, inclusively on this forum, and it makes me angry and sad, not because it’s so offensive to people like my team members who I cherish and hold with the utmost respect, but mostly because it’s not true.

Of course like with everything else, and everywhere else, there are exceptions, but the reality is that India has a culture of service, honor, respect, and professionalism. I have learned, and hopefully, integrated into my way of working and methods a lot I have learned from my Indian team members. Technically I see no real difference between a good programmer from India and a programmer from the States/Europe. Maybe the approach and style is a bit different, but the end result, when dealing with talented people, is the same.

One of the arguments I have heard over and over again is that you are more likely to find talent in Europe / US then in India. I don’t find this to be true at all.
First of all, let’s define talent; is a programmer that finds excellent solutions but does not have the energy or coherency to implement them talented? And is brilliance defined by your ideas or what you do with them? Without wanting to sound too partial, most of the Indian programmers I work with are doers, they have the capacity of coming up with creative solutions, but most of the time, they are happy to provide you with solutions that work. That works for me.

I am very interested to learn your experience with outsourcing, and how the so called “culture clash” has affected you. Looking forward to your replies!

 

I'm right there with you. I had worked with a company for awhile which outsourced a lot of their work and I would have to manage the work. Generally I've found people in other cultures to sometimes have better work ethics. I can't say that everyone I've dealt with is perfect, because obviously your not going to find that kind of service anywhere no matter what kind of money that your paying. Overall, when I would deal with a lot of people, I just wanted them to be easy going and get the work done. As long as the jobs were completed on time that is all which would matter.

 

I really like one of the things you said.. " you jut wanted them to be easy going and get things done".
I couldn't agree more, If someone asked me the profile of people that I look for, I think that sentence sums it all.

 

I have hired a lot of coders in the past, and some of the best I've worked with came from India. I've also had bad coders from India... and I've had bad coders from the U.S. too. Countries, races, nationalities, etc. have nothing to do with talent, but sadly many people don't realize this.

 

I agree ab420. I think labeling people, or better yet, a class of people is just easy, but justifying it is an entirely different matter.

 

Well people don't understand that India has a large population, and that you will encounter more bad workers from India then from San Marino. Honest folks that want to work come from all sides of our beloved globe.

 

I don't know about Indians in India, but at college in the US I've met good (some of them fantastic) and bad coders from many countries, including India.

 

Every country has every person, from the bad to the right.
Of course in each country, there are good programmers and also bad programmers.
Maybe because they are lack of work hours so they still inexperienced.

 

This is a classic example of the many racial misconceptions in the world today. Indian programmers can be just as good as any out there, it's really about time people start seeing passed color and accents when it comes to talent and skill.

 

I accept this!
India is not a country its as a Sub Continent at each place in India you will find different kind of people with different knowledge and stuffs!
As far i known i worked with My Friends who are Mostly Indians some does the job and some messes and even some created creative solutions for the problems even in my company!
If Indian Coders sucks have you ever Heard of Infosys or Wipro?? nor Reliance or the miraculous TATA which gave a car at a $2500
All those companies belongs to India and Indian Base

 

i agree that there is a great work ethic there, unfortunately I think people have preconceptions because alot of call centres are based in india and can be very difficult to deal with, but I know that is not because they are based in india its just because the company operate their call centre in a poor way. (actually most call centres are like that I feel).

 

Generally you find more talent outside of the states, boy did I have a reality check when I got to Brazil. The problem is that the USA is one of the "big spenders", and normally people from outside are willing to work their asses off to get what we have due to the fact we take it for granted.

 

Right i agree with you!
Mostly Indian guys who are from urban areas are Bookwarms!
They think that scoring more marks will get a good job!
That's wrong!

 

I don't know what world you all come from OR what your standards are for quality and productivity, but indian programmers and developers in general, have to be worst I've every come across in my entire life. Indians are hired because they are cheap, not because they are good period. And don't take my word ask just about anyone with any brains that does serious IT, and I'm sure they'll give you the same answer. Honestly, do you all own stock in CrapGemini, or InfoShit, or Tata ? Get real....or is this all a big joke ?

 

Well, Indians do have best programmers but they have downgraded the worth of the projects. Now we can't get $300 for a project just because Indians offer $25 for it!