Indian Programmers

[moorfield]

On a previous gig I've worked with some talented Indian developers, and some less so. On my current gig I've worked with some talented German developers, and some less so or just plain anal/difficult/prima donnas etc. etc.

The day to day problems, I've experienced, boil down to the same thing and IMO it is this - split development teams and sites simply do not work, regardless of cost saving or culture.

[Ardesco]

On a previous gig I've worked with some talented Indian developers, and some less so. On my current gig I've worked with some talented German developers, and some less so or just plain anal/difficult/prima donnas etc. etc.

The day to day problems, I've experienced, boil down to the same thing and IMO it is this - split development teams and sites simply do not work, regardless of cost saving or culture.

Not in all cases. I worked for Sony for a while and the dev team was in Holland, I was testing in the UK and stakeholders were in Japan. We had little niggles here and there but as projects go it was one of the best run ones I have worked on and the end product was really rather good.

If you get a good team you are onto a winner. The problems arise when somebody tries to do things on the cheap and buys in bargain basement labour, that's when split development teams don't work.

[darmstadt]

Not5 all are crap but I really wonder about the companies who outsource exactly what they are told by the outsourcing compaines about the skills and resources that their staff have. I happen to be on a list which is run out of India for techies and some of the questions make me really wonder what is going on there:

Please help me with the material or URL which is useful to get the idea about HP COBOL, POWERHOUSE, MPE.
?
I am new to them. But my client is using them

Can some one please share assembeler material and the way how to excute
> assembler program in Mainframes(JCL or online).

Hi All,
Please send me the MAINVIEW reference manual for CICS and DB2.

A lot of questions are asking for manuals, software and how do I do this task.

[Bob Dalek]

They're not all tulip, it's just that all the guys that are really good are snapped up on decent wages by the big Indian firms. What you normally get over here are the dregs that:

a. Couldn't get a well paid job with one of the good firms
b. Aren't even Indian anyway
c. Are damn cheap.

(take your pick)

All 3.

[Bagpuss]

Indyans always do a Cowboy job

John Wayne

[NotAllThere]

Where I have seen the biggest cultural clash is in the management style.

It's totally appalling. It's based on slaverism and micromanagement. The control is so strict that everybody would never dare to have any initiative so you have to tell them exactly from the first step to the final step what to do and check daily the progresses. In meetings only bosses can talk, everybody else has to listen, no one dare to suggest anything.

We now have an indian manager (grown managerially in India, of course) who is doing exactly the same to european people. Needless to say that everybody is totally frustrated and productivity is very low. Yet that's the only way you have to deal with over there.

SAP have their TechEd techy conference in various locations over the year. The day before the official launch is "community day". In Berlin and Las Vegas this year, very well attended, even though there's an additional fee. In Bangalore it's free, but managers didn't see the benefit, so it was difficult to get people to sign up.

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/webl.../pub/wlg/11678

I spend quite a bit of time on the SDN forums. And where we would ask our colleagues for help, the Indians would rather post, under a pseudonym, to get the answer. They're so terrified of being thought incapable.

[NotAllThere]

...

A lot of questions are asking for manuals, software and how do I do this task.

Same on the SAP forums. They get zapped pretty quick now.

[Moscow Mule]

They're so terrified of being thought incapable.

That is why you often get a "yes", when the real answer is "no" or "maybe".

We've had some guys over here who now understand that saying "yes' to everything isn't helpful. Hopefully they'll take that back with them and disseminate.