Why startups in India find it hard to hire devs

http://pindancing.blogspot.com/2011/04/why-startups-in-india-find-it-hard-to.html

by ajhai • 15 years ago

78 43 15 years ago

pindancing.blogspot.com

themonk2• 15 years ago

Because founder wants to keep all the equity. Very few examples where early developers got share of success.

But would they be willing to work for equity anyway? Where I live no developer would work without pay (or for a reduced salary) for a startup if they could (and they could, easily) find offshoring work paid much above average local salaries.

raghava4• 15 years ago

> work without pay (or for a reduced salary)

One needs to take into account the social context when discussing India. If a guy does not earn, even if he is working on curing cancer or educating the poorest of poor, he is considered a big-time loser and a bum. If there comes along a startup with a cloned idea wanting some people who can code for lesser salary, none in their right minds would choose it; because there are a million things that could go wrong and generally, people here are less honourable when it comes to financial matters#, and always have an eye on bigger cut in the pie.

Lesser pay would not work. Equal, or even slightly higher pay compared to big IT shops, along with equity will work wonders.

#Yes, I am generalizing, but that's the situation in a society ripe with a huge poor/middle class section wanting to make it big somehow and cross those barriers.

grimlck• 15 years ago

Is it really that different in silicon valley? The article states 1% as a laughably low number, but doesn't zuckerberg own nearly as much of facebook as all other employees combined?

http://www.quora.com/Who-are-the-major-Facebook-shareholders...

dasil003• 15 years ago

Seriously? Aside from the fact that Facebook hasn't been a startup for years, it's probably produced more millionaires (at least on paper) among its employees than the entirety of the Indian startup community.

gaius2• 15 years ago

Often tech stacks are in place even before people actually decide what to do

This is a key warning sign IMHO - it means that technical decisions are being made by managers based on fashion rather than engineers based on what's the right tool for the job.

yummyfajitas• 15 years ago

I don't buy these reasons. I know of a startup which hits all the bullet points. If it works, the CTO has enough equity to never work again (unless he wants to). They want a full partner, not a coding body, which is precisely why they are giving away equity. They want the partner to completely own the tech side [1], make all the tech decisions, as well as participate in strategic decisions.

Local talent was completely uninterested. So they recruited an American who worked remotely for a few months, and is now moving to Pune and joining up full time.

[1] No PhP. The stack is Python/Django + Hadoop for analytics, and they have already released an internal utility as open source. More will follow. https://github.com/styloot

divtxt• 15 years ago

Sorry - your example is probably one of the exceptions.

I know two startup founders in Bangalore who face these issues - especially reason #1: matching the compensation for good talent.

And reason #3: there are almost no examples of non-founder startup millionaires in Bangalore (/India).

This is how most developers in Bangalore got rich in the last decade: get the highest compensation you can and invest as much as you can in two things: real estate and stocks.

kamaal6• 15 years ago

Yes, but partly the rapid growth in the 90's and early 2000's is also responsible. Most of them, heck nearly 95% of them got rapidly promoted regardless of their merit.

The problem is the moment is start offering good compensation people flock to such opportunities, some how mug up a few interview questions, read some stuff and join the company. And then do nothing there, just relax. After two performance review, when the milk is clear from water they just happily go the next job with the same interview trick.

So now they earn well and don't perform either. The actual thing is to spot and retain good talent.

raghava4• 15 years ago

> example is probably one of the exceptions.

Precisely. I myself have seen many MBA types running around looking for 'developers who would strictly be employers only, to implement that cool idea (which usually is a clone of some famous thing on the other side of planet)' with no equity offered. And as there is no safety-net through social security here, any worthy fellow would choose the obvious and avoid such startups, as the risks far outweigh the benefits.

People get what they pay for, simple as that.

GeneralMaximus2• 15 years ago

The OP is right on all counts. I live in New Delhi and often work freelance (Python/iOS work). What I've found is:

- Indian companies rarely pay well. I feel lucky if I can convince someone to pay me $12/hr.

- Most have unreasonable qualification criteria. Why do you want a degree when I have references and real world experience?

- A large number of them will treat people who went to "lesser" colleges differently from those who went to one of the IITs.

- I've never received a payment on time. On the other hand, my friends who have done contract work for American firms got paid on time.

This has been my experience. Of course, YMMV.

ajju• 15 years ago

I think you will find that the college pedigree bias is prominent everywhere amongst Indians. It's sad.

Also, the website in your profile (http://uncool.in) does not seem to be up. Wanted to check out your portfolio.

GeneralMaximus2• 15 years ago

> Also, the website in your profile (http://uncool.in) does not seem to be up. Wanted to check out your portfolio.

Sadly, it's been down for a while. I was moving from a shared host to a VPS, but I was waylaid by midterms :/

If you send me an email, I'll email back with my resume. Email is in my profile.

csomar• 15 years ago

You said you have experience and references. It's time to collect your best projects and make an online portfolio and start looking for foreign opportunities.

kamaal6• 15 years ago

Although this seems the easiest way out, but I don't think we should give into the demands of the system. For a while going away to US or the West has been the aim of our youth and needless to say this has caused significant amount of brain drain. The society is resistive to change, but change they will finally some day.

For example, a relative of mine immigrated to the US in the 90's. And is a successful doctor there. Now sometimes when he comes back for a vacation he wonders it was not such a good decision after all. There are plenty of opportunities in India. And you can economically well off too.

On the other hand. The cost of living in the US is too high, for the conservative and savings driven lives of Indians it becomes a little to get adjusted there. You life is driven by perpetual debt and insurances. Ultimately it looks like money is not for your luxury but you are for the luxury of money and big banks. Sure the infrastructure is a lot cleaner and there are high rises, it may feel like you in heaven for some time.

But on a longer run, spending your whole life paying off bank loans, credit card debts and all sorts of loans and debts. At the end of it you feel all that was not worth it.

kamaal6• 15 years ago

The problem is people have a notion that people from big-brand colleges will always do well. Though this isn't true always. But I think that helps at some degree in eliminating false positives.

From my experience I see, often the best paid are the ones who hop jobs very often. They would have very little experience and ability to work. And often don't work at all. But they would have strong associations/connections and would have worked for big brands. And the HRs hiring some how think that coming out a big brand automatically makes you more qualified for that job.

The net result is a certain section of people(inefficient) go round and round every 1.5 years. The same talent pool keeps circulating between companies. Sooner or later their bluff is called and companies reach to a conclusion that there is no good technical talent in India. Which is of course wrong.

On the other hand, good folks who tend to hang on for some time learning and working for long term projects are treated badly, denied promotions and hikes. After all this the system still wonders why the good folks are not in enough supply.

It's simple, we don't reward meritocracy and we don't get people with merit.

microarchitect2• 15 years ago

As usual, Ravi is spot on here.

When I lasted looked into them, most startups in Bangalore were run by MBA-types who seemed to be intent on just copying the latest fad from Silicon valley. Even some of the most successful Indian startups - naukri.com and makemytrip.com are just copying well-established international websites and derive their success from paying attention to the Indian market before the country was on the radar of those players. It'll be interesting to see how these companies do now that they have competition. In any case, as Ravi and many others have pointed out, only the founders got rich out of Naukri and Makemytrip.

The other thing Ravi alluded to, about having credible proven founders is also important. I know a few devs* who, if they offered me a chance to work with them, I'd jump at the opportunity. However, the vast majority of these startups guys were folks I'd want to avoid working with even in GenericBigCorp.

* Unfortunately I don't know Ravi personally but if I did, he'd be near the top of this list.

krat0sprakhar• 15 years ago

"copying well-established international websites and derive their success from paying attention to the Indian market before the country "

I'm not sure if this is such a bad thing. Flipkart copied Amazon and its thriving in this country.

microarchitect2• 15 years ago

I'm not saying it's a bad business goal. Obviously, a lot of companies have succeeded doing this. My point is that such a policy is not very attractive if you're an engineer who "wants to build cool stuff".

gaius2• 15 years ago

Oh yeah, but the margins in arbitrage always come under pressure.

malnourish• 15 years ago

Very tangential, but I was just checking out Flipkart and some things are extremely inexpensive. Portal 2 and Crysis 2 are under $20 USD.

jagira2• 15 years ago

->Flipkart copied Amazon and its thriving in this country.

Would you say the same thing about Jet Airways? Did they copy Delta Air? Or did Tata Motors copy Ford? Or did Airtel copy AT&T?

Some companies are about management and execution, and not about idea.

kamaal6• 15 years ago

Flipkart did well because they executed the Idea well. They still have a long way to go. But last time I checked they too hire and give a lot of preferences for people from IIT's.

namank• 15 years ago

Interesting Article. I'm a dev student with entrepreneurial aspirations. Any other sites, twitter people, blogs where one can keep tabs on the Indian startup scene?

blrgeek• 15 years ago

hackerstreet.in is reasonably active.

jagira2• 15 years ago

My 2 paise - More than half of Indian "startups" are working on next groupon or foursquare clone - Unlike USA, social security is almost non existent. In India bankruptcy means bankruptcy. This makes devs a bit risk averse.

aksbhat2• 15 years ago

If you are a good dev/student and some bank is willing to lend you 40,000$, it is far easier to join a good US university for a masters degree and then get a job in Silicon valley.

So all you are left with are people who cannot take above option.

raghava4• 15 years ago

Should I take that you mean to say all those not flying off to a foreign university due to various reasons of their own (a personal obligation, may be, or something like that) are not fit or worthy enough?

GMali• 15 years ago

#3 is actually the main issue, in my opinion.

akarambir• 15 years ago

nice read. Developers often go for big companies as they are getting excellent compensations but given the nature of a startup(i'm talking abt true startup- solving real problems), developers may be attracted. Most of the good developers believe in solving hardcore problems. So you as a startup can provide them that. You cannot(unless you are heavily funded) compete with big companies on salary criteria.

senthilnayagam• 15 years ago

not only startups most smaller companies in general face the same problems.

I can quote 3 examples about top5 indian IT companies a) company A ,campus interview, selects 80% of the engineering college students(all branches) including students with arrears. b) company B, does not conduct aptitude for certain colleges as it would reduce the number of hires. c) company C, recruits people from specific companies without technical interviews

employees from my company have gone to larger companies to increase their market value in Arranged Marriages.

kamaal6• 15 years ago

Oh, I can tell this isn't just a thing about your company but nearly all companies in India these days. Yes arranged marriage market is a crazy place, Unless you have a tag 'manager', 'architect' the prospective girls don't care much about the boy.

And this is understandably so, some time in the 90's and early 2000's the IT sector grew rapidly and promotions and hikes happened regardless of your worth. I even know people who have just got into the industry an year or two, did some testing and report writing. Pushed and sent to an onsite location like US or Europe and the third year you are back, you are promoted to be a manager. The middle level management in most IT giants is rotting with inefficient talent promoted early.

There fore the assumption with the current generation is regardless of their merit they need to go to the 'promised lands'(US and Europe) in an year, get promoted to a Managerial designation, book a flat, buy a car, marry with heavy dowry and settle down.

That's not happening these days. So most resort to job hopping. Some even hop jobs every eight months, whats more hilarious is.. Companies giving hikes to people who hop jobs but not to the ones who stay and perform. Adding to this regional politics in office spaces, drives the genuinely good guys crazy.

kamaal6• 15 years ago

Not just the start up in general its a little to hire good developers in India. Not because they are unavailable, but because they are often lost in the huge crowd rush. The general good folks that come out IIT's and REC's do either join a company like Google or alike. Or Write a entrance exam like CAT to work for some investment bank. Or do their MS in US and permanently plan to settle down some where in the west. In other words they just don't want to be a part of the system at all. Barring a few.

The other good folks have a very terrible problem they are forced to run with the crowd. Often they get hired by the IT big giants. The scenario there is pretty different. In the 90's and early 2000's most of them in such companies got promoted very early to managerial designations, went to onsite location like the US. Got very rich due to stocks, money earned in foreign location(due to foriegn exchange) and the hikes from promotion. They have a lot of money and give a damn on how things run, they have nothing to loose after all.

When folks join such big companies often these are the sort of people whom they meet and are forced to draw inspiration from. Most managers have hardly coded and don't know a jack about technical stuff.And since the hurry is to now become a manager, buy a flat, a car, marry with rich dowry and settle down. The struggle happens on three counts and chief being get rich as early as you can, BY ANY MEANS you can. So since now becoming manager is the key, most don't want to code at all. Some how fight, do politics(Which is very common here, due people from so many languages and regions mixing together. there is severe politics and biases towards there respective people) and go to onsite. And if this doesn't happen, go job hopping until you get it.

The sad fact is companies reward jop hoppers but the sincere ones who for long time and perform. I even know few folks who have hopped 5 jobs in 4 years, consider themselves Java expert and don't even what CLASSPATH is. Once they get the tag of 'lead' or alike they think they can just give orders and have servants do the job for them. This how 95% project managers and other designated alike work here. Adding to that to 'CYA' they purposefully promote inefficient folks, I think they a feel a good guy is direct threat to their own position.

The net result is more and more less risks projects are taken by Indian IT giants there days. Most of them in just bench testing and infrastructure management like IT support. And some times the managers are so inefficient they can't execute those projects properly.

Now coming to actually talented folks, we are terribly frustrated crowd. As self taught programmers(From other branches of engineering) and despite our hard work and merit we can neither go to companies like Google, because they treat non-CS and non-IIT folks like 'mud blood muggles' nor work for start ups. Start ups are mostly from MBA types who believe some how idea is all that matters and programmers are like typists whom they can just use and throw.

There is no easy way out of this problem. At least with the current social set up in India. Sometimes I feel I must immigrate to the US( Like Russians did frustrated with the system there.).

But no, this is my country. I will stay here and fight the system. And will do everything I can to make my country a better place and have genuinely good guys get what they deserve.

anonInd• 15 years ago

<RANT> Very well written . The education system in India is absolutely a joke. Here is how it works . After 10th exams you take up science for 10+2. Simultaneously, you enroll for Maths,Physics and Chemistry tutions ( for IIT entrence exams). If you are dedicated ,hardworking ,sharp and have no social life ( ie do not do the things every teenager should do viz chase girls, get laid, loaf around) you might get into IITs or a good NIT ( say 3000 seats) . All others are doomed to join B/C grade colleges. Here comes the catch. Such colleges do not teach anything , they just print degrees . Students mug up OS, DB , Networking, Software Engg and pass out with distiction but are not able to install Windows or change IP address . Setting classpath/path or coding( BFS/DFS/Data Str / Searching & Sorting) is a far cry.

When i graduated ( with a CS degree from a B grade college ) I could not write "Hello world" in any language , did not know how to query records. However, I was placed in the first company that came to campus. These are USD 10 billion companies that build and maintain "MISSION CRITICAL" applications for all the "Movers & Shakers" of US of A.

Four years down the line , thanks to internets ( Esp Hacker News) I can code. From a zero to a decent programmer. My teammates(4-5 yrs of experience) can not write code that will print a directory structure. They can not complie code without eclipse. All they want is "ONSITE" This is the story of India that I know. </RANT>

raghava4• 15 years ago

> My teammates(4-5 yrs of experience) can not write code that will print a directory structure.

Let them first get through fizz-buzz test, then we can talk of traversing a directory through code.

For the uninitiated, one needs to understand that most (numbers are in 75% and above, and am not kidding) of the 'developers' out here are in the IT industry not because of their love for software/programming but because it pays relatively well. And those who truly love programming are the real outcasts here.

known2• 15 years ago

Startups in India does back ground checking viz https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Caste_system_...

known2• 15 years ago

83% Indians want to escape/runaway from India http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-only-...

Why startups in India find it hard to hire devs

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