Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

https://www.siliconvalley.com/2024/10/07/h-1b-visa-company-supplying-thousands-of-tech-workers-to-silicon-valley-discriminated-against-non-indians-jury-finds/

by Melchizedek • 2 years ago

443 360 2 years ago

siliconvalley.com

gnabgib• 2 years ago

Also (18 points, 1 day ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41774300

throwawayian• 2 years ago

Seeing this happen at an originally Australian unicorn after the technical co-founder stepped down and new CTO swapped out all of their engineering leadership with Indian hires from Microsoft.

Previously saw it at a lesser degree to older unicorns and places like Oracle, IBM, etc.

Although it’s normalised in the latter ones.

eastbound2• 2 years ago

Which explains why its market value is hovering at $160 while its former worth, when it was properly managed, was $3-400. Am I spot on?

The problem is that every Fortune 500’s internal systems are hooked up to it.

logicchains• 2 years ago

Atlassian? As a user, I haven't noticed any decline in quality; it's just as painful to use now as it was a decade ago.

PedroBatista• 2 years ago

This is unfortunately a widespread practice even in less tech heavy companies. It starts with a very aggressive C suit or manager responding to everything 24/7, supported by “cheap” labor who say yes to everything and promise the World, usually extra complicated. Fast forward a couple years and the company/project is a expensive hell-hole of disfunction and suffering. CEOs and the board also are to blame for this, they are aware, they just don’t care as they like people who say yes and don’t give them any bad news.

bbor2• 2 years ago

…are we complaining about people living in India, or American/Australian citizens that have Indian national heritage? The former seems more like an outsourcing issue than an Indian issue. The latter… didn’t we learn in the 90s not to stereotype people?

If I posted a comment complaining about how black Americans are criminals, I think I’d rightfully be called out for oversimplifying in a hurtful way. What am I missing here?

Cthulhu_6• 2 years ago

I've been at a number of companies that had a significant Indian workforce, often hired through the likes of Infosys and the like. I don't believe that's down to nepotism or whatever though, but simple market forces: "you need two dozen SAP experts and can't find them locally? We have them".

That said, there's frequently islands of Indian and "the other" developers, in part that'll be cultural, but in part it's down to simply having a different job, expertise, department, etc.

varun_chopra• 2 years ago

Is anyone really surprised?

At the risk of sounding racist (though I'm Indian, so I guess I get some leeway here), there are likely more biases at play than it seems.

You’ll see South or North Indians from a particular state prefer hiring employees from the same state, who speak the same language, and who look like them. And it doesn’t stop there. Caste discrimination plays a role too, and it even has its own Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_discrimination_in_the_Un.... See also:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalit

[2] https://harpercollinsin.medium.com/how-does-anyone-know-what...

This kind of thing is so rampant in India that you hear about it all the time on Reddit.

So yeah, Cognizant has been found guilty against non-Indians but they probably do this to other Indians.

lazide6• 2 years ago

The beauty of casteism, and religious discrimination (and less so racism/sexism, though it is certainly possible) is the near fractal nature of the ability to discriminate against someone. After all, there are 3000 ‘main’ castes and 25,000 sub-castes. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India], and with religious discrimination you can always go into sectarianism/what guru to follow.

It’s the discrimination version of the world’s largest choose your own adventure book.

orlp• 2 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3fAcxcxoZ8

tourmalinetaco• 2 years ago

The fractal nature of it is truly remarkable. When you zoom out, you see what was essentially one people split along religious borders with India and Pakistan. Zoom in, and you see finer and finer levels of cultural discrimination.

dartharva12• 2 years ago

All discrimination is contextual and local. The number of groups has nothing to do with it.

qnleigh• 2 years ago

At the risk of sounding racist...

I wouldn't consider it racist to call out racism.

seper82• 2 years ago

[flagged]

sidcool• 2 years ago

It's the same as saying all whites are racist. Both are wrong.

Rinzler896• 2 years ago

[flagged]

actionfromafar• 2 years ago

Some people say it to mean that. But another perspective is that there can be racist structures which do not sit in any one individual. So you can be personally non-racist but somewhat trapped in such structures. If you go against the grain, you can risk life-and-limb (hey, Godwin!) or in a less extreme setting, socially ostracized.

f1shy3• 2 years ago

I do not understand “… is in culture X” same as “all X are …”

AmericanChopper• 2 years ago

To say that some quality is embedded in a culture isn’t even close to the same as saying all people originating from that culture possess that quality. The extent to which India’s (racist) caste system is embedded in its culture is hardly up for serious debate, the influence it has in India has basically been proven by science at this point.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/the-caste-system-has...

A hypothetical claim that all Indians are racist would clearly be absurd, but it’s hardly surprising to find a group of Indians practicing something that is openly part of their native culture.

Molitor59012• 2 years ago

I don't think everyone is racist but I do believe that everyone has strong tribal preference. In my opinion, people feel most comfortable around those who are most like them. This is why you can look at any food market, friend group, etc. and see so few groups of people of mixed cultures. It's very natural. Racism is when you discriminate against another race/culture, even if it's just "he speaks my language, I can understand him better.."

bravetraveler2• 2 years ago

As a casual observer, their culture seems to include considerable classism; to the degree that 'where are you from?' appears to be an extremely common and loaded question [saved for the locals]. I only recognize it because it exists in mine, not a judgement.

redrove2• 2 years ago

That exists in the EU as well, although certainly not to the same extent.

If you've never felt it, that just means you're from the countries that look down on other european countries :)

DebtDeflation• 2 years ago

Don't tiptoe around the topic. By class you mean caste. As a white guy who has worked in tech for 25+ years and has made many Indian friends, I continue to be astounded by how fixated many (obviously not all) of them are on caste. In particular, how much time and effort gets spent trying to suss out each others' caste by asking questions like you noted. Every time we get a new Indian team member and the existing ones start asking him where his parents are from and I see him start to uncomfortably evade answering while all of the other non_Indians in the room have no idea what is happening, it starts to make ME feel uncomfortable.

throwawayha4• 2 years ago

Indian society can be pervaded by a grotesque shadow practice of caste which still exists today.

And it's been used in the US by Indians who practice caste-centric Hinduism who feel they are at a certain step of the caste ladder to those below them, or non-Hindus.

https://www.google.com/search?q=silicon+valley+caste+system

suyash• 2 years ago

not a cultural reason, it's financial, they wanted to pay less to Americans.

avip• 2 years ago

Racism is embedded in human nature and in every culture. Though it takes different forms. I don't think "Indians" deserve any special mention on that one.

hnbad5• 2 years ago

It's telling that we're quick to ascribe anything bad to "human nature" while balking at the notion that anything positive might also be human nature. Greed and exploitation? Yes, absolutely, human nature, nothing you can do about it. Racism? Totally human nature, just look at this random animal species. Cooperation, trust, hospitality? No, those must be unique virtues expressed only by the pure of heart or the naive, just think of the wolves.

Nevermind that "race" as a concept did not exist in the modern sense in Western cultures prior to colonization despite the exposure to other peoples with other skin tones from other parts of the world. Nevermind that cooperation and aiding the weak and forming alliances has been the only thing keeping us alive as naked, defenseless animals that need to sustain our young for years before they can carry their weight, feed themselves, let alone fend for themselves.

beo5• 2 years ago

Can I say then - what a surprise a blanket racist statement. And to add comments by others on how superior their culture is. Must be a American/European.

portaouflop• 2 years ago

Racism is embedded in every culture to some extent. As always it depends on the details.

dang5• 2 years ago

Please don't start hellwars on HN. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

seper82• 2 years ago

I should have phrased it differently, sorry.

usrname• 2 years ago

Damm Microsoft its crazy company

burnme99111237• 2 years ago

I’ve been very interested in forming a union lately, this is just another straw on the camel’s back.

The US Tech Workers site seems to be full of reasons why it is necessary but it cannot be a US movement alone, all tech workers need to have solidarity so these companies can’t shift production to another country in the event of a strike.

My search for an organization solely focused on *tech workers* and protecting our trade was fruitless — is there any such organization?

If this all sounds interesting to you let’s talk, hn.droop582 @ passmail.net

yieldcrv• 2 years ago

Everyone on Blind says this all day, and thats basically an Indian social network

mindentropy2• 2 years ago

I am seeing the flight to low cost countries now termed as "Best" cost countries is afoot in Europe. Germany has shot itself in the foot by destroying its energy sector. Now that the energy prices have shot through the roof most of the industries are going to get outsourced. The thirst for cheap labour and where the laws especially labour laws are lax is a wet dream for management.

Lutzb3• 2 years ago

Hm, the available data does not support your point/sentiment that energy prices are increasing for industrial customers in Germany. (see https://www.bdew.de/service/daten-und-grafiken/bdew-strompre... or https://www.statista.com/statistics/1050448/industrial-elect...)

From https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/industry-electricity-pr...

Economist and economy ministry advisor Jens Südekum called the analysis’s results “astonishing.” Commenting on social media platform X, Südekum pointed out that industry prices had fallen “significantly” and that price indicators continued to point downwards. The trend would be similar for private households, albeit at a slower pace, he argued. Once current contracts expire, Südekum said lower prices should become widespread in new ones. “Overall, the BDEW figures don’t chime with current mood in debates, which is that everything is going down the drain due to high energy prices,” he argued.

hnbad5• 2 years ago

FWIW there was a huge surge in energy costs following the war in Ukraine (due to the reduction in supply of Russian gas) which was dampened by the government with a subsidized price cap at 0.40€/kWh - for consumers anyway, as far as I'm aware there were different subsidies for industry.

But consumer prices have largely stabilized at a range of 0.25€ - 0.35€ although you'll also find some prices listed as low as 0.20€ or less if you are willing to price hop a lot.

Apparently there will also be price cuts in the North and East of Germany as well as Bavaria in the near future but I don't know the specifics of that.

jansan3• 2 years ago

Well, electricity consumption has fallen quite a bit, because energy intensive industries (like chemical industry) already left the country. Energy prices are still high (not as high as 2022) and they would probably be much higher if those industries were still there.

Unfortunately there is little reason to invest in Germany at the moment. It will get worse(they are already announcing an increase in health insurance rates) before it will get better.

mindentropy2• 2 years ago

I understand where you are coming from, especially with the data. As I grew older I rarely trust data as it is not independent, manipulated or given a false view. It should be supported by physical evidences which is often missing.

An anecdotal evidence, a large semiconductor in Germany with fabs is moving to "best" cost countries and the message provided is clear by the management. Positions are moved to "best" cost countries and new offices in these locations are being opened. Support jobs i.e. back office, accounting etc are in the process first. R&D is next and many engineers have taken the hint. The biggest customers for them is automotive as is usually the case for most of the German companies. If automotive market falls then they are in serious trouble. Make what you want out of this.

oefrha• 2 years ago

Source article is here: https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/10/07/h-1b-visa-company-sup...

Paywall workaround: https://archive.is/PiMNU

Another non-paywall article on the same topic: https://insider.govtech.com/california/news/jury-finds-discr...

It's about the (previously) Indian outsourcing firm and H-1B body shop supplying contractors to SV companies. It's unrelated to the Indian manager only hiring Indians phenomenon which many people here are discussing; FWIW I believe it was quite widespread at least back when I was in the Valley, but this ruling doesn't address that in any way.

wslh3• 2 years ago

Discrimination and biases are part of everyday life, whether we like it or not. This is an observation, not an endorsement. Ignoring them is akin to denying human nature or believing that the logical mind can fully control the entirety of our thinking. This is why there are a few academic papers that explore this often-taboo topic. I recommend reading Cultural Biases in Economic Exchange? [1] where there is a table of trust between different European countries.

[1] https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/sapienza/htm/cu...

HKH2• 2 years ago

Sorry, nowadays we're supposed to believe everything is programmable/reprogrammable.

dartharva12• 2 years ago

Discrimination has largely been "reprogrammable" though. E.g. America doesn't have segregation anymore.

JohnBrookz2• 2 years ago

This happened at intel and was very noticeable even back in 2010. Indians hires other Indians. At every company I’ve been at if you were not Indian you were not invited to the conversation. Sitting in meetings where you were excluded from 30% of the conversation was wild. I never felt like they were rude or anything though- just that I was an outsider.

Best team I worked with was very diverse and they actively worked to help each other get promoted and protect each other.

kevin_thibedeau• 2 years ago

I worked at a company with a large multi-ethnic workforce. They had an Indian subsidiary but didn't play the H1B game. The rule was English only in the office to avoid exclusion.

hggigg• 2 years ago

Same experience here.

On a positive note I got replaced by a guy in India. Then after a year of them clambering over each other’s corpses for promotion and destroying the org from the inside, I got hired back on contract to unfuck the mess at 4x my previous salaried rate.

Nothing against India or Indians but the reason outsourcing fails is no one wants to be an outsourced workforce so they go for promotion first to get a better job. And I don’t blame them.

quadrifoliate14• 2 years ago

Sitting in meetings where you were excluded from 30% of the conversation was wild.

I am curious, was this due to them speaking in a different language in actual professional meetings at Intel? I have often heard these reports, but in a social context.

I have never personally observed this in professional settings; but am curious to hear more so I can watch out for it if/when I do encounter it. It's odd because I would struggle to hold a professional conversation in any of the Indian languages that I speak (I have no idea how to say something like "thermal characteristics" or "power dissipation" in them); and would likely keep lapsing into English.

mytailorisrich• 2 years ago

I have many Indian colleagues and they do tend not to speak English among them in the office. There needs to be someone else involved in the conversation for them to stick to English.

Another aspect is that I have found that they are quite hierarchical, probably a cultural trait. So how much they stick to English also depends on how senior the "non-Indian(s)" are compared to them. If you are their senior they are very nice.

drewbitt• 2 years ago

was this due to them speaking in a different language in actual professional meetings

This happened frequently at a WITCH I worked at out of college. The meeting would be in English then have segments change in the middle as certain speakers switched languages. Luckily, I often had a coworker stand up for me to mention to use English although I did miss many conversations.

JohnBrookz2• 2 years ago

I have no idea what they were talking about. For all I know they could have been talking about soccer.

throwawayha4• 2 years ago

There was an article exposing it wasn't just for / between Indians.

Indians were actively discriminating against other Indians if they weren't born into the "highest" caste of hinduism (the few percent only allowed to learn to read and write), or avoiding the "lowest caste" of hinduism (way over 90 percent).

This caste system discrimination in tech, is also used to discriminate against other minorities who are not Indian, originating from the Indian subcontinent.

Trapped in Silicon Valley's Hidden Caste System https://www.wired.com/story/trapped-in-silicon-valleys-hidde...

Insight: Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/caste-...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/big-techs-big-pro...

More: https://www.google.com/search?q=silicon+valley+caste+system

sandworm1012• 2 years ago

Canada has been dealing with this more proactively than most counties with Indian diasporas, a process no doubt aided by the by the significant number of indo-canadian politicians familiar with the issue.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-human-rights-...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/caste-discri...

https://www.trtworld.com/americas/toronto-school-board-recog...

dartharva12• 2 years ago

If this has really been going on for more than a decade I wonder what your labor regulators are doing. This is a clear-cut issue of bad labor policy.

navigate8310• 2 years ago

Safe to say that 2010 was the beginning of Intel's downfall

supriyo-biswas• 2 years ago

My guess would be that a lot of non-Indians at these companies are rejected on the basis of "vibes"; which is slightly different from racism as I explain below, although it probably ends up having the same net effect as overt racism.

As an Indian, I've observed that collectivism and subservience towards authority figures are taught as virtues; this obviously makes it quite easy for employers to extract unreasonable demands such as long working hours, transgressions of ethical limits, things that are "bad", but that generates benefits for the employer.

On the other hand, European and American societies generally focus on individualism and autonomy, which obviously causes a conflict when an Indian hiring manager sees anything other than complete deference to them as a threat, and proceeds to reject such candidates.

Dalewyn2• 2 years ago

collectivism and subservience towards authority figures are taught as virtues

Remind me to never fly on a plane piloted by an Indian flight crew.

(Protip: If you can't stand up to your captain, your plane is going down.)

joncrocks• 2 years ago

See cultural `power-distance`.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_culture_on_aviation_...

nasmorn• 2 years ago

Still very rarely, just significantly more often

fakedang4• 2 years ago

Remind me to never fly on a plane piloted by an Indian flight crew.

(Protip: If you can't stand up to your captain, your plane is going down.)

Not sure if you're joking, but this is actually cited as one of the reasons behind one crash.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India_Express_Flight_134...

ErigmolCt5• 2 years ago

When these hiring decisions are based on gut feelings or "vibes," these subjective judgments often reflect an unconscious bias

harshaxnim• 2 years ago

You’re not wrong, but that bias is not stemming out of Racism imo. Also I’m not saying that the bias is acceptable, but it shows a different kind of social problem that often transcends classes and gender.

Ntrails• 2 years ago

these subjective judgements often reflect an unconscious bias

Are you sure it's unconscious?

Say it's conscious (eg "I like my hires to be scrupulously polite and deferential") and that overlaps with a cultural norm - is that problematic?

How about "I like my employees to be extremely punctual". Or "I like my employees to be dressed smartly". Is correlation with any subset of people sufficient to be illegal? Should it be?

llamaLord• 2 years ago

There's probably a really interesting, bit potentially controversial topic to be discussed here.

As a Non-Indian, I'm quite aware/familiar with this kind of culture you speak of within Indian culture in the workplace and, to be blunt, if I were applying for a role as say a high level product manager (my current gig) and there was a native-born/raised Indian person as the hiring manager, I would at the very least be very cautious about this risk.

But in this situation, given the power dynamic is in favour of the other party, does this make me "biased"?... Or just "careful"?

thewileyone2• 2 years ago

I've seen this firsthand ... in the scenario you described, you wouldn't get it.

bubblethink• 2 years ago

My guess would be that a lot of non-Indians at these companies are rejected on the basis of "vibes"

Are you sure it's not just money ? You can pay Indians on H1B less and keep them tied to you. At a place like Cognizant, you aren't trying to get the best talent. You want the cheapest talent that gets the job done.

mozman• 2 years ago

I went to interview at a fortune 50 company that is primarily based in India.

It was very clear my communication style and values is drastically different.

It was a good opportunity, but one of the most frustrating encounters I’ve ever had. I’m glad the offer didn’t go anywhere.

Saline95153• 2 years ago

The article says explicitly that senior software developers were fired to replace them with less qualified Indians. This is not about vibes, this is a mix of racism and greed. If roles were reversed, you would be crying about racism.

thisislife22• 2 years ago

I guess it could be construed as a kind of a racism - they were fired or forced to resign because cheaper, younger and more subservient workers were available.

sneed_chucker• 2 years ago

"When you do it, it's racism. When we do it, it's vibes."

thewileyone2• 2 years ago

These "vibes" extend further than that. Region/district/city/town/village/neighborhood/familial relation is the breakdown that I've seen. I've known of qualified Indians not applying for new roles because the hiring manager is from a different part of India (Tamil Nadu vs Uttar Pradesh, for example). They know they're not going to get it. There's also the caste system to take in consideration. The ones at the top are all inexplicably Brahmin and would never promote a non-Brahmin to their level.

I've seen all this OUTSIDE of the US, in a non-Indian Asian country that had a high number of Indian software developers in a shared service centre.

up2isomorphism• 2 years ago

This obviously not true as there are plenty of other Asian countries where " collectivism and subservience towards authority figures are taught as virtues", but most Indian managers mostly hires Indians nevertheless.

It is a very observable and simple fact, why spin it?

ewuhic• 2 years ago

How to fight back when you see this happening at line management level, but not yet proliferated to upper management?

Indian product owner taking mostly to Indian peer developers, bypassing normal communication channels. Indians being friendly with each other and stone cold with the rest.

Indians bringing Indian jokes to the table, with no outsider hoping to understand these. Indians bonding to go to Indian restaurants during lunch break, so now most of the colleagues follow suit, how to stop it all?

All these culture things (except for the first regarding PO which is spit-in-the-face level of unprofessionalism) add up, and then you find yourself in a corporation described in other messages of this thread.

I had to offboard from multiple projects throughout my career because development was hijacked by Indian cronyism.

amazinteresting• 2 years ago

Best course of action is symmetrical response.

bbor2• 2 years ago

I’m gonna dip into politics a bit for my assertion that “fight racism with racism” isn’t a great move, either for the societal long term or the personal/legal short term.

ErigmolCt5• 2 years ago

It may feel satisfying, but it risks escalating tensions and fostering more division rather than solving the core issue.

eru5• 2 years ago

What makes you think so?

Usually, the sanest recourse in these kinds of situations is to cut your losses and vote with your feet.

trhway• 2 years ago

It is hard only about the first 10 years. Then you'll learn to stop worrying and love that. And the whole country will get closer to that with the first Indian President. And there will also be the first Chinese, and the first Hispanic Presidents. World is changing. And the "fighting back" is like pissing against the wind.

quadrifoliate14• 2 years ago

Indians bringing Indian jokes to the table, with no outsider hoping to understand these. Indians bonding to go to Indian restaurants during lunch break, so now most of the colleagues follow suit, how to stop it all?

Are you seriously asking how to "fight back" on Indians going to restaurants and joking with each other?

As an Indian in a flyover state who has been routinely excluded from golfing events, and had my dietary needs totally ignored while organizing things like steakhouse lunches, this is sort of darkly funny to read.

miningape6• 2 years ago

Yeah, and I'd expect that treatment as a white person working/living in India, and I would adapt to fit in with local customs / culture or else leave. But they are in the US, working for a US company - why is it somehow acceptable when you are a foreigner to create these isolated professional enclaves that exclude the "native" population?

(A group of people casually getting together is totally different to someone's work environment where they have to attend to bring a paycheck home - I'm talking exclusively about professional/work environments)

mdorazio• 2 years ago

The parent post was clearly asking how to fight back against a culture of exclusionism against non-Indians, which leads to racism.

Hnrobert42• 2 years ago

I am sorry for your experience. I also feel for GP.

Neither of you should experience that. Your experience does not negate his. Nor his yours.

everdrive• 2 years ago

I'm not sure what your point is. "You can't talk about your problem because I have a problem as well" seems to be all you're saying.

A better question would be how to prevent people from excluding each other based on group membership.

loufe• 2 years ago

I think that's an unfairly dismissive take and the "going to restaurants" bit is a mischaracterization at best.

There massive difference is WHERE the discrimination is taking place. Most would not move to India or any other place and impose their culture and exclude locals in a fair and just world. I'm not saying it doesn't take place, and yes colonialism happened and was far worse, but we're talking about what SHOULD be.

xienze• 2 years ago

Are you seriously asking how to "fight back" on Indians going to restaurants and joking with each other?

Yes? Or is it just a problem when white people choose to associate with one another at work?

gosub100• 2 years ago

you chose to move to another country. thats the difference

39896880• 2 years ago

You seem to be fixating on the term "fight back," when the commenter you're replying to is asking for ways to not feel excluded at his/her job, where s/he spends a majority of his/her waking hours.

As someone who has experienced this, I encourage you to draw on that experience and have empathy, even if that experience is expressed in ways that don't immediately resonate with you. You have more in common with the commenter you're replying to than you appreciate.

swasheck3• 2 years ago

i’m sorry for your experience(s) and how frustrating that must be. what you’ve experienced isn’t “right” and while it’s valid that you bring it up as a general concern and experience, it comes across as though you’re justifying how OP experiences their own work environment. as someone who has essentially experienced the same treatment, but from the opposite side, this is an opportunity you had to validate and confirm the presence of such behavior while expanding the scope of its presence. now we’re hung up on restaurants and golf courses and choosing sides instead of discussing the core problem

AStonesThrow• 2 years ago

this is sort of darkly funny to read.

I'm hopeful that some light will be shed on how ridiculously dystopian it is to force D.I.E. mandates with posters like "United Colours of Benetton" as if "All Men/Women/Etc Are Created In Test Tubes Equivalent And Interchangeable" and we Voters of American Progressive Enlightenment must lobby to crush out every aspect of culture that suggests otherwise.

https://youtu.be/vvDYuj1Bs6Y?si=sodV00r3eefBoZ79 Harrison Bergeron for ya

So it goes. Namaste.

rldjbpin• 2 years ago

as a foreign/outsider working in a company, the expectation lies on the outsider to adapt to local/company culture.

it is interesting to observe how people react to being in such a position when they are in a foreign work culture in their own soil. neither parties are completely at the right, but the fact that it is completely fine in one side but unacceptable for the other is so fascinating to me.

giantg2• 2 years ago

Imagine being autistic and rarely having that bonding you talk about, and certainly not with entire teams.

ThinkBeat• 2 years ago

For some reason that sounds like how white men are described in general, in many quarters now.

ErigmolCt5• 2 years ago

Cultural bonding is natural, but it's critical that it doesn't undermine team spirit or create divisions. Is there any possibility to escalate the issue with your immediate manager?

bryanrasmussen• 2 years ago

All these culture things (except for the first regarding PO which is spit-in-the-face level of unprofessionalism) add up,

you said it yourself, the first one was unprofessional and should be avoided and may be cause for action. The other things, learn to live as the minority in a group and accept what the group values.

I mean maybe your colleagues follow suit about eating Indian food because Indian food is delicious? "Hey you guys know a good Indian food place around here - that's great!" would be my response.

throwaway484762• 2 years ago

It sounds like they do have a group with its own values.

nelblu• 2 years ago

As an Indian immigrant I had noticed this very early on too. It made me very uncomfortable when some of us would crack jokes in non-English language while there were others around who didn't understand the language. After first few years I stopped working for companies that had mostly Indians in IT. I must say I have been lucky since then to always find a good mix of diverse backgrounds in my team that it has not been a problem.

dlahoda• 2 years ago

I am from slavic lands, and found out that I prefer not to work within mostly slavic teams, as any other teams with high genetic and cultural cohesions.

quadrifoliate14• 2 years ago

As a fellow Indian immigrant, I actually share your discomfort, and always try to be inclusive and diverse in my social groups. Most of my Indian coworkers and friends behave this way — we came to the US to be a part of a mixed culture, so our social groups should be diverse.

What makes me uncomfortable is that this inclusivity is increasingly being taken for granted to the point where not having it starts conversations about how to "fight back".

Even though it's not my preference I don't think there is anything wrong with Indians cracking jokes in a non-English language, or going to a restaurant by themselves. You will find that Americans will mysteriously be far more tolerant of, say, a group of French people talking among themselves in French; and going to a French restaurant as a group.

eru5• 2 years ago

How to fight back when you see this happening at line management level, but not yet proliferated to upper management?

Vote with your feet, if you don't like it?

ImJamal2• 2 years ago

This will just exacerbate the problem though? There will be more and more Indians in the company...

thinkingtoilet• 2 years ago

Now imagine being a minority. You're white colleagues making white jokes. Hiring only white people. Going to white restaurants. Etc... I like when a privileged class gets a contact high of the real world for so many and can't handle it. Employment discrimination is one thing. Having friends and going to lunch is another. For the record, as a white man I've never met, in my entire life, a single Indian person who refused to be friends with me and was only friends with other Indian people. I'm sure they exist. There are ass holes everywhere. This is not an epidemic. However, your response reeks of privilege. "How is it possible I'm not on top?!?!?"

bakugo• 2 years ago

You're white colleagues making white jokes. Hiring only white people. Going to white restaurants.

Pretty sure white people aren't mass immigrating to India and doing this there.

ttyprintk• 2 years ago

I don’t have an opinion if someone is wondering whether one of those cultures is more worthwhile to seek acceptance. But I learned a lot about exclusion from an Indian coworker who was not heterosexual.

mellosouls• 2 years ago

I think thats an unfair reading of the comment you replied to - racist and exclusionary behaviour is rightly no longer tolerated in policy intent (if not always in actuality) at professional corporations.

The issue highlighted here is that it seems at times that there are exceptions that people are afraid to call out and criticise, especially at lower levels.

KwisatzHaderack2• 2 years ago

white restaurants

LMAO! What are white restaurants?

didgeoridoo• 2 years ago

I’ve actually had a very different experience — including in my interactions with Cognizant as a vendor. Indian managers acting utterly cruel and abusive to Indian line workers (especially remote or H1B), while being generally kind and accommodating to non-Indian team members. Maybe there was a class/caste thing at play that was totally opaque to me. It was an extremely uncomfortable environment to work in.

noisy_boy2• 2 years ago

Tribalism and slave mentality can coexist.

dotnet002• 2 years ago

Even as an Indian, I don't know how that could be tackled, it seems to be kind of systemic.

I'd always been around people from all sorts of places, and many of the schools I went to would intentionally keep kids of similar origins apart to force them to mingle with others, so I grew up to prefer being around people from different places over just sticking with other Indians. I've had several experiences of running into people who seem to take pride in being the way you describe. My interpretation has been that they have a chip on their shoulder about not being "westerners" and view anyone who is better integrated as being some sort of traitor.

For now, I've only had to experience it in school and university. It's been awful every time. Yours is also a sentiment many people have expressed to me about other Indians once they've opened up to me and realized I won't care if they say something that could be racist.

mock-possum• 2 years ago

to go to Indian restaurants during lunch break

Don’t threaten me with a good time

commandlinefan3• 2 years ago

Indian jokes

Now I want to hear an Indian joke.

Terretta• 2 years ago

What do you call an illogical joke about Indian food?

A naan sequitur.

matrix875• 2 years ago

Indians bonding to go to Indian restaurants during lunch break, so now most of the colleagues follow suit

I mean, if you're going out with a group, it's usually majority vote anyway

And frankly they have good food

Eumenes5• 2 years ago

This is obvious at a number of these big box consulting firms for many years (Tata, Cognizant, HCL, Capgemini). Its so easy to verify too - go on linkedin and comb through dozens of search results of exclusively Indians (I'm not talking about American-Indians who go to undergrad in the US like every other person). These firms also take a lions share of the h1b visas which is another conversation - why does India get to have 75% of all h1b visas? Seems not very diverse.

lmz• 2 years ago

why does India get to have 75% of all h1b visas? Seems not very diverse.

Not to defend the Indians or their paymasters, but the H1B isn't diversity based, and there are a lot of Indians who also speak English, so...

dartharva12• 2 years ago

Because there are just that many applicants from India? The result of this is also that Indians have virtually no scope of settling down in the US, since the waitlist for green card for them goes beyond 134 years. Which means none of those H1B holders are going to stay.

Eumenes5• 2 years ago

Who processes the applicants? Indian bosses (see the tweet/articles). Many US permeant residents are being passed over at these big consulting firms in favor of Indians. Its nepotism, 100%. Indians in the US are not discriminated against. Despite being < 2% of the population of the US, they have an oversized influence in many industries/management level roles.

dartharva12• 2 years ago

If only H1Bs were given out in an auction instead of a lottery..

Think about it, this could solve everything. There would no longer be exploitation on either side.

thisislife22• 2 years ago

why does India get to have 75% of all h1b visas? Seems not very diverse.

I'd wager it's a deliberate US state policy. It's because we indians are good immigrants - whether it be US, Europe or the middle-east, we tend to respect (even if we necessarily don't like) the local culture and laws and try to avoid trouble and be good citizens (often better than in our own country :). And the US is a country built by immigrants that needs people. That is why Indians today are one of the largest immigrant group in the US. Also, cheap labour. That's capitalism at work - why hire American when the whole world can be your HR pool?

Eumenes5• 2 years ago

I'd wager it's a deliberate US state policy.

Exactly. If India sided with America's enemies, those visas would go bye-bye. The money being made in the US, being sent back to India, probably represents a good chunk of GDP.

See Australia. George Bush gave them a sweetheart visa deal in return for their support in the middle east in the early 2000s post 9-11.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-3_visa#History

voiceoftruth• 2 years ago

As others have already pointed out, this is due to the "group-think" mentality that is an inherent part of the hindu religion, which has spilled into the political and social conscience in the last decade, or so. I have thought hard about it, the only solution to this problem to treat hinduism as an umbrella that houses many different faiths (castes, ethinicities, linguistic groups, etc.) and then promote universal reservations across the government and non-government sectors to reflect the true hindu makeup. I also, support bringing the religious minorities into the fold. This will upset the cronyism that is present currently, and allow the truly meritorious to succeed from each group. Think of this, the meritorious get their opportunities and the demographic makeup is correctly reflected across the spectrum. Thankfully, this line of thought is gradually picking up pace in India. I am hopeful of the future that everyone, irrespective of their caste, language and faith, will be able to prosper in India.

lazide6• 2 years ago

Any reservations, ultimately, are doomed to fail as they just foster the exact same type of cronyism with the fractal levels of definitions of castes/reservations. Reservations in general encourage it, as someone has to decide who is ‘in’ the group, and that is never merit based.

Ultimately, blind meritocracy is the only option - but that is also extremely difficult to do. See the historic Chinese style civil service exams for how that can be implemented, and its pros/cons.

One major issue with blind meritocracy is it strongly favors those from families who can invest in their children - aka the rich. Though, there is a path for improvement for those with raw intelligence, unless the tests favor brute force memorization. Like most Chinese tests historically have.

pk_anon123• 2 years ago

I just posted this comment with a new account to check how easily hearsay influences people's opinions with no backing, whatsoever. I hope this thread will stay up as a reminder to stay civil and not get carried away by clouded judgement.

pm90• 2 years ago

How is this discrimination manifested? How do these managers know your country of origin?

mattmaroon2• 2 years ago

An Indian person can spot a Pakistani (and vice versa) easily. There’s a good bit of historical enmity between the two nations.

lazide6• 2 years ago

Pakistani’s are almost always Muslim (due to Partition [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India]), and will often act and speak differently in several telltale ways for anyone who knows what to look for. Both given and family/surnames are also often telltales.

And if you think Casteism is a bitch, Pakistani/Indian (or Indian Hindu vs Indian Muslim) is a bitch and a half. Just try to apply for a visa for India and see how many times they ask if you or any of your relatives are from Pakistan to get a taste.

Edit: ooh, downvotes away. Hah! No better way to tell when you hit a nerve than the torches come out.

gruez4• 2 years ago

>A lot of hatred passes unnoticed beacuse of the lumping together of the South Asian immigrants in all discussions.
How do these managers know your country of origin?

The irony.

onetimeacc123• 2 years ago

I hear you, brother. I am an Indian Muslim and I have essentially stopped considering any company that has a considerable number of Indians. I actively filter these companies out when searching for jobs. The daily micro-aggressions are detrimetal to my mental health, and I have finally come to terms that this is beyond my power to reform, hence my decision to simply ignore. This is sad, really really sad.

fakedang4• 2 years ago

I wrote about this in another comment, but I've typically found that public US companies hiring a majority of Indian/Indian-origin staff seem to perform (in market cap terms) on par with companies have just 10% of their total employee headcount.

gruez4• 2 years ago

Source? Would be an interesting finding if there were figures behind it.

jackcosgrove• 2 years ago

Even if true it doesn't prove anything because the arrow of causation could go either way. These businesses could be already worse from a financial or working environment perspective, and thus unable to hire from a pool of workers who have more options.

selimthegrim2• 2 years ago

Do you have a link to your other comment?

bobosha• 2 years ago

I am a proud Indian-American (naturalized after h1b) and I think this kind of discriminatory mindset has no place anywhere, definitely not in the workplace. I think my community can be secure in its success and learn to do better and be open to critique. Let's work to abolish these attitudes by being more self-aware and raising awareness & use cautionary tales like this as a wake-up call.

vitus• 2 years ago

Why is the submission a link to a twitter screenshot of a news article?

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/10/07/h-1b-visa-company-sup... is the paywalled source.

That said, https://www.siliconvalley.com/2024/10/07/h-1b-visa-company-s... seems to be the exact same article (author, timestamp, and all) published by the same group (Bay Area News Group) but without a paywall. (Both siliconvalley.com and mercurynews.com are registered to MediaNews Group, which is the owner of Bay Area News Group as of 2006.)

dang5• 2 years ago

Switched to that latter link now. Thanks!

Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

eru5• 2 years ago

Since there's a lot of negativity about Indians in the comments here:

I just worked for a startup with many Indians (including the founder). It was all fine, and I liked my coworkers. I can understand that other people had different experiences: companies and people differ.

For context, everything was remote, and I worked from Singapore. I'm not India, but I do like to prepone my meetings.

p_l6• 2 years ago

The big problem are WITCH companies (of which "C" is for Cognizant usually) and those that, through osmosis or purposeful actions, copy their practices.

The contracting companies probably single-handed build and maintain lots of racist stereotypes against indians, because the level of service those companies offer is always unmitigated failure, even internally. I once accidentally stumbled into working on a contract through WiPro myself, and it was a horrific experience. The way I see it, the line workers that end up the target of ire and stereotypes are just victims of actions taken way above them.

The people who can, apparently avoid working for them, or use every opportunity to escape. Those who can't yet but have ambition for more, apparently use every opportunity to escape - whether it is by jumping ship on H1B, or otherwise. Those currently stuck are in no way encouraged to do a good job, and for obvious cost cutting you get people who were in no way prepared to do the job.

Occasionally a client will get angry enough and they will pull an actually skilled person to smooth the ruffled feathers, someone they usually trot for dog&pony show when winning the contract as example of who is supposed to work on it.

But the "important" people, upper management who decide to contract with WITCH, and the upper management of WITCH who run such strategy, they all profit. The managers and/or C-level who outsource sight-unseen with no quality enforcement disappear with their rewards before institutional inertia stops papering over their decisions. The WITCH companies pocket huge amounts of money while paying pittance to line workers and providing worse than zero service.

eru5• 2 years ago

Yeah, that sounds pretty dreadful.

A few jobs ago, when I was working for a third-tier legacy bank, my manager joked that all the outsourcing they were doing was actually really useful and pragmatic, because it means they can fail their IT projects cheaper. (The implication being that their projects were by and large inevitably doomed anyway.)

commandlinefan3• 2 years ago

a lot of negativity about Indians

There isn't, though. There's a lot of negativity about _H1B_s in the comments here, but you conflate that with Indian.

dang5• 2 years ago

There was, unfortunately, but most of it has since been (correctly) flagged.

tock• 2 years ago

It's weird how racism against Indians online is so normalised. I see the same on reddit too.

p_l6• 2 years ago

Thank WiPro/Infosys/Tata/Cognizant/HCL and everyone who apes their practices.

The end result is that you see a mention of "Bangalore" and you get immediate shivers because it doesn't matter how nice and good as a person the people you are forced to work with are, if the entire qualification you can discern is that they are statistically expected to speak english, and their work environment and supervisors enforce certain counter-productive behaviours. Which is honestly abusive to the poor person in Bangalore, because it's not like they can learn the skills this way either.

To the point that I once had security team in a company where specific area of security might involve "uncomfortable questions from government" in cases of failure (fortunately not defense industry) actually sponsor my efforts to bypass supposedly crucial firewall - because connectivity including said firewall were handled by TCS.

kylehotchkiss3• 2 years ago

But things a LOT of us here use often and might even enjoy are built in Banaglore too, and it's a shame it doesn't get more publicity. Target has a fairly massive office over there working on their tech (plz correct me if I'm wrong) https://india.target.com

mardifoufs• 2 years ago

Weird thing to comment on an article about Indian racism, but okay.

Saline95153• 2 years ago

The article reports about Indian racism in a company, but they are the victims?

elisharobinson4• 2 years ago

Some of the reasons why this is happening :

-> Getting an assignment in the US is viewed as a reward for employees who work in the company for 5+ years.

-> H1B visa employess are given a 50% minimum discount to market rate. cause lol what are you gonna do . Quit and go back in the Queue for H1B.

-> nepotism / favoritism self explanatory.

-> Are more willing to work 40+ hours a week. Less likely to take vacations.

These are the observations of myself and members of my family who are from India.

infecto5• 2 years ago

Is that discount really true? There is a definite discount but I have never seen 50%, all of this data is online, you can see the payroll for H1B employees.

https://h1bdata.info/

victor106• 2 years ago

I have personally experienced this in all my previous projects and my current one.

H1B does suppress wages as employees don’t care how much they are paid. They only care that they stay on H1 so they get their green cards.

However, one they get their green card they feel the same that H1B’s suppress wages…lol…

elisharobinson4• 2 years ago

thanks for the ref , but it kinda proves the point . your source suggests the avg comp for senior software engineer is 100-150 K . on glass door it 178-263 . https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/senior-software-engineer-... .

mr90210• 2 years ago

I am going to disclose my own bias here: I tend to look for multicultural teams and somewhat evenly distributed.

As an African so far I have worked and learnt a lot from a Brazilian-Japanese, Bulgarian, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, Israeli, Russian, English, Indian, Pakistani, German, Argentinian, and a Polish.

Some of which I have the pleasure to call friend.

ctxc• 2 years ago

Hello, potential friend.

miningape6• 2 years ago

Also an African here, and this is exactly how I feel about it - the world is too interesting to ignore.

dotnet002• 2 years ago

Yep, those kinds of teams are the most fun to be in.

atcognizant• 2 years ago

Some of favorite coworkers have been from India during my career. This includes both their personalities as I got to know them and their demeanor at work.

I have worked at Cognizant for just over a year. Though we don't have this problem on my immediate team, it is something we talk about because it's obvious in other teams and as an overall culture at the company.

It doesn't seem like overt discrimination (from me and my coworkers limited perspectives). There's a couple factors

1. People hire who they know. About two thirds of the employees are of Indian descent. So on average they hire their friends and former coworkers who are also Indian.

2. Leadership requires the offshore teams to be on every project. This is to keep costs down and because the other lines of business besides their main and original one (staff augmentation) are relatively new.

3. A minority (but not a small one) of Indians really are just blatantly discriminatory.

commandlinefan3• 2 years ago

Some of favorite coworkers have been from India

Mine, too. Some of my least favorite coworkers have been from India as well. Mostly because almost all of my coworkers have been from India since about 1997.

bushido2• 2 years ago

The comments on this story are very interesting - not in the good way. This rhetoric is very similar to previous ones that existed in over the decades like Jewish/Polish/Chinese/etc people only doing business with other people of their groups. Or democrats/republicans in deep blue/red states sticking with their own.

Back to the topic:

I know a lot of 2nd, 3rd generation Indians who definitely do not fit the stereotypes.

What we're likely seeing is the effect of three things:

- Indian has a very community based dynamic that prioritizes group identity over individual identities, a number of folks have never experienced being outside their groups

- Newly arrived Individual are likely experiencing culture shock, it happens to most people. It's very much a fight or flight response. People either choose the tribe they know, or find a new one. The later is rare

- Most other ethnic groups we're hearing about took a few generations to get to white collar jobs, they already understood local norms, because these were their norms. We're seeing a lot of 1st generation Indians (and some other groups) start in white collar professions, and that will play out differently.

p_l6• 2 years ago

I think it's offloading well known problematic companies issues like Cognizant onto nationality.

It's the nature of service that WITCH prefers to provide and puts people in position where it's hard to change it, and the executives who contract with WITCH.

bushido2• 2 years ago

Good point. That initialism is new to me, I can see how companies that fall into that group can be problematic.

horns4lyfe• 2 years ago

None of this will matter when the entirety of IT and software dev becomes an ethnic enclave for Indians, while being told that there’s just not enough local talent. It’s going to happen, just a matter of time, and we’ll all suffer for it.

dartharva12• 2 years ago

The waitlist for Indians to get a green card (i.e. second-class citizenship) is 134 years currently. By the end of this decade, it will touch 200. No regular Indian going on a work visa to the US currently has any significant scope of ever being recognized a citizen.

Think of that what you will, but the list of incentives an Indian has to bother integrating into American society is rather short.

p_l6• 2 years ago

Cognizant, Infosys, etc. are also quite well known to avoid putting their H1B (or equivalent) in position to consider staying or have opportunity to stay.

wslh3• 2 years ago

Genuinely asking as someone not deeply familiar with the complexities of Indian culture: India now has the largest population in the world, is the biggest democracy, and has significant potential for growth (e.g. reducing poverty). At the same time, we see Indian leaders in top positions in major U.S. companies, like the CEOs of Google (1st gen) and Microsoft (2nd gen). How do these factors all connect? What drives this mix of internal challenges and global success? I’m not naive in thinking that a few successful individuals represent an entire population, but I do see a signal there.

kamaal• 2 years ago

1. India has a low gdp per capita. What that means is quality of life for masses is low. That also means slum/ghetto like neighbourhoods. Even if you have the money you mostly stay in a gated community, sandwiched between those areas. So you want to leave ASAP and stay in the west.

2. The Indians in top leadership positions you see in tech firms are rare exceptions. To some extent they also come from fairly well off families and communities in India, who have social capital. Can afford cram school fees for Ivy league exams, money and ability to take loans to study abroad etc.

3. Any body who once makes non-trivial money or sees non-trivial career success instantly realises, given how big India is. Given its politics, and overall spending on Education, R&D, and the rate of industrialisation. The only hope for a good life for their, or atleast at their children is to move to the west.

Basically people want to leave India, as fixing India is largely a long term, and also a nearly impossible project.

kylehotchkiss3• 2 years ago

The "upward trajectory" we're all so familiar with is not (yet) as big a part of their culture yet. (I believe this is changing... the chronically online young generation seem to be absorbing a lot more of international culture than their ancestors). The regulatory environment for any business is an absolute nightmare of hostile patchwork policies different in every city and state. When foreign companies come in, the government babus want to yell Imperialism! at every turn, which leads to 51/49 ventures being the way to go, which are overly bureaucratic.

It brings me hope to see shark tank getting popular there. Not to say the hosts or the contestants have been as honest as they should be, but it shows a big shift in mindset since India's 80s/90s economic policies

ErigmolCt5• 2 years ago

The absurdly long waiting times

raincom• 2 years ago

Produce kids on American soil. These kids can sponsor parents once a kid reaches 18 years of age.

bongoman42• 2 years ago

Or marry someone born outside of India, which lots of people are doing.

rudnevr2• 2 years ago

that's what they actually do, yes. It's been a joke first, not anymore

nitwit0052• 2 years ago

You may be right, but that has basically nothing to do with sidelining and firing non-Indians.

dartharva12• 2 years ago

Of course it does. If it is all but definite that you are not going to stay, why would you not just optimize everything for your short-term comfort or preference, sacrificing long-term benefit?

jl62• 2 years ago

The worst HR case I ever got involved in was a semi-onshore (Indian) development team who couldn't deal with having a female (Indian) tech lead. She was eminently qualified for the role, but they would attempt to undermine her at every turn, speak over her, hold meetings without her, always going over her head... Caste did not appear to be a factor; it seemed to be good old fashioned sexism.

ErigmolCt5• 2 years ago

That situation is unfortunately all too familiar and it speaks to deeply ingrained gender biases that exist not only in some Indian cultural contexts but also in many other parts of the world

kylehotchkiss3• 2 years ago

Caste is not the driving factor in Indian culture.

odux2• 2 years ago

As an Indian, this, unfortunately, is not true. Within India caste is very ingrained with the culture and in some aspects it is very difficult to separate culture from caste.

Saline95153• 2 years ago

Why are skin lightening products sales increasing every year? It's expected to double in the next 10 years. https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/11/health/skin-ligh...

bsoles• 2 years ago

These documented cases even in the US would like to disagree: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_discrimination_in_the_...

aitchnyu• 2 years ago

Who are "they"? How did the complaint move forward? I'm Indian and seen too many cases of this and the bad guys always win.

jl62• 2 years ago

They = an all-male dev team, and it wasn't a complaint. The lead never complained. Probably considered herself very lucky to have landed in a lead role and didn't want to rock the boat. They were all working for an outsourcer who we (the client) had engaged. However, it became apparent to us (the client) that this was happening, in our offices, even if it wasn't to our employees. We did an immediate soft intervention of placing a permanent (non-Indian) colleague into the team in a scrum master type role, who did a great job of facilitating meetings fairly and basically telling the men (boys, frankly) to shut up once in a while. We probably broke a rule by unspokenly deciding that the scrum master had to be non-Indian. Meanwhile, HR cogitated and came to the conclusion that we had no contractual right to invoke any process on the men as they weren't our direct employees. However, we did have the right to ask that people be replaced if we were not satisfied with performance. Cue debate on what constitutes performance. Cue debate on whether the project could take the hit of losing its whole dev team all at once. This all took a long time, as we believed there was a chance that the intervention would work if given time. Maybe this was a teachable moment? And aside from the appalling attitude, they were decent devs with a lot of difficult-to-replace knowledge. Not gonna lie, we hoped the problem would go away if we did the bare minimum "fix". Communication improved, but it was an uphill battle.

As it happened, fate intervened, and wider organizational spasms caused the project to be mothballed. We had to give notice to the whole dev team, including the lead. Fortunately, this was a megacorp, and other projects swiftly moved in, and new work orders were drafted. This gave us an opportunity to approve the team sheet for the outsourced roles. The female tech lead was waved on through. The troglodytes were rejected. The reason was stated. We received a duly grovelling "this will never happen again" response from the account manager. They never worked for us again under my watch, but I believe they were simply rotated on to another client rather than receiving any material comeuppance.

So, they kind of got away with it - but also kind of didn't.

formerlurker• 2 years ago

If you read TeamBlind you will see a large quantity of misogynistic thoughts from Indian men. They are so unashamed they do not even hide where they are from.

dartharva12• 2 years ago

dang? Where are you?

This comment section has gone to the gutter. Please flag this thread. This isn't even that significant of a news - we can come back to this when the court actually hands a ruling.

dang5• 2 years ago

I've done some moderating in here now, but if you want to alert us to something like this, it's necessary to email hn@ycombinator.com.

If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Molitor59012• 2 years ago

The only point of contention I have with this whole debate is the general premise that it's wrong to make citizens of a country redundant (lay them off) in order to replace with cheaper labor brought in from other countries.

From an accounting standpoint perhaps it makes sense, but from the view of the workers, and the community, it just seems wrong.

lupusreal3• 2 years ago

Unionization could, at least in principle, offer a solution.

Nefariouspurpus2• 2 years ago

Although I'm not deeply familiar with the specifics of this particular case, it raises broader questions about the industry that specializes in outsourcing, particularly to countries like India. If outsourcing is a core part of a company's business model, isn’t it inevitable that more jobs will continue to be funneled to countries like India, and, consequently, to Indian workers?

While I understand this particular case involves allegations of discrimination within U.S. offices, the larger trend seems unavoidable. As companies prioritize cost-efficiency, it may no longer make economic sense for citizens of HCOL countries, to seek employment with such firms. Similarly, these companies are likely incentivized to constantly try and minimize the number of high-cost employees—whether they are Indians on H1B visas or American citizens—on their payroll.

This raises a concern about whether the government should intervene to address this industry trend of outsourcing. However, if we look at what happened with manufacturing and China, one wonders if such intervention will ever come, or if the shift is already inevitable.

hooverd• 2 years ago

Eh, cheap Indian outsourcing isn't viewed as a near-peer threat.

red-iron-pine3• 2 years ago

definitely my experience dealing with them at F500s. Indian mafia running the IT org, and a PITA to get things out of them.

personal favorite was that someone from network support ran a script that changed ownership of all of the docker containers and associated configs, outputs, and logs to root. we had pretty clear proof in the logs that a Cog support tech did it, and basically had to escalate to the CTO and get him to threaten a lawsuit to get them to fix it.

Also watched caste bulling play out in real time in a cramped meeting room in the RDU Triangle, in NC. Wasn't clear what the strain was until later when a full-timer of Indian extraction explained it to me.

bufferoverflow• 2 years ago

Yup. Currently working at a large multinational. Pretty much 90% of developers and managers are Indian. Very few Americans. Some Chinese and some Slavic.

I have never seen such ratios in 20+ years of my career.

AtlasBarfed• 2 years ago

The bean counters sure didn't care, this was blatantly obvious even two decades ago.

I don't fault the outsourcing companies it's nothing different than what occurs with American consulting outsourcing before offshoring: get the deal signed, get the responsibilities transferred, and milk the cow.

The anti nerd bias of american culture means that IT is less respected than even blue collar workers by management.

The higher salaries of IT are begrudgingly given. I predict over the next two decades they will collapse to what typical engineers are paid: as in it's more lucrative to be a plumber

skynr• 2 years ago

We have a high proportion of onshore on-site Indian employees who are absolutely awesome. However they've gone through the local company's recruitment process so will have been selected for fit.

The experience with outsourced resources is significantly different.

I build a good rapport with one who talked me through the politics and power plays behind the scenes at their midsize outsourcing arm. Just very different social values to Western orgs. Incredibly hierarchical with no value given to autonomy or independence. Those who want to do well and try really hard frequently get their helmets dented by over zealous managers.

Also experienced - ex offshore very often have incredible cvs until you interview and there's no actual experience. Polling the above contact he mentioned that for some offshore orgs promotion is literally time in role, not competency based.

My experience, your mileage may vary, and I reiterate those I've worked with on-site have been awesome, generous, funny and very supportive people.

dang5• 2 years ago

We changed the URL from https://twitter.com/USTechWorkers/status/1843744799607898260 to what looks like the article it points to.

Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

matrix875• 2 years ago

something weird on my team is that most of them (around 40) are from the exact same province in india

just seems kind of bizarre to me, like deciding to only hire people from Florida for a team in California

simfree• 2 years ago

Indian communities in the US can often be clanish, and self-segregate to specific areas of a neighborhood or town.

You can see this in action on the eastside of Lake Washington, always fun to get glared at for being at the wrong block in Samamish, or the wrong (or sometimes right) condo building in Bellevue. Do not bring a dog! You will get solid stares, does not matter how said dog behaves or what local policy is.

Seattle notably legislated against the caste system persisting in the city, but from what I hear it still is a thing stateside. Most of the Indian community lives outside Seattle though.

odux2• 2 years ago

Language, region and caste are different things though. Caste is a big problem in India but very rarely a problem for discrimination in the tech/highly educated Indian circles in the US. Caste is sometimes very closely related to “culture” so it may be seen in things like weddings sometimes to though. The Seattle anti caste discrimination law was more political than practically useful.

But language is a problem and you will see people speaking the same Indian language group themselves together.

matrix875• 2 years ago

I'm not really holding any of that against them because moving to a new country with a different culture is hard

matrix875• 2 years ago

Edit:

And I will say, they've shown me a great deal of hospitality

I see a lot of negative feelings in the comments here. If anyone is having negative feelings they should be directed to corporations who have artificially engineered this situation. The people involved are not to blame

sumedh4• 2 years ago

The people involved are not to blame

You can blame the people as well. Some of them will have a preference for people from their own state and who speak the same language compared to a non Indian or even an India from a different part of India.

rudnevr2• 2 years ago

I worked for Cognizant for a couple of years on multiple engagements, and I'm not Indian. I saw different things, and obviously there was some dynamic around ethnicity, from 'I'll only hire Indians because they work harder' to Indian boss abusing another Indian programmer while excluding me. I was somewhat advanced level, though, maybe that played a role, so for me personally it was an overall OK time. Overall it's good that this conversation eventually happening, I think, it's in everybody's interest.

binary_slinger• 2 years ago

I was at one point located in Plano, Texas which has a large Indian IT community. When my job search started around eight years ago fresh out of school with a masters degree I was passed up by every IT firm in the area. This is a hard and controversial topic to discuss, and I apologize if anyone find my words here offensive. But the pattern I recognized was if the interviewers were Indian I would not be passing the interview. I have no proof of this. But my Indian peers at my school who applied to the same firms with similar credentials and skill level had little trouble.

Cognizant found guilty of discriminating against non-Indian employees

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