This article is clearly biased and (not to put down the original author) borders on hero worshiping of India and her engineers. Some glaringly partisan comments "liberating Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) from Pakistan’s colonialism", "India manage to fight (and win) two major wars just a couple of decades after independence", "slog through med-school, do a post-doc specialization, an internship, become an assistant, and finally 15 years later, in-debt, start your own medical practise.(sic)"
There are large number of problems with the engineering system in India (especially about the number of engineers and the quality of engineering education) and the author just sweeps them under the rug.
Poorly written.
Full disclosure: I am an Indian Engineer now studying in UC Berkeley. Almost a perfect fit to the model described (except that I didn't graduate from the IITs).
Thanks a lot for your comments, and I see where you're coming from. In retrospect, there may be a slight bias, and I'll be sure to keep that in mind when I write my next article.
My aim was not to glorify engineering in India; very far from it, actually. The aim of the article was to provide a really shallow look into the history of engineering culture in India. There's a lot more that I really haven't even talked about - how politicians set-up engineering schools since that was a major way to pick-pocket the middle class, the (alleged) abundance of black money in many "premier" institutes of engineering, and in general, the way engineering in India is taught is plain wrong.
I graduated in 2010 from an "NIT", and I am fully aware of how bad the engineering system in India is.
The bias wasn't slight -- in fact, it made it tougher to get through the whole article. It felt like the whole time I should be picturing the Indian flag waving majestically in the background, as India single-handedly picked itself up by its bootstraps and liberated its neighbors in wars of conscience, and literally rocketed itself into space, all via an army of Indian engineers (the gifted superior students), doctors (the snobby rich kids), and lazy good-for-nothing B.As. Viva India, who can do no wrong.
Even when the article makes a minor allowance for less-than-stellar engineering performance -- why did it take longer than expected to develop nuclear power? -- the answer given is not anything to do with engineering, but only that Indians were too peaceful under Ghandi and simply didn't feel like going nuclear.
I'm a big fan of India and Indian innovation and potential. I would just have liked to read a more balanced article that didn't bother with the nationalistic stuff. Viva Indian engineering in the 21st century!
"I went to <$xyz> school. I am good." Short answer: No.
Some of the best coder/hacker types I've met in India were self-taught. I have never met/interviewed a truly outstanding candidate from any of the "top-line" schools ever. Sad, really. What was worse was the arrogance of some these so called grads.
The moment I read excerpts from "surely you're joking mr feynman" about Brazil, I thought someone had done a major typo and put Brazil in place of India, because that is how students are taught here; sad part is that Mr Feynman was referring to Brazil of 70's and 80's (correct me if wrong) and I am referring to India of 2011. I assume that Brazil is doing much better now (?). The Indian education is more about serving (read ITES) than leading.
The article is indeed right but it misses few points. Given the fact that India is just 60+ years old, the dreams that Indians see is lot different from the ones being seen in west. People in India still struggle with the basic lifestyle, which includes a car, a house, broadband, smartphones, 3g, air-conditioning (yes I think all of these are part of basic lifestyle). You don't find furnished homes in India very often. Once you are in, you have to manage everything (bed, refrigerator, laundry and what not). When you are asked to survive in one of the hottest part of the world and you cannot afford an AC, doing work is nightmare. So for an Indian guy right out of college, there are a lot of questions unanswered. I don't think this is the case in west, is it? (I stayed in London for an year and everything was there right from the first day). So it's a little unreal to expect everyone to jump into doing a startup or becoming famous.
But yeah, above all the best part is that situation is changing very fast, lots and lots of Indians are taking the unconventional path, trying to make sure that future holds something good.
I loved that story from Feynman's time in Brazil. What I've often wondered though, is this: Did his time there change anything for the better?
What became of his former students? If even a couple learned to look at the world a bit more like him, then the ripple effect might have been great. If nothing else, it's hard to imagine that the educational system has been unaware of his critique. Did it spur any sort of reform in the decades since?
As much as I enjoy Feynman's writings, I'm rather surprised at the significance people attach to that old anecdote. It was just his short experience with one class, and we don't even know which university it was. I wouldn't assume the situation depicted there is representative of Brazilian advanced education in the 60s. In any case, it certainly doesn't match my experience in the 90s (I majored in CS at a Brazilian university). For instance, my exams would typically involve writing and analysing algorithms, solving mathematical problems and proving theorems. If you memorized the textbook without understanding it you wouldn't pass a single class.
Hi HN. I'm the original author, and I certainly didn't expect this to show up on HN. Ill be the first to admit I would've liked a little bit more time to research, and this is my first article for somebody else. I'm an aspiring writer and I'm new to the big bad world of long-form journalism; so treat me nice :) Comments about the ugly parts of the writeup are obviously welcome !
In the past 15 years or so, there is an explosion of engineering schools and the number of graduates.
I've been part of the crowd that lamented the decrease in the quality of Indian engineering graduates.
When you look at it in a different way. Would you rather have more engineers than less?
I would go for more.
As an individual, having an engineering degree is better than having a degree in arts.
An engineering degree provides these guys with better employment options even if our notion of quality is shattered.
India is coming of age and the days when 'I studied roman history because I am passionate about it' are not far off.
As of now, livelihood trumps passion.
>>When you look at it in a different way. Would you rather have more engineers than less? I would go for more.
At the expense of quality?? Literacy isn't the same as education. And because of this sort of things its that Indian IT isn't able to take any thing more than IMS projects today. The managers haven't the slightest clue how to run projects, and engineers haven't the slightest clue how code, design and build.
No point in having paper degrees if people can't work! Money comes from work not from degrees! And its not about passion, its about doing one's job properly. And that can be done even without the burning passion. If my job is that of a coder, I should be able to do my job properly even if I don't have the passion to write the next big OS kernel.
And the employment opportunities, how can we sustain getting business when we can't deliver on the current ones?
The service industry standards in India are quite bad, as I have had first hand experience of the sorry state of our development environment. I have thought about this for quite some time, and as others have pointed out there is a definite dearth of passion as the industry is filled with people who worry nothing more than their paychecks at the end of the month. It's quite hard to find motivation amongst such peers(Just to clarify, I'm not badmouth-ing anyone, just stating the fact)
At times it has often make me wonder at our consistent mediocre attitude. The top programming languages right now(Java, C++ etc) has had it's origins in the US and elsewhere, where the language authors have had put in painstaking efforts in creating libraries so as to make adoption of the language as easy as possible. The irony being since most of the hard work has already been done, the mediocre work gets outsourced for cheap labour.
Just my 2 paisa...
The one thing that the article overlooks is that engineering is still the safest way to get a healthy living standard in India. The salary paid by IT firms is exponentially higher than what middle class India has ever seen. Our culture taboos failure. People are worried about a child doing badly in 1st standard. This aversion to failure mixed with the IT boom has led to such a large number of engineers in India.
Thanks for your comments. I'm with you on that - and that's what I meant when I wrote:
"Becoming an engineer in India virtually guarantees financial security for life, and this blinds parents into forcing their children to choose engineering."
But if this is the case, then shouldn't your article be about 'how money is creating a lot of engineers in India' rather than saying that India has an engineering culture?
I see it in a similar vein to how there are so many finance people in the US - that's where the money is - quick riches compared to other jobs you could get. And if the money/financial security disappeared, so would all the interest in working in that field - ie the culture would evaporate.
It's different to say the US innovation culture which is an attitude and culture that has developed over decades due to many drivers, but money hasn't been the only or even major driving force behind it and in many ways is impervious to fluctuations in 'market demand'.
The article is trying to show causation from correlation, the reasons for the number of engineers in India have nothing to do with the Independence, Wars with Pakistan, ISRO, DRDO etc. A much better and plausible argument is Y2K, a strong domestic IT sector and herd mentality.
Hi, I'm the original author. Thanks for your insights. I've been speaking to many engineers from the 60s/70s/80s and I really do believe the mentality has been in the making for a while now. Y2K was just a decade ago and engineering in India is surely older than that. And yes, herd mentality did play a huge part, as I said, since my seniors were doing it, I did it.
Actually, I think the article makes some interesting points.
Firstly, anyone who has had experience with off-shoring to India is probably convinced that the whole country is just minutes from falling apart through shoddy engineering.
That makes the first part of the article very relevant, because an important part of realising that there is a problem is to realise that Indian Engineering used to be very good.
Then the article hints at what I think are the two main reasons:
(1) Immigration
(2) Cheating in the education system/lack of effort
I actually see this in the west as well, the attitude that the whole point of university is simply to get some piece of paper that is a de facto licence to print money.
Westerners today interacting with the off-shore engineers will usually come away shocked by how lazy the Indian programmers seem. They have no pro-activity, no problem solving ability.
But is that an accurate picture of Indian culture? Could they have modernised their agriculture, fought 3+ major wars, launched satellites into space and developed a nuclear program if they were all like the off-shore programmers? They'd have starved to death and/or been wiped out by their own incompetence if that was the case.
Clearly, the Indian Engineers of 2011 are a 'different breed' than their counter-parts in the 60s and 70s.
Something must have happened.
If you accept that premise, that things have gone downhill in a big way, then it begs the question "why?". Now the author may not have all the answers - but he has some interesting points.
To dismiss him as "plain wrong" is unworthy of hacker news, and disrespectful of the effort it takes to create this kind of big-picture historical overviews that challenge entrenched views.
Do you really want hacker news to become yet another Digg or reddit?
Personally, I find that a brief examination of American history provides some support for the view that brain drain for a country is a bad thing, and immigration of smart and motivated people to your country is a good thing. America got big and strong by two things: (a) enormous mineral wealth, (b) opening its borders to immigrants. Having avoided most of the draining effect of the European wars in the 1800s and 1900s helped, and also served to promote the view of America as a safe haven.
If you forget that immigration isn't just about "dumb people who are browner than me" and also includes "the intellectual elite of countries like Austria fleeing wars and persecution" then you start thinking that immigration is all about "they took aor jaorbs!", and close down your borders, impose quotas... and the stagnation begins.
"Firstly, anyone who has had experience with off-shoring to India is probably convinced that the whole country is just minutes from falling apart through shoddy engineering. "
Untrue, Uncalled for, Unsupported by any facts, and plain wrong.
This has been my experience too. If you specify exactly what you want down to every little detail, Indian teams can write the code. But if anything is left hanging at all, you get results that are subpar.
My take away from working with graduates of Indian universities, both abroad and at home, is that these schools do not impart critical thinking skills as well as they should. This definitely hampers employability for many grads.
The problem is that because software is this ethereal invisible thing, no one can measure it or it's quality.
We know the off shore code is crap. After all, 9 times out of 10 we're the ones who have to fix it even though it will still be chalked up as a success for offshoring.
If they were offshoring something real, that they could look at and see the faults, that they could get their hands on, that they had to drive their cars over... they'd be screaming blue murder, and price wouldn't come into it.
I don't follow. How is it capitalism's fault that India produces large numbers of bad engineers? You seem to be conflating the fact that capitalism (specifically, cost-cutting) leads to these engineers being employed with the fact that their education is lousy.
I'm not sure if that's fair. If you produce a labor-intensive product of such variable utility (engineers), then you would expect the utility to drop to reach a price equilibrium. If there wasn't a demand for crappy engineers, the quality would rise - along with price.
Therefore, their education is lousy precisely because these engineers are employed.
India may just have conditions of production, whether by providence or design, that are more efficient at producing minimally satisfiable engineers than anywhere else. Of course I'm talking about a hypothetical India that produces engineer shaped widgets - so no offense intended:)
"India produces large numbers of bad engineers" - that's a sweeping statement. Among all countries, India sends the largest number of engineering students to the US (according to NSF - http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india-sends-maximum-number...), which is not bad for a country producing "bad" engineers. I am a professor in a US university, I work with a lot of technically trained undergraduates, and I can say that students here (as anywhere) when they complete their undergraduate education, are merely ready to become an apprentice at a company. Their education continues in the company (or research lab) they join. So when you compare recent Engineering undergraduates from different countries, I am willing to bet that their quality is on average not that different.
I've worked with some engineers in India that aren't getting good salaries. They were much smarter than some people in the US that are getting good salaries.
Salary, in my experience, really correlates with nothing. It doesn't make sense, but that's my experience.
Well, obviously you've been using horrible developers (you can find them in your home country too).
IIT's are not your average university. Digest this: 34% employees at Microsoft, 28% at IBM, 17% at Intel and 13% at Xerox are of Indian origin.
Gates warned US congress on H1B visas, "U.S. companies simply will not have the talent they need to innovate and compete," and all those Indian students receiving their education at U.S. universities will have to leave, to the detriment of US high tech companies
The existence of a well-backed military-industrial complex seems to have very little to go with the glut of engineers in India, let alone cross-border politics.
As a product of this system, the reason seems fairly straightforward to me. Its plain simple economics. On average, in India, engineering is the path of least resistance to a quality of life better than your parents. When I graduated about a decade ago, engineering was perceived as a stepping stone. Indeed, most of my classmates are not in engineering anymore (most of them weren't even interested in it), and, by all modern measures, quite successful. A 4-year engineering is seen as a foundation to bigger things, and that doesn't seem like such a bad thing at all. Its the generally accepted way of getting to the top of the pile, if you're not born into money, and so its not surprising its such a popular choice.
There seems to be a small sliver of anecdotal evidence that this may be changing, with people willing to follow their passions more, but the effects of this 'at scale' remains to be seen.
To folks with the bad-programmers-from-India experience, the fault is solely yours. You're looking for engineers from this system to do your job for the least money. You're going to get people who're great at selling themselves, not great hackers.
Its called the Internet and it allowed brains in one area with fewer rewards for brains to connect to another area where brains are well rewarded and to do the sort of work that can be done over a network.
Interesting. I was always under impression that Jawaharlal Nehru's reforms (pretty much socialism) were the key. His policies and reforms were key in establishing India education system.
Without him and his reforms there will be no path for better quality of life for many Indians.
How much of credit should be given to Jawaharlal Nehru's reforms?
The current form of education system is very different than what existed during the immediate post-independence era when the reforms were carried out. The entire Indian Industry and people passing out on the basis of their jobs in those times could be classified into the following categories.
First and foremost, The elite, the civil services, UPSC et al. Next opportunities in the defense services, Next came government jobs(clerks, small time accountants etc). The private sector jobs were limited to factories(Process based jobs) like ITI, BEL, HAL etc. Then small time business men. So depending on them the general qualification were BA, BCom and Industrial training courses(Welding, electrician etc).
Medicine and Engineering were considered elite, the demand and supply was both limited. For a while India had a Gulf boom, many people went to gulf to work. But real turn around happened after Manmohan singh's FDI's reforms in the early 90's. This is when the outsourcing market took off and the IT boom started and demand for both crappy colleges and engineers went high.
During that time, it was easy to get promoted and work in a foreign country. Due to all this every tom,dick and harry got promoted and became a millionaire. Even if he was moron and knew nothing and did nothing. The market was such that all this could go on. Now the entire Indian IT's middle management is rotten. The expectations of the current generation is very high. The college grads think they can easily promoted to be a manager in 3-4 years so they need not have to be technically good.
All this has led to horrible state of affairs that exists today. The scary thing is good people are never rewarded and bad ones some how keep making money through job hopping.
I would like to know how to find the great engineers. So far have hired fantastic engineers in the former soviet union and in the Philippines, but have not had one good experience in India.
I believe that there are some phenomenally good engineers and a very large number of terrible engineers. So as a foreigner trying to hire, without travelling there it's very difficult. The great people simply don't respond to job ads, and unless you are Google, are not interested in applying. Plus the great people earn $2,000 per month and higher. The large number of very average people earn $300-500 per month. So that's why I haven't found any great people, but I think if you have connections or a good recruiting team in India it's possible to find these people.
A perspective from opposite side, a skilled engineer that starts looking for remote gigs.
Sites like dice.com or monster.com are of no use, there are very few telecommute job offers there. And on websites for freelancers rates are too low.
So where do people like you are searching for skilled foreign engineers?
The real reason there are so many engineers in India is because there are many many crappy engineering colleges in India right now. The last decade saw engineering become a business and every person with a little money looked to start an engineering college. Yes India has a lot of population but the proliferation of colleges is the main reason.
Supply always meets the demand and not the vice versa, A more appropriate question to ask is 'Why is there so much demand for crappy engineers in India'?
Your question is surely rhetorical, for I would be astounded that you do not know the answer.
There is demand for CHEAP engineers. It happens that many are from India. There is no demand for crap, but sadly, there is no demand for quality (over cost) in the eyes of many.
I am Indian, and I refuse to believe to this 'cheap' meme. FYI, as per Indian standards most of these crappy programmers are paid really well. In most cases better than the good programmers.
The thing about good productive programmers is same as that in the US, they tend to stick around for long time in one company, take time out to learn and master the trade. And are not usually on the job lists. On the other hand, due to rapid growth it has become fashionable here for the bad folks to hop a job often. The trick is simple, the performance evaluation happens every year in most companies here. Before their performance is even judged, they fly to some other company.
Hiring is often done by HR's. They are given a template of standard questions flicked from the internet. Most of which are factual and don't test a candidate analytical ability. Questions like 'What is a class', 'Can you define X'. If you memorize the answer you can easily pass the interview.
There are dumps of questions available for clearing common certifications like SCJP et al. They say some jargons in interview, negotiate a good salary and join the company. By the time their performance is evaluated in the company they go to some other company.
This is what is happening in India currently. The good folks are there but they are invisible and often lost in the crowd.
Well, I'm on the outsourcing end of the equation (although I haven't had a hand in the actual outsourcing itself), and I can say from firsthand experience the 'cheap' meme is accurate.
The reason given for removing existing personnel to replace them with outsourced people is twofold. One is cost, and it is the large majority of the sum total of the reasons. The other reason is the erroneous idea that the company can train up a bunch of outsourced people and have a flexible, dynamically sized, workforce.
The justification is that "they're just as good".
In the 10-12 or so years I have seen this tried, it has yet to even COME CLOSE to what was promised. The reason it keeps happening is the person in charge of the decision gets his bonus for cutting the costs, then moves on, long before the actual long-medium terms costs become known. By then that person is long gone and/or up the corporate ladder to where no one dare say "this sucked, he's the guy that caused it".
My view is cynical and jaded, but it is from experience. And I say this not having ever lost my job over it, so that's not a factor.
good article, but the bulk of engineers now come out of private colleges. Engineering Education is the new business, every politician or big businessman owns one or more engineering college.
Middle class could afford it, IT jobs are easier to get, engineering is the new the minimum qualification for getting a good job.
if government liberalizes medical education, we would see a million more doctors soon.
bad description doesn't connected it with the current problems or its causes rather connected with indo-china war but started making "some sense" after mid of the article.
Doesn't mean they're any good. Last innovative startup you've heard from India in the past several years is....Visual Website Optimizer. Wow, mindblowing.
Not sure the article said anything about they being good. Any evidence on VWO being the last innovative startup from India? Just because the startups are not featuring on HN does not mean there are no innovative startups from India.
There are a lot of challenges to building a sfba-style startup in India though, more than it makes sense to go into in a comment. That said, there are plenty of very talented, veyr driven engineers there that understand the startup lifestyle - checkout http://resume.akash.im/ for one, I've really enjoyed all the work I've done with him (that's included training over emacs/skype, learning rails, cutting up psd's, to working on applications for me).
There are large number of problems with the engineering system in India (especially about the number of engineers and the quality of engineering education) and the author just sweeps them under the rug.
Poorly written.
Full disclosure: I am an Indian Engineer now studying in UC Berkeley. Almost a perfect fit to the model described (except that I didn't graduate from the IITs).