Indian Engineers are a Different Breed
It is often said that Indian techies are stealing jobs across the globe, but the reason is much more than just outsourcing and cheap labour. The reason is that Indian techies are more dedicated when working and ready to work overtime without hesitation. A week ago, Roshan Patel, the founder & CEO of Arrow Payments, shared the screenshot of a conversation he had with his employee. Patel asked if the employee would like a break as he’d been working nonstop for quite a while. To his surprise, the engineer replied, “I don’t need a break sir. My body is a vessel for the company to find product market fit.” indian engineers are a different breed pic.twitter.com/fYdMundMfy— Roshan Patel (@roshanpateI) July 24, 2024 “Indian engineers are a different breed,” Patel remarked. That’s certainly turning out to be true. Shravan Tickoo, the founder of Rethink Systems, posted the same story, but with a twist, adding that the employee was working at 4 am, which was not the case. He revealed that in reality, it was the WhatsApp bot that sent random answers to the CEO when he texted the engineers. Pooja Goel in the comments narrated a story about how one of her family members used to schedule messages for 2 am to his manager, just to make it look like he’d been working post midnight. Though, it definitely happens a lot of the time. Time zones do not seem to matter to Indians. Tickoo funnily added that startups from the HSR Layout in Bengaluru have now started searching for this employee to hire him as the CTO of their companies. “Since that day, Mr Narayana Murthy and Bhavish Aggarwal have been considering this engineer as their heir apparent,” he added in jest. Indian Engineers Eat Code for Breakfast Not everyone is happy being the overworked employee though. People appreciate Patel’s message to the employee for encouraging him to take a break, but are actually also concerned about the broader trend of working overtime. “This is actually PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] from working under toxic Indian management for years,” said a user. “Colonial hangover of subservience,” remarked another. However, some argue that working long hours doesn’t necessarily mean increased productivity. “Yet the American-born engineer who takes 1-hour lunch breaks and two-week PTO is still more productive,” noted a user. Ayush Jaiswal shared a screenshot of his chat with his friend about him working 18 hours a day for the past two months and how his productivity has taken a hit and so has the work-life balance. “Take a break, the world won’t end,” commented a user. Arguably, AI tools are making the world a lot better for these developers, enabling them to accomplish much more quickly. There are a lot of jobs for 10X developers, who are able to take on the jobs of their peers and also work overtime. What’s the Bug? In Karnataka, the state IT/ITeS employees union (KITU) has reported that the government may soon raise the IT employees’ working hours to 14 (12 hours + 2 hours of overtime). This might be a good idea for a lot of employees who would now be compensated for all the extra work they are already doing. However, this overlooks the critical issue: the bug is the overwork culture itself. The relentless pursuit of recognition and better pay leads many Indian engineers to work excessive hours, sacrificing their health and personal lives. This culture of overwork can lead to burnout, reduced productivity over time, and a skewed work-life balance. When it comes to working for startups, most Indian employees get attached to the product they are building, and if fairly compensated, they are happy to continue working over and above what is expected of them. The ones who do not get fairly compensated resort to working on multiple projects. Recently, the photo of a Microsoft employee driving a Namma Yatri auto to combat loneliness went viral. This also narrates the story of what happens if you get addicted to working overtime.It seems like the underlying issue is the desire to make a lot of money and freshers want to learn as much as possible to be able to compete or do as-well the senior resources. When Indians look at the salaries of their counterparts in the West, the most common conception is that they are not as skilled as them. Therefore, they decide to put in longer hours in a hope to upskill, or possibly get recognition from their bosses to get better pay. While the dedication and hard work of Indian engineers is commendable, it’s important to address the underlying issues of overwork and its long-term impact on health and productivity.
Burning the midnight oil, fixing bugs, and driving autos to combat loneliness.
“I don’t need a break sir. My body is a vessel for the company to find product market fit," replied an engineer to his CEO.
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Mohit writes about AI in simple, explainable, and often funny words. He's especially passionate about chatting with those building AI for Bharat, with the occasional detour into AGI.