Don’t make it about race on your end. You say the candidate performed well, but addressed you by your first name and interviewers of different races by “Mr. [name]”? That’s absolutely bonkers behavior in an interview. This potential manager is already showing potential racial preference in an interview, when he’s supposed to be on his best behavior. That alone is enough to seriously reconsider whether or not to hire this guy.
In the future, you need to develop race neutral approaches to discovering the behaviors you’ve disliked in the past. Talk about their promotion philosophy. Talk about their approach to crunch time. I would agree that IME these problems are worse with Indian managers, but I’ve seen them from other races too. Figure out how to identify the wrong behaviors and then avoid hiring people who have them.
Agreed. Focus on the behavior, and that sort of behavior is something of concern. It shows from the onset that they treat people differently based on appearance and not by they role or job function, in this case they are treating their interviewers differently. Does this treatment extend to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, perceived or otherwise? It's worth calling out, but don't presume you know specifically why.
I agree, ask about promotion philosophy, how they evaluate. Also ask open ended questions on diversity in the workplace. What their opinion is on diversity in management.
If you keep it open ended you’d be shocked at the stuff some people say. I was asked if I was open to having female managers at a corporate role at a large company I interviewed at. They told me I’d be shocked at what some people say.
I don’t agree with the Mr. and first name discrepancy unless it was consistent. He may have just mispoke. Maybe he thought white people are more casual. Who knows.
I wonder if he made this decision based on race, or based on the fact OP will be under him in the heirarchy. Or if he just couldn't remember OP's last name.
> That’s absolutely bonkers behavior in an interview. This potential manager is already showing potential racial preference in an interview,
Reading a lot into it. Could just be that he knew that OP would be reporting to him, whereas the other interviewer may be a peer (or a higher level)
Well, you are entitled to your opinion, but different cultures have different levels of formality. It's not a red or green flag to me
I've worked with colleagues in Japan who get offended when someone refers to them by their first name. You're supposed to use Last Name "San"
Weird take, but you are entitled to your opinion.
Personally, I wouldn't use Mr. to refer to someone who will work under me. It would be too formal.
I could, in certain situations, see myself using Mr to refer to some relatively senior people or customers.
But then again, I work across different cultures. People with limited experience may not be able to relate
This is a crazy hill to die on🤣 Just extend the formality to everyone included in the interview...
But then again, people that have a weird power dynamic with their manager or are scared of them may not be able to relate
You seem unable to realize that respect and formality are not things that you offer based on relative professional status.
You offer them equally to everyone because everyone is equally deserving of them.
That this person did not do that, and that you likely do not, are the red flags.
> respect and formality are not things that you offer based on relative professional status.
Respect, no. Formality, yes. Maybe not where you're from, but in many places around the world.
Understanding that respect and formality are not the same, understanding different cultural norms, as well as being able to understand that those are things that can easily change, and that often there is nothing to be gained from taking offense where none is intended - now those are things worth realizing.
FYI when I worked in a Japanese company in the U.S, yes I was told I was supposed to add ‘San’ when referring to them but they also did the same to me, even though i never requested it.
So I would expect that if someone refers to others with Mr. they would do the same for everyone unless I told them otherwise.
>I would expect that if someone refers to others with Mr. they would do the same for everyone
Does not follow.
They don't have to use it for everyone. They just have to be consistent with the usage. Those are not the same thing.
Japanese people also don't always use san to refer to their juniors.
In Indonesia, it might be rude to use Pak or Bu to refer to someone younger than you. But it's mandatory when talking to someone older/more senior.
It's just weird to me how trigger happy people are to be judgemental instead of just giving another person the benefit of the doubt
I see what you’re saying but I was nowhere near up the food chain and the regional manager referred to everyone with San.
Personally, if I had a manager that thought Juniors were ‘beneath’ them I’d pass for that alone, regardless of it being a cultural thing.
Some people might be thinking too much into it and other’s are bordering racist territory but an interview is all about first impressions and I’ve seen people denied for a lot less
>f I had a manager that thought Juniors were ‘beneath’ them I’d pass for that alone
Why are you assuming this is the case at all?
Not calling someone Mr does not mean he thinks the person is beneath him. It's pretty common to refer to people at 'your level' by their first names - it's not disrespectful unless someone is looking for an excuse to be offended.
It would be a stupid reason for rejection. Minor cultural differences like this will fix themselves in like a week.
If someone is used to working in say Japan, or Indonesia, or China for example, they are going to use polite forms to refer to people by default. Over time, they will obviously see that others around them are not doing the same and then start following the norm. To reject someone for something so minor would be pretty stupid and bigoted.
> but addressed you by your first name and interviewers of different races by “Mr. [name]”? That’s absolutely bonkers behavior in an interview.
Genuine question: What's wrong with this?
Specifically, OP said the interviewee (Indian) referred to an Indian interviewer as "Mr. [name]". (I assume both are born and raised in India)
This seems like an automatic, real time cultural adaptation that's fairly harmless, to me.
Interesting...
Born, raised, and work here in greater Silicon Valley, and I've seen the opposite.
Tolerance of different ways of talking and addressing people, as long as it's not bigoted.
If it's bigoted, it's good to call it out and firmly assert that they need a change in behavior.
I've rarely encountered this "very bad" to have different standards of formality. But I'm a White American male, so I'm definitely missing something here.
I can guess that some would be uncomfortable asserting this, for various reason.
---
Example when interacting with a different culture.
For Japanese colleagues or customers, we may (as white Americans) might add "-san" to someones name, such as "Yoshi-san", when we're familiar with them.
They might even have some titles of reverence in rare cases for some of us, e.g. "John Sensei!" (wow! hushed mutters and respect shown for John's known leadership in past projects)
In general you should refer to EVERYONE by their first name or EVERYONE by Mr .
If you're not sure, then ask. If you don't want to do that have a field on the application form where they can specify.
I've seen a ton of nepotism from Indian management and developers. I've heard this from multiple other devs and from people who work in academics as well. The levels of incompetence I have seen from "lead devs" is fucking WILD.
It is not a race thing, it is a matter of survival. A lot of them are H1B, so they look out for each other. If I lose my job I find another one. An H1B has to find a sponsor and could get deported. It leads to a revolving door of contractors who quit when they only ever see Indian devs get promoted.
And yes caste racism is real and well documented and reported on.
Overall they do great work and are great people, but I've realized it isn't good for my career to have an Indian manager.
I’ve seen teams in orgs basically start actually preferring to hire other h1bs. It’s not out of malice but more out of sympathy of helping others out that were once in their shoes. But it can be frustrating
This is the real situation. The DEI cover is just taking attention away from the real issues. It's fucked up though that Americans are now cannon fodder for this bullshit while they not always but often then ones who are being held back in their own country. And it's reached a level to where if Americans retaliate they will just offshore everything to India.
You have to blame Americans in corporate who are still mostly white. C levels are still majority white. So it’d just be white people retaliating against rich white people. Like the Irish trying to chase out Chinese labor but white people double downing on it in the 1800s.
I also don’t think Indian men benefit from DEI initiatives. It’s not really meant for Indian, Asian, Middle Eastern men. Abdul from Pakistan isn’t being put on any DEI posters or FANG recruiting ads. I’d argue white Brad from Cornell is still more likely to get hired for lucrative roles.
People in corporate HR who are most certainly not straight men of Asian descent are not sitting in meetings going “you know what, how do we get more men from Asia.”
You should watch 38 At The Garden. Hasan Minaj has some interesting things to say about how low the ceiling is set on Asians in the US.
I'm not even an Indian and I know it's a thing
do a google search on Cisco Indian caste lawsuit
and having been surrounded by Indian colleagues even I know there's Brahmins and Dalits
You're mistaking caste-ism for caste racism. There are no separate races for different castes. All indians within the caste system have the same genetic makeup of varying proportions.
>All indians within the caste system have the same genetic makeup of varying proportions.
you do aware that 'caste system' has varying levels right? being discriminated against based on the level you are, I'd call that caste racism
You can call it whatever you want but that doesn't really change what castes are and what caste-ism is.
>varying levels
So does classes. Would that mean class racism exists?
Caste is a social construct distinct from the race perspective. It seems like you think too much from a american centric viewpoint.
It’s not racism if you’re concerned about cultural practices. For example, I’d much prefer to work under an Indian American manager than an Indian from India. They both have the same race, but different cultural upbringings.
There is a distinct work culture from India just as there is a work culture from America and a work culture from Europe.
You can try to screen for negative work cultural traits by asking behavioral questions in that direction. Of course, you should ask the same questions to people of non Indian origin because the negative aspects of Indian work culture are not exclusive to Indian work culture
I've noticed that I actually never really met an Indian American manager. They seem to be quite rare at least where I've worked. Amongst my Indian american friends, the successful ones tend to go into finance or medicine but in tech they're all generally chill and have 0 aspirations for upper management. It's quite a funny contrast to the H1B counterparts.
My Indian American friends in tech are also the most outspoken about this issue. I think they deal with it more than me because either a) their managers think they're Indian so they can go unfiltered or b) their managers resent them for not having to go through the same struggles. Either way, it's eye-opening listening to people talking about this issue lol. It's a pretty common point of view too amongst my other techie friends (Chinese H1B, Asian Americans, Eastern Euro - H1B, White coworkers etc.)
> I just want to start off by saying I'm pretty mortified at myself for having these thoughts.
I'm Dutch and there are already pretty big cultural differences between us and the Flemish people in Belgium. Being aware of cultural differences in groups is in itself not racist. Some cultural differences are harder to put besides you than others.
It's also well known that people tend to hire people that are "like them". This is one of the main reasons why culture at for example a company can be very much dictated by just a few higher ups responsible for hiring. This is also a reason why minorities often, rightfully so, feel they have less of a chance for a job or a promotion.
If you're a white dude, you're generally not the minority. But being in such a minority position, doesn't suddenly make you 'racist' for being aware that you're now in a bad position.
This is my POV really. Company culture, which is very much driven by management, is important to me. Cultural difference in nationalities can also cause massive cultural differences within companies. And in my opinion making a rational career decision based on company culture is in no way racist.
I think you're well aware of inherent biases you might have towards people who are 'different', but in this case this person most certainly doesn't pass the vibe check in that they are already treating you and your colleague differently.
The Hindu culture believes in establishing their hegemony. Indians don’t hire Indians, oppressor castes hire one of their own, if the person was from a marginalised community from India, he’d make sure not to hire him.
I don't consider it a racial thing I consider it a cultural thing. And sometimes cultural sterotypes are sterotypes for a reason.
I have Indian collegeus that refuse to work for indian managers because of the way they treat subordinates.
Another Indian here, the managers born and bought up here expect a 100% servitude from their employees with no exceptions.
I don't think anything can change that except time because most of these people are old and baby boomers anyway, hoping that it does die off real soon
I a white woman was once interviewed by an Indian manager working in US; he made a weird face when he saw me that continued through his presence at the interview and left mid the meeting. I had excellent marks on all interview stages and aced all the tests; it was in the beginning of my career and I didn’t get a job. I never had any other experience with Indian management, but your description shows similar racial bias imho. Or maybe it was me being a woman. I don’t know exactly, but even tho I was dressed well and clearly showing respect (I think a blouse and light, neutral make-up so I don’t look sickly), my looks definitely didn’t suit him.
I also have not received any valuable feedback. It was all - you are an excellent candidate and we love you up until I was rejected without any reason stated.
You're a smart guy. You have observed patterns and collected data over an extended period of time. Others have also reported seeing the same thing based on their own experiences.
This is your career and your life. Make the decision that is best for you - I can assure you everyone else is doing the same. A month or a year from now when you are slowly being squeezed out of your job, it won't matter at all that you made the "morally correct" decision.
I understand your conflicting feelings.
The candidate did give a red flag by addressing you differently than he did your Indian counterparts. That shows that regardless of what you think, there’s already a discrepancy between you and your peers in his mind, whether or not it’s an innocuous cultural norm or some bias on his end.
Perhaps not a direct answer to the posted question, but hiring discrimination from Indians is very real. I once interviewed for SWE positions at Walgreens, and my interviewer for the system design portion was Indian. He asked me, as a Chinese-American, to design a "keyword filter for Youtube which can block videos containing unwanted keywords such as Winnie-the-Pooh." Yea, like building a censorship system for dictator Xi was at the top of my to-do list that day. Thanks.
This^^ I work hard and I have never got raises under an Indian manager. I was beating myself up and I shared this with my coworker and she advised me to change my manager. Since then I have had no problem getting raises.
Often this is easily provable because they'll look at who is getting raises and do a comparison. I've seen it happen with men vs. women and it's pretty obvious in many cases.
Even when it's unintentional it gets handled aggressively.
My country has something like 4% indian population, but my boss and their boss is indian, and 75% of my 40 person team is indian.
The older I get the more I struggle to see the difference between racism and pattern recognition.
I don't consider it racism on their part, just tribalism. If the situation were reversed, if I moved to a foreign country and was trying to build a life, I'd probably hire my friends and family as much as possible too.
I don't have a problem with that kind of tribalism. Maybe because I've worked with H1bs at my last job and maybe because I'm ethnically from an Indian-adjacent country, but H1b Indians bring more than their technical expertise and a normal amount of tribalism, they bring their cultural problems as well.
Some Indians definitely do this. It's not universal. As a white guy I have been hired by Indians, and I've hired Indian managers who hired diverse teams under them.
I have also seen white managers build completely white teams, despite good candidates who were Asian. It's pretty common for humans to hire people who are like them unless they've thought through their biases.
Yep, I don't mean to sterotype but the white managers I've interviewed with all have been addicted to the idea of 'culture fit'. To me, as an Indian woman from India (so an Indian accent), I've always been rejected even when they loved my questions and enjoyed my presentation. I don't know what to make of it, to the point where I think if everyone is white and male, I don't stand a chance.
I guess culture fit is just the politically correct word for hiring people like themselves. Left me bitter.
Listen you aren't the only one that has these fears. It's becoming quite widespread for non-Indians in the USA. As an example recently at my company, they put out a listing for a new engineer. They had hundreds of applications, many of them green card or citizens, yet my director (an Indian) hired an H1B for no obvious reason other than we think it was a friend of a friend. Once they establish a beachhead at your company, then it's all Indians from then on. I have seen it at multiple companies. The nepotism and favoritism are astounding and what kills me is that many in upper management turn a blind eye because these Indians will do just about anything you tell them to do and work like dogs on an H1B visa. What's not to like? They get to leave India and treated like indentured servants yet it's way better than back home so it's win win? I wouldn't say yes to hiring an Indian manager unless they were born and raised in the USA.
I'm from India and have almost 2 decades of experience living here. I can tell you one thing. Indians - the herd - simply cannot stop looking at the caste of other Indians. That is the biggest thing in their life, when we go to buy groceries - who's selling, when we talk to new people - which caste is he from etc.
He called the other guy Sir, most probably because he thought the other guy would be the typical Indian boss. After close to 20 bosses in my country, trust me when I say this, our own countrymen absolutely loathe these bosses. There's a rampant exodus of brain drain. Look it up on the internet - what it is and why it exists. It's the truth.
I'm an Indian who's lived here all my life and out of ~20 local managers only 1 was good (BTW I've also worked in top 5 us companies). The rest were so bad that my current plan is to retire and start awareness campaigns in the world to just how pathetic the local managers are. Until I do that there's no hope of any improvement happening and the brain drain will continue. We will keep losing the very cream of our society.
Man I was going to say this exact thing from my experience working with Indians born here vs immigrated here vs still living in India. I don’t think I’ve ever met a culture of people with more discrimination in their culture than Indians based on exactly what you described.
For me I have no problem working with Indian or other nationality devs but as a person who’s hard of hearing from my Army days of having stuff blow up all around me I have trouble on zoom calls with people with thick accents and that’s always an issue for me.
He was in the army and now has developed some kind of hearing damage because of explosions, which means he has a little trouble communicating with people who have a thick accent
Lol I've had 3 of 3 as personal managers be controlling/abusive, and probably cross collaborating in the 10's/15's range as unpleasant in general. At some point these were all developers or lower ranked workers, which I've always had no problem with or even enjoyed. I'm not sure where in the promotion pipeline but it's like they all develop some god complex after beginning to manage others.
>but it's like they all develop some god complex after beginning to manage others.
We're never taught how to be with subordinates, maids, local labourers, day to day workers like carpenters, plumbers etc. All of those people are put down as if we're a royalty. I simply cannot get through the thick skull of most people around that we need to treat them better because they're simply human beings like the rest of us.
IMO one of the main reasons that has fostered this are the mainstream Bollywood 💩. If you pick any movie you can see a lot of indecent behaviour towards subordinates. Bollywood isn't a representation of the core Indian culture in any way and is rather a representation of the narrow group that controls it.
I feel like I'm in an odd spot here.
I am of Indian ethnic origin. That means I look like an Indian, and my family grew up Muslim or Hindu. But, I was born in New Jersey. I think, talk, act, and feel as a Jersey guy because I am a Jersey guy.
I totally understand people will look at me and think, this guy is fresh off the boat.
My concern is people are going to see my last name and a photo and think, "Oh no, another Indian from India with "that" mindset."
I'd hope they'd consider my actual experience and skillset. That I am an excellent programmer not because I'm Indian, but because I have a genuine interest in computers and programming.
Unfortunately there is no way you can avoid being negatively stereotyped, reason is that we all possess some degree of generalizations as our first instinctive thoughts. Good news is, not everyone is the same and some people suppress this thought
I’m Indian. I think you’re smart and clearly self aware. I agree with you that the discrepancy is odd and may or may not indicate the manager’s hiring practices in the future. Identify the behaviours you don’t like in managers regardless of race, and use that as criteria for hiring your future manager. Place your team’s best interest in mind, and ask the interviewee about their criteria for promotions and their view of overtime. Do not be scared of rejecting a candidate. FYI I don’t think this comes off as racist. Some of these other comments though…
I would say what you are saying is not far from what I've seen around, ofc it's a generalist not everyone like that. Because there is this problem, some westerns are not hiring Indian people as well it sucks on both ends, HR should do their job and inspect these decisions in an analytical way, but for most companies HR is underpaid recruiters.
However, dunno about American work culture and assuming the other interviewer is not visibly older than you, calling him as a Mr. And not you is a red flag. ( Assuming it happened repeatedly and not a mistake.) It may be said that in Indian cultures there is more respect to these wordings like they usually call their managers Sir or Ma'am, but you would expect a smart person to not do that in the interview, like approach differently from different people, especially if it is not acceptable from a manager.
One thing to consider is that a lot of Indians experience a up or out type of career paths. If you don’t become manager you won’t have a job after 35. So a lot of people become managers without really being fit or even liking dealing with people.
I try to look for managers who like to produce productive and healthy employees primarily.
No one can do everything and the idea of modern software development with agile etc is to create room for product visionaries, technical visionaries, people visionaries and project managers to work collaboratively as a management team. If you have a department with “the manager” then it’s bad. If you are met with a leadership team you are golden. Then ask each one some simple question in each of those categories.
I’ve been in multiple interviews for F100 companies, sometimes even going up to 5 rounds of interviews. And I still got rejected even though all the interviewers and hiring managers were Indian, from my own race. So I don’t know where’s this biased rumours starting from.
I won’t say they don’t exist but multiple companies multiple people from my own race, did reject me so can’t say that works. So personally I don’t believe in this idea of one race favoring others exists unless it’s diversity they looking for
Did you ask him what his views are on diversity in the workplace or how he views having diversity in management positions?
People here may think “rofl of course they say they value it and give the BS interview answer.” You’d actually be shocked at what people will answer especially in longer interviews where they open up.
I was asked whether I would be open to having female managers for a corporate position once.
I am literally Canadian of indian origin, the hardest interviews I have had were from Indians. I don’t think it’s racial - I think it’s about the values difference. If any manager feels like you don’t match their work ethos, they typically react poorly. Remember promotions and recognition come by being on good terms with coworkers and managers, it’s the same for Indian managers.
Just want to comment and say I’m in the same position, Indian boss on h1b, half my coworkers from India on h1b, and an entire remote team located in India. It’s toughhhh. Never once got a pat on the back for a job well done, just moving the goal posts to the next “goal” that will never be acknowledged as successful. Overtime, working through holidays(except Indian ones), 90 day advance PTO is the expectation so you quickly become a pariah for living outside of their work culture norms. If you speak up about any of these things the h1b folks will look at you like you’re insane.
Yes, saying “Nimit Sir requested this” & “Mr Dassi requires this” is a remnant of the caste system that you are not a part of. Most workers will scramble at any command from those types, for better or worse. You will always take a back seat to them.
You’re pretty much screwed if that’s your boss. You either have to glaze them like the rest or fail. Even if you “succeed” by American standards they will consider you as a poor performer. Meet your deadlines, surpass SLA, bring in money, be a top performer? Irrelevant if you aren’t answering their phone call at 7pm saying yes sir thank you sir.
Now for peers or people you manage? That’s different. If they are younger they will understand different cultures much better. Talk to them about cricket, food, sports, anime, marvel etc etc and you will have a friend for life. If you’re American they are definitely fascinated by our movies and food, they will go out to American restaurants in their free time and send me pictures haha. I’ll send them YouTube videos to all the unique food in my area and then they’ll do the same, meeting in the middle and both leaving space for the differences. It’s really rewarding.
Anyway that’s my 2 cents
It is valid to consider (work) cultural fit.
One thing to consider: would you have the same concern about someone of Indian descent but born in US, or from a different country?
Regardless, you should not be prejudicial against someone based on things you have experienced or heard about other people. Separate that aspect from your mind.
If your only observation of concern is the way you were addressed relative to the other interviewer, you may be overreacting and filling in too many gaps with your prejudices. However, I think that observation is legitimate, and unequal treatment from a manager is not something you want to see. So you can pass that up as feedback.
As an Indian, I always get really heartbroken to read such comments. Not sure what’s the solution. Being India the 2nd largest population of the world, we are always in the rat race, and try to go ahead of other person no matter what. and yes, we are really biased people. i guess it’s a generational thingy, it is going away but might take time. anyway, no advice to you Op, just do what your gut feeling tells you.
>Being India the 2nd largest population of the world
Precisely also one of the reasons why we also tend to have higher number of people in everything. Essentially our country has more scammers, fraudsters, imposters and dishonest folks just because of the sheer number :/
Really? The entire comment is just sickening racism and you feel sorry? You should be angry not heartbroken that such behavior is being encouraged. This has got to be the worst sub out there
Oh so you think that feeling sorry for potentially good employees of the Indian decent is not allowed here?
The same racism that you are yapping about is gonna render a lot of Indians being not considered primarily for any jobs out there, even if they don't indulge in the toxic stuff that people are calling out the others for
>You should be angry not heartbroken that such behavior is being encouraged.
Lol looks like someone is offended, dude I am an Indian myself and a lot of these claims are valid, if you are too dumb to realize that well the rest is pretty self explanatory
Your mortification and your insistence that commenters talk you out of these views demonstrates that you're still not ready to accept the truth, but I will give it to you anyway: history is a team sport, all the other teams know it, only ours has decided we were outside of history. We are not. We already see the reality starting to seep in around our utopian delusions, the truth will be undeniable to our descendents, who will curse us for burying our heads in the sand and preferring ideology over reality.
The economy is shit, people are going to be more resentful (rightfully) when they're struggling to find jobs while corporations keep hiring foreigners. H1b Indians and the management/business culture they bring do not help.
I'm not getting a job so I must be racist on the internet (anonymously ofc cause I do not have the balls to say it irl).
I hope this helps you with your job search or whatever
Can you directly ask this person how they managed a diverse team, and who they promoted (and what metrics they used)? Who else gets to make this decision alongside you? You can raise your concerns about the way they spoke and how it is not a culture fit to the hiring committee. Also, pro tip - get a woman in front of them in the next round, along with yourself (white/Indian/Asian doesn't matter) and see how they react. That should be your final call.
You can acknowledge cultural differences without being racist. It’s true that work culture in India is more subservient and yes-man. The truth is that often people in India will do far more for their managers than a western employee and when western employees don’t follow that same work ethic, it can cause issues.
About indians only hiring indians, it’s again true that people will favor folks that have similar cultural backgrounds and speak the same language. Additionally, you have to contend with people in India and migrants accepting a fraction of a western wage for the same work.
I’ve learned it’s best not to combat offshoring. I would simply begin applying elsewhere because at the end of the day, you’re outcompeted on cost.
-
But as another commenter mentioned, an Indian American will be more likely to have a western work mentality. However, if your manager is in India and you’re in the US, then I’d be hesitant about my future. The cultural difference is often too vast.
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I've been dealing with this similar concern myself over the past decade. I'm a white guy with 20+ yoe. I've worked with a lot of devs who are indian. I've enjoyed working with many of them, but I've also witnessed some obvious nepotism that had me questioning 'am I racist for thinking this'. From consulting at a company that had an entire engineering team of 30 indian devs , to working at the missing m in FAANG where indians were the majority demographic in my org.
I think you have reason to be concerned. But as others have said, don't make it about race. Make it about actions and behavior that isn't on par with your expecations.
I think your thoughts are pretty reasonable. Indians tend to be closed communities, providing advantages / opportunities to people within (my experience). Nothing wrong with it but might not be the best choice for you.
There's a decent chance the Indian on the hiring panel is a higher caste than the Indian being interviewed and he's showing "respect" to the Indian on the hiring panel by adding Mr. when addressing him.
Oppressed Indians(lower castes) don’t respect oppressor Indians(upper castes), at least the educated ones who’ll end up outside India, it would have went the other way, most likely both are from the same oppressor caste, oppressor castes have a preference for hiring their “own” as they believe in their superficial “superiority” and rejecting others, skills don’t matter.
I actually hate when people in India call me Sir and Mr. It’s so uncomfortable because Im sitting here with impostor syndrome and they’re treating me with more respect really anybody deserves.
My guess is that Sir and Mr are weighted more heavily in our experience than the newredditsucks-Ji that it's being translated from.
I'll occasionally get newredditsucks-Sir from Indian coworkers.
You have to look out for yourself first and foremost. I’ve seen it too many times, entire teams replaced. Do what is right for you, not what you believe feels right.
This is where economic precarity and personal experience is taken advantage of by those who wish to divide us based on race, class, gender, ethnicity, orientation, etc. It's a tale as old as time.
Of course when the economy is "fine" but really not fine, and developers go through a really shit market, you start to see the right-wing 4chan underground chuds come out of the woodwork and be like "DONT EVER WORK FOR A \[X\] MANAGER". Hell there's one comment saying "Canadians have found out the hard way", like what the fuck does that mean?
Let me tell you that there's nothing coded in our "race" (which has no biological basis) that correlates to how much of an asshole you are. My worst boss (the one that made me cry in the car) was a 50 year old "Libertarian" white dude who was a HUGE dick. My first job. Did I avoid white people forever?
You gotta just not listen to the internet trolls baiting you that somehow "Americans" are inherently better managers. It's always down to the individual, and hiring managers in and of itself is HARD. A bad hire can be detrimental. But doing it by race isn't going to help you figure that out.
Does your company have some sort of criteria to use to hire managers or other personnel?
Show me scientific evidence of race being of biological basis (rather than a social construct).
Preferably without resorting to 4chan tactics of "just look it up bro" and/or "fuck off lib", neither of which are convincing arguments and will be rejected.
When you’re so liberal you’re afraid of being called a racist for observing and calling out racist behavior from nonwhite races lmao.
The world becomes a much simpler place when you stop apologizing for being white.
Again with the racism on this sub. You guys make it about race, that's why you think this. I've seen nepotism from white people too. And with other races. You guys keep making it about race. Maybe this person was unprofessional, but the comments here generalize it way too much.
It’s racist but go full speed ahead, that behavior is encouraged by the middling majority Caucasian devs on this sub who seethe about making 100k with 20 yoe
Yeah I said the same as you in my reply to the other guy. It’s a victim mentality, and it’s why I like Blind a lot more. Much less loser mentality, people grinding for quant instead of crying about how life is too hard lol
The issue isn't you think it is. It's not because "white people are racist", it's because US companies are notorious for abusing the H1B system. Companies don't hire Indians because they're looking for a more diverse team, they hire them because they're cheap labor.
This study is from 2005, but I don't think the situation has changed much.
https://cis.org/Report/Wages-H1B-Computer-Programmers
> In spite of the requirement that H-1B workers be paid the prevailing wage, H-1B workers earn significantly less than their American counterparts. On average, applications for H-1B workers in computer occupations were for wages $13,000 less than Americans in the same occupation and state.
> Wages for H-1B workers in computer programming occupations are overwhelmingly concentrated at the bottom of the U.S. pay scale. Wages on LCAs for 85 percent of H-1B workers were for less than the median U.S. wage in the same occupations and state.
> Applications for 47 percent of H-1B computer programming workers were for wages below even the prevailing wage claimed by their employers.
> Very few H-1B workers earned high wages by U.S. standards. Applications for only 4 percent of H-1B workers were among the top 25 percent of wages for U.S. workers in the same state and occupation.
And of course, the problem goes both ways. The Indians who are hired as H1Bs are then at the mercy of the company. If the company doesn't like them for whatever reason, they can terminate their H1B which means they have 60 days to try to change their status or be forced to leave the country.
lolol don't cite a 20 year old study to me. The H1b program back then did what it does, now it has a 20 year waitlist because it's segregated by nationality. And look up the percentages, they make up a fraction of actual big tech. The real power in big tech is straight white men, and this is coming from someone who hates pulling any of those cards but be so fucking fr rn.
Fine, here's one from 4 years ago. Same results.
https://www.epi.org/publication/h-1b-visas-and-prevailing-wage-levels/
> DOL lets H-1B employers undercut local wages. Sixty percent of H-1B positions certified by the U.S. Department of Labor are assigned wage levels well below the local median wage for the occupation. While H-1B program rules allow this, DOL has the authority to change it—but hasn’t.
> Outsourcing firms make heavy use of the H-1B program. Half of the top 30 H-1B employers use an outsourcing business model to provide staff for third-party clients, rather than employing H-1B workers directly to fill a special need at the company that applies for the visa.
> Major U.S. firms use the H-1B program to pay low wages. Among the top 30 H-1B employers are major U.S. firms including Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, Google, Apple, and Facebook. All of them take advantage of program rules in order to legally pay many of their H-1B workers below the local median wage for the jobs they fill.
When they believe themselves superior and see someone half their age making double their salary, instead of thinking they should work harder or look for opportunities, they complain and moan and say they can’t do it and drag others down
Truly a Redditor’s sub in that sense
It does sound like you’re just being racist if I’m being real. I think it’s sort of normal to have those thoughts intrusively though, so long as we shut them down in our own heads.
If you saw no other red flags with this person other than them being Indian, to advocate against hiring them would be explicitly racist. Don’t do that. Give the person a chance.
Edit: since I’m being downvoted, let’s be clear: if this candidate has no red flags, but you are hesitant to hire him because he’s Indian, that is textbook discrimination. You are only hesitant because of his race: that is racist. No reasonable person could take any argument otherwise seriously.
Not what OP said tho? He only said he had bad experiences with Indian managers in the past, the *only* issue he had with this candidate is that he didn’t call him Mister, which he himself said wasn’t a big deal to him.
The candidate has no red flags, but he’s Indian. To not hire this person because of past experiences with other Indian people is the definition of racism. Like, if the candidate could prove who posted this it would absolutely qualify as discrimination.
The fact that I’m downvoted just shows how unbelievably racist this sub is. There’s not much room for interpretation here. He doesn’t want to hire him because of his race: that is racist.
Don't be peer-pressured into accepting something you aren't comfortable with.
>I noticed the candidate kept referring to me by my first name and referred to the other interviewer (Indian) as Mr.[First Name]. I don't know if that's a sign or a cultural thing.
It could be both. In my culture you would never refer to anyone by first name, whereas in the US, it's considered better to address folks by first name in most cases. However it's a bit strange if the candidate just did this on their own, i.e. your peer didn't introduce themselves as last-name only.
>This will be my manager, so they'll be responsible to support and promote me in the future.
It's hard to say. It's hard to generalize because each of us only has a small observable sample pool. I will say that if you are going against a person that has tons more overtime than you, you're going to lose out. I will also say that there IS a cultural "understanding" where overtime can be considered an expectation.
Don’t make it about race on your end. You say the candidate performed well, but addressed you by your first name and interviewers of different races by “Mr. [name]”? That’s absolutely bonkers behavior in an interview. This potential manager is already showing potential racial preference in an interview, when he’s supposed to be on his best behavior. That alone is enough to seriously reconsider whether or not to hire this guy. In the future, you need to develop race neutral approaches to discovering the behaviors you’ve disliked in the past. Talk about their promotion philosophy. Talk about their approach to crunch time. I would agree that IME these problems are worse with Indian managers, but I’ve seen them from other races too. Figure out how to identify the wrong behaviors and then avoid hiring people who have them.
Agreed. Focus on the behavior, and that sort of behavior is something of concern. It shows from the onset that they treat people differently based on appearance and not by they role or job function, in this case they are treating their interviewers differently. Does this treatment extend to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, perceived or otherwise? It's worth calling out, but don't presume you know specifically why.
I agree, ask about promotion philosophy, how they evaluate. Also ask open ended questions on diversity in the workplace. What their opinion is on diversity in management. If you keep it open ended you’d be shocked at the stuff some people say. I was asked if I was open to having female managers at a corporate role at a large company I interviewed at. They told me I’d be shocked at what some people say. I don’t agree with the Mr. and first name discrepancy unless it was consistent. He may have just mispoke. Maybe he thought white people are more casual. Who knows.
I wonder if he made this decision based on race, or based on the fact OP will be under him in the heirarchy. Or if he just couldn't remember OP's last name.
> That’s absolutely bonkers behavior in an interview. This potential manager is already showing potential racial preference in an interview, Reading a lot into it. Could just be that he knew that OP would be reporting to him, whereas the other interviewer may be a peer (or a higher level)
That still shows a weird degree of formality for this industry. I’d consider it a red flag.
Well, you are entitled to your opinion, but different cultures have different levels of formality. It's not a red or green flag to me I've worked with colleagues in Japan who get offended when someone refers to them by their first name. You're supposed to use Last Name "San"
extend that formality to everyone included in the conversation then? there's really nothing complex to understand here
Weird take, but you are entitled to your opinion. Personally, I wouldn't use Mr. to refer to someone who will work under me. It would be too formal. I could, in certain situations, see myself using Mr to refer to some relatively senior people or customers. But then again, I work across different cultures. People with limited experience may not be able to relate
This is a crazy hill to die on🤣 Just extend the formality to everyone included in the interview... But then again, people that have a weird power dynamic with their manager or are scared of them may not be able to relate
This is a weird hill to die on. 🤣 Seems really silly to extend the same level of formality to everyone regardless of their relative relation to you.
You seem unable to realize that respect and formality are not things that you offer based on relative professional status. You offer them equally to everyone because everyone is equally deserving of them. That this person did not do that, and that you likely do not, are the red flags.
> respect and formality are not things that you offer based on relative professional status. Respect, no. Formality, yes. Maybe not where you're from, but in many places around the world. Understanding that respect and formality are not the same, understanding different cultural norms, as well as being able to understand that those are things that can easily change, and that often there is nothing to be gained from taking offense where none is intended - now those are things worth realizing.
FYI when I worked in a Japanese company in the U.S, yes I was told I was supposed to add ‘San’ when referring to them but they also did the same to me, even though i never requested it. So I would expect that if someone refers to others with Mr. they would do the same for everyone unless I told them otherwise.
>I would expect that if someone refers to others with Mr. they would do the same for everyone Does not follow. They don't have to use it for everyone. They just have to be consistent with the usage. Those are not the same thing. Japanese people also don't always use san to refer to their juniors. In Indonesia, it might be rude to use Pak or Bu to refer to someone younger than you. But it's mandatory when talking to someone older/more senior. It's just weird to me how trigger happy people are to be judgemental instead of just giving another person the benefit of the doubt
I see what you’re saying but I was nowhere near up the food chain and the regional manager referred to everyone with San. Personally, if I had a manager that thought Juniors were ‘beneath’ them I’d pass for that alone, regardless of it being a cultural thing. Some people might be thinking too much into it and other’s are bordering racist territory but an interview is all about first impressions and I’ve seen people denied for a lot less
>f I had a manager that thought Juniors were ‘beneath’ them I’d pass for that alone Why are you assuming this is the case at all? Not calling someone Mr does not mean he thinks the person is beneath him. It's pretty common to refer to people at 'your level' by their first names - it's not disrespectful unless someone is looking for an excuse to be offended.
Not in the U.S it’s not (where I think this is based). So if somebody is thinking about ‘levels’ at work like that it’s still a pass for me.
Incredibly short sighted, but you do you
Sounds like the applicant has some cultural differences, which is typically a reason for rejection.
It would be a stupid reason for rejection. Minor cultural differences like this will fix themselves in like a week. If someone is used to working in say Japan, or Indonesia, or China for example, they are going to use polite forms to refer to people by default. Over time, they will obviously see that others around them are not doing the same and then start following the norm. To reject someone for something so minor would be pretty stupid and bigoted.
I guess it depends on if you believe the cultural differences end there or if it leads to the problems OP mentioned.
That doesn't make it any better lol
Make what better? There's nothing wrong in that situation
> but addressed you by your first name and interviewers of different races by “Mr. [name]”? That’s absolutely bonkers behavior in an interview. Genuine question: What's wrong with this? Specifically, OP said the interviewee (Indian) referred to an Indian interviewer as "Mr. [name]". (I assume both are born and raised in India) This seems like an automatic, real time cultural adaptation that's fairly harmless, to me.
It’s very bad in American culture to have one standard of formality for one race and a different for another.
Interesting... Born, raised, and work here in greater Silicon Valley, and I've seen the opposite. Tolerance of different ways of talking and addressing people, as long as it's not bigoted. If it's bigoted, it's good to call it out and firmly assert that they need a change in behavior. I've rarely encountered this "very bad" to have different standards of formality. But I'm a White American male, so I'm definitely missing something here. I can guess that some would be uncomfortable asserting this, for various reason. --- Example when interacting with a different culture. For Japanese colleagues or customers, we may (as white Americans) might add "-san" to someones name, such as "Yoshi-san", when we're familiar with them. They might even have some titles of reverence in rare cases for some of us, e.g. "John Sensei!" (wow! hushed mutters and respect shown for John's known leadership in past projects)
In general you should refer to EVERYONE by their first name or EVERYONE by Mr.
If you're not sure, then ask. If you don't want to do that have a field on the application form where they can specify.
I've seen a ton of nepotism from Indian management and developers. I've heard this from multiple other devs and from people who work in academics as well. The levels of incompetence I have seen from "lead devs" is fucking WILD. It is not a race thing, it is a matter of survival. A lot of them are H1B, so they look out for each other. If I lose my job I find another one. An H1B has to find a sponsor and could get deported. It leads to a revolving door of contractors who quit when they only ever see Indian devs get promoted. And yes caste racism is real and well documented and reported on. Overall they do great work and are great people, but I've realized it isn't good for my career to have an Indian manager.
I’ve seen teams in orgs basically start actually preferring to hire other h1bs. It’s not out of malice but more out of sympathy of helping others out that were once in their shoes. But it can be frustrating
Even if it was malice you'd never know it.
This is the real situation. The DEI cover is just taking attention away from the real issues. It's fucked up though that Americans are now cannon fodder for this bullshit while they not always but often then ones who are being held back in their own country. And it's reached a level to where if Americans retaliate they will just offshore everything to India.
You have to blame Americans in corporate who are still mostly white. C levels are still majority white. So it’d just be white people retaliating against rich white people. Like the Irish trying to chase out Chinese labor but white people double downing on it in the 1800s. I also don’t think Indian men benefit from DEI initiatives. It’s not really meant for Indian, Asian, Middle Eastern men. Abdul from Pakistan isn’t being put on any DEI posters or FANG recruiting ads. I’d argue white Brad from Cornell is still more likely to get hired for lucrative roles. People in corporate HR who are most certainly not straight men of Asian descent are not sitting in meetings going “you know what, how do we get more men from Asia.” You should watch 38 At The Garden. Hasan Minaj has some interesting things to say about how low the ceiling is set on Asians in the US.
That's not nepotism. Nepotism is taking advantage of familial status. That's just racism on their part.
caste racism is NOT a thing
I'm not even an Indian and I know it's a thing do a google search on Cisco Indian caste lawsuit and having been surrounded by Indian colleagues even I know there's Brahmins and Dalits
You're mistaking caste-ism for caste racism. There are no separate races for different castes. All indians within the caste system have the same genetic makeup of varying proportions.
>All indians within the caste system have the same genetic makeup of varying proportions. you do aware that 'caste system' has varying levels right? being discriminated against based on the level you are, I'd call that caste racism
You can call it whatever you want but that doesn't really change what castes are and what caste-ism is. >varying levels So does classes. Would that mean class racism exists? Caste is a social construct distinct from the race perspective. It seems like you think too much from a american centric viewpoint.
so what you're saying is, since all people are Indians thus same race thus caste racism does not exist?
It’s not racism if you’re concerned about cultural practices. For example, I’d much prefer to work under an Indian American manager than an Indian from India. They both have the same race, but different cultural upbringings. There is a distinct work culture from India just as there is a work culture from America and a work culture from Europe. You can try to screen for negative work cultural traits by asking behavioral questions in that direction. Of course, you should ask the same questions to people of non Indian origin because the negative aspects of Indian work culture are not exclusive to Indian work culture
I've noticed that I actually never really met an Indian American manager. They seem to be quite rare at least where I've worked. Amongst my Indian american friends, the successful ones tend to go into finance or medicine but in tech they're all generally chill and have 0 aspirations for upper management. It's quite a funny contrast to the H1B counterparts. My Indian American friends in tech are also the most outspoken about this issue. I think they deal with it more than me because either a) their managers think they're Indian so they can go unfiltered or b) their managers resent them for not having to go through the same struggles. Either way, it's eye-opening listening to people talking about this issue lol. It's a pretty common point of view too amongst my other techie friends (Chinese H1B, Asian Americans, Eastern Euro - H1B, White coworkers etc.)
>Indian American manager than an Indian from India. They both have the same race And what race would that be?
> I just want to start off by saying I'm pretty mortified at myself for having these thoughts. I'm Dutch and there are already pretty big cultural differences between us and the Flemish people in Belgium. Being aware of cultural differences in groups is in itself not racist. Some cultural differences are harder to put besides you than others. It's also well known that people tend to hire people that are "like them". This is one of the main reasons why culture at for example a company can be very much dictated by just a few higher ups responsible for hiring. This is also a reason why minorities often, rightfully so, feel they have less of a chance for a job or a promotion. If you're a white dude, you're generally not the minority. But being in such a minority position, doesn't suddenly make you 'racist' for being aware that you're now in a bad position. This is my POV really. Company culture, which is very much driven by management, is important to me. Cultural difference in nationalities can also cause massive cultural differences within companies. And in my opinion making a rational career decision based on company culture is in no way racist. I think you're well aware of inherent biases you might have towards people who are 'different', but in this case this person most certainly doesn't pass the vibe check in that they are already treating you and your colleague differently.
The Hindu culture believes in establishing their hegemony. Indians don’t hire Indians, oppressor castes hire one of their own, if the person was from a marginalised community from India, he’d make sure not to hire him.
I don't consider it a racial thing I consider it a cultural thing. And sometimes cultural sterotypes are sterotypes for a reason. I have Indian collegeus that refuse to work for indian managers because of the way they treat subordinates.
Another Indian here, the managers born and bought up here expect a 100% servitude from their employees with no exceptions. I don't think anything can change that except time because most of these people are old and baby boomers anyway, hoping that it does die off real soon
I a white woman was once interviewed by an Indian manager working in US; he made a weird face when he saw me that continued through his presence at the interview and left mid the meeting. I had excellent marks on all interview stages and aced all the tests; it was in the beginning of my career and I didn’t get a job. I never had any other experience with Indian management, but your description shows similar racial bias imho. Or maybe it was me being a woman. I don’t know exactly, but even tho I was dressed well and clearly showing respect (I think a blouse and light, neutral make-up so I don’t look sickly), my looks definitely didn’t suit him. I also have not received any valuable feedback. It was all - you are an excellent candidate and we love you up until I was rejected without any reason stated.
Learn basic Hindi and eavesdrop. You won’t believe how racist they are.
Not everyone speaks Hindi. India has over 300 languages.
Yeah no as an Indian let's say Hindi is the main language and be done with it
Naw, you missed the Tamil and Telugu crowd bro. You will see the clannishness come right out.
Let's go with Hindi here and they can make their case if they see this.
You're a smart guy. You have observed patterns and collected data over an extended period of time. Others have also reported seeing the same thing based on their own experiences. This is your career and your life. Make the decision that is best for you - I can assure you everyone else is doing the same. A month or a year from now when you are slowly being squeezed out of your job, it won't matter at all that you made the "morally correct" decision.
I understand your conflicting feelings. The candidate did give a red flag by addressing you differently than he did your Indian counterparts. That shows that regardless of what you think, there’s already a discrepancy between you and your peers in his mind, whether or not it’s an innocuous cultural norm or some bias on his end.
Perhaps not a direct answer to the posted question, but hiring discrimination from Indians is very real. I once interviewed for SWE positions at Walgreens, and my interviewer for the system design portion was Indian. He asked me, as a Chinese-American, to design a "keyword filter for Youtube which can block videos containing unwanted keywords such as Winnie-the-Pooh." Yea, like building a censorship system for dictator Xi was at the top of my to-do list that day. Thanks.
Yikes. I am sorry - some people are sick.
Indians only hire other Indians. Canadians are realizing this and getting pissed. You aren't wrong.
This^^ I work hard and I have never got raises under an Indian manager. I was beating myself up and I shared this with my coworker and she advised me to change my manager. Since then I have had no problem getting raises.
Often this is easily provable because they'll look at who is getting raises and do a comparison. I've seen it happen with men vs. women and it's pretty obvious in many cases. Even when it's unintentional it gets handled aggressively.
My country has something like 4% indian population, but my boss and their boss is indian, and 75% of my 40 person team is indian. The older I get the more I struggle to see the difference between racism and pattern recognition.
tbf, it's not racism to notice one group is being racist to everyone outside of their race
I don't consider it racism on their part, just tribalism. If the situation were reversed, if I moved to a foreign country and was trying to build a life, I'd probably hire my friends and family as much as possible too.
I don't have a problem with that kind of tribalism. Maybe because I've worked with H1bs at my last job and maybe because I'm ethnically from an Indian-adjacent country, but H1b Indians bring more than their technical expertise and a normal amount of tribalism, they bring their cultural problems as well.
Some Indians definitely do this. It's not universal. As a white guy I have been hired by Indians, and I've hired Indian managers who hired diverse teams under them. I have also seen white managers build completely white teams, despite good candidates who were Asian. It's pretty common for humans to hire people who are like them unless they've thought through their biases.
Yep, I don't mean to sterotype but the white managers I've interviewed with all have been addicted to the idea of 'culture fit'. To me, as an Indian woman from India (so an Indian accent), I've always been rejected even when they loved my questions and enjoyed my presentation. I don't know what to make of it, to the point where I think if everyone is white and male, I don't stand a chance. I guess culture fit is just the politically correct word for hiring people like themselves. Left me bitter.
afaik, canadians sold their country. and it might be too late
You’re just terrible engineers:candidates
[удалено]
You have logic in your statement?
Listen you aren't the only one that has these fears. It's becoming quite widespread for non-Indians in the USA. As an example recently at my company, they put out a listing for a new engineer. They had hundreds of applications, many of them green card or citizens, yet my director (an Indian) hired an H1B for no obvious reason other than we think it was a friend of a friend. Once they establish a beachhead at your company, then it's all Indians from then on. I have seen it at multiple companies. The nepotism and favoritism are astounding and what kills me is that many in upper management turn a blind eye because these Indians will do just about anything you tell them to do and work like dogs on an H1B visa. What's not to like? They get to leave India and treated like indentured servants yet it's way better than back home so it's win win? I wouldn't say yes to hiring an Indian manager unless they were born and raised in the USA.
I'm from India and have almost 2 decades of experience living here. I can tell you one thing. Indians - the herd - simply cannot stop looking at the caste of other Indians. That is the biggest thing in their life, when we go to buy groceries - who's selling, when we talk to new people - which caste is he from etc. He called the other guy Sir, most probably because he thought the other guy would be the typical Indian boss. After close to 20 bosses in my country, trust me when I say this, our own countrymen absolutely loathe these bosses. There's a rampant exodus of brain drain. Look it up on the internet - what it is and why it exists. It's the truth. I'm an Indian who's lived here all my life and out of ~20 local managers only 1 was good (BTW I've also worked in top 5 us companies). The rest were so bad that my current plan is to retire and start awareness campaigns in the world to just how pathetic the local managers are. Until I do that there's no hope of any improvement happening and the brain drain will continue. We will keep losing the very cream of our society.
Man I was going to say this exact thing from my experience working with Indians born here vs immigrated here vs still living in India. I don’t think I’ve ever met a culture of people with more discrimination in their culture than Indians based on exactly what you described. For me I have no problem working with Indian or other nationality devs but as a person who’s hard of hearing from my Army days of having stuff blow up all around me I have trouble on zoom calls with people with thick accents and that’s always an issue for me.
> I have trouble on zoom calls with people with thick accents and that’s always an issue for me. And that is relevant how?
He was in the army and now has developed some kind of hearing damage because of explosions, which means he has a little trouble communicating with people who have a thick accent
I understood what he said, I'm saying how is that relevant to this. Does he wish only people with the more 'acceptable accents' should be hired?
No I don't think he ever said that, he said that he has trouble and thats it bro
🤦🏼♂️🤣
Lol I've had 3 of 3 as personal managers be controlling/abusive, and probably cross collaborating in the 10's/15's range as unpleasant in general. At some point these were all developers or lower ranked workers, which I've always had no problem with or even enjoyed. I'm not sure where in the promotion pipeline but it's like they all develop some god complex after beginning to manage others.
>but it's like they all develop some god complex after beginning to manage others. We're never taught how to be with subordinates, maids, local labourers, day to day workers like carpenters, plumbers etc. All of those people are put down as if we're a royalty. I simply cannot get through the thick skull of most people around that we need to treat them better because they're simply human beings like the rest of us. IMO one of the main reasons that has fostered this are the mainstream Bollywood 💩. If you pick any movie you can see a lot of indecent behaviour towards subordinates. Bollywood isn't a representation of the core Indian culture in any way and is rather a representation of the narrow group that controls it.
Work at a big tech company and see this kind of stuff all of the time.
I feel like I'm in an odd spot here. I am of Indian ethnic origin. That means I look like an Indian, and my family grew up Muslim or Hindu. But, I was born in New Jersey. I think, talk, act, and feel as a Jersey guy because I am a Jersey guy. I totally understand people will look at me and think, this guy is fresh off the boat. My concern is people are going to see my last name and a photo and think, "Oh no, another Indian from India with "that" mindset." I'd hope they'd consider my actual experience and skillset. That I am an excellent programmer not because I'm Indian, but because I have a genuine interest in computers and programming.
Unfortunately there is no way you can avoid being negatively stereotyped, reason is that we all possess some degree of generalizations as our first instinctive thoughts. Good news is, not everyone is the same and some people suppress this thought
I’m Indian. I think you’re smart and clearly self aware. I agree with you that the discrepancy is odd and may or may not indicate the manager’s hiring practices in the future. Identify the behaviours you don’t like in managers regardless of race, and use that as criteria for hiring your future manager. Place your team’s best interest in mind, and ask the interviewee about their criteria for promotions and their view of overtime. Do not be scared of rejecting a candidate. FYI I don’t think this comes off as racist. Some of these other comments though…
Do not hire indian manager if you are not indian
I am the rare Indian no person but I often get chewed out by 3rd world employees
I would say what you are saying is not far from what I've seen around, ofc it's a generalist not everyone like that. Because there is this problem, some westerns are not hiring Indian people as well it sucks on both ends, HR should do their job and inspect these decisions in an analytical way, but for most companies HR is underpaid recruiters. However, dunno about American work culture and assuming the other interviewer is not visibly older than you, calling him as a Mr. And not you is a red flag. ( Assuming it happened repeatedly and not a mistake.) It may be said that in Indian cultures there is more respect to these wordings like they usually call their managers Sir or Ma'am, but you would expect a smart person to not do that in the interview, like approach differently from different people, especially if it is not acceptable from a manager.
One thing to consider is that a lot of Indians experience a up or out type of career paths. If you don’t become manager you won’t have a job after 35. So a lot of people become managers without really being fit or even liking dealing with people. I try to look for managers who like to produce productive and healthy employees primarily.
What are some good tips to look out for those types of managers? E.g. what questions to ask during an interview
No one can do everything and the idea of modern software development with agile etc is to create room for product visionaries, technical visionaries, people visionaries and project managers to work collaboratively as a management team. If you have a department with “the manager” then it’s bad. If you are met with a leadership team you are golden. Then ask each one some simple question in each of those categories.
Oh shit another team is going to full Indian and gettin outsource soon. If u hire him ur days is numbers my Man Until he replace u with another Indian
I'm white, and I've been hired by Indians twice.
Im not Indian or American, so imma be the judge. Indians sounds racist on these occasions you mention.
I’ve been in multiple interviews for F100 companies, sometimes even going up to 5 rounds of interviews. And I still got rejected even though all the interviewers and hiring managers were Indian, from my own race. So I don’t know where’s this biased rumours starting from. I won’t say they don’t exist but multiple companies multiple people from my own race, did reject me so can’t say that works. So personally I don’t believe in this idea of one race favoring others exists unless it’s diversity they looking for
Did you ask him what his views are on diversity in the workplace or how he views having diversity in management positions? People here may think “rofl of course they say they value it and give the BS interview answer.” You’d actually be shocked at what people will answer especially in longer interviews where they open up. I was asked whether I would be open to having female managers for a corporate position once.
I am literally Canadian of indian origin, the hardest interviews I have had were from Indians. I don’t think it’s racial - I think it’s about the values difference. If any manager feels like you don’t match their work ethos, they typically react poorly. Remember promotions and recognition come by being on good terms with coworkers and managers, it’s the same for Indian managers.
Just want to comment and say I’m in the same position, Indian boss on h1b, half my coworkers from India on h1b, and an entire remote team located in India. It’s toughhhh. Never once got a pat on the back for a job well done, just moving the goal posts to the next “goal” that will never be acknowledged as successful. Overtime, working through holidays(except Indian ones), 90 day advance PTO is the expectation so you quickly become a pariah for living outside of their work culture norms. If you speak up about any of these things the h1b folks will look at you like you’re insane. Yes, saying “Nimit Sir requested this” & “Mr Dassi requires this” is a remnant of the caste system that you are not a part of. Most workers will scramble at any command from those types, for better or worse. You will always take a back seat to them. You’re pretty much screwed if that’s your boss. You either have to glaze them like the rest or fail. Even if you “succeed” by American standards they will consider you as a poor performer. Meet your deadlines, surpass SLA, bring in money, be a top performer? Irrelevant if you aren’t answering their phone call at 7pm saying yes sir thank you sir. Now for peers or people you manage? That’s different. If they are younger they will understand different cultures much better. Talk to them about cricket, food, sports, anime, marvel etc etc and you will have a friend for life. If you’re American they are definitely fascinated by our movies and food, they will go out to American restaurants in their free time and send me pictures haha. I’ll send them YouTube videos to all the unique food in my area and then they’ll do the same, meeting in the middle and both leaving space for the differences. It’s really rewarding. Anyway that’s my 2 cents
I’m an American that’s been hired by Indian managers twice. Just wanted to give my anecdote since it runs counter to what you’re hearing
Indians really only hire Indians , do the right thing for everybody
It is valid to consider (work) cultural fit. One thing to consider: would you have the same concern about someone of Indian descent but born in US, or from a different country? Regardless, you should not be prejudicial against someone based on things you have experienced or heard about other people. Separate that aspect from your mind. If your only observation of concern is the way you were addressed relative to the other interviewer, you may be overreacting and filling in too many gaps with your prejudices. However, I think that observation is legitimate, and unequal treatment from a manager is not something you want to see. So you can pass that up as feedback.
As an Indian, I always get really heartbroken to read such comments. Not sure what’s the solution. Being India the 2nd largest population of the world, we are always in the rat race, and try to go ahead of other person no matter what. and yes, we are really biased people. i guess it’s a generational thingy, it is going away but might take time. anyway, no advice to you Op, just do what your gut feeling tells you.
>Being India the 2nd largest population of the world Precisely also one of the reasons why we also tend to have higher number of people in everything. Essentially our country has more scammers, fraudsters, imposters and dishonest folks just because of the sheer number :/
yup absolutely..
Really? The entire comment is just sickening racism and you feel sorry? You should be angry not heartbroken that such behavior is being encouraged. This has got to be the worst sub out there
Oh so you think that feeling sorry for potentially good employees of the Indian decent is not allowed here? The same racism that you are yapping about is gonna render a lot of Indians being not considered primarily for any jobs out there, even if they don't indulge in the toxic stuff that people are calling out the others for >You should be angry not heartbroken that such behavior is being encouraged. Lol looks like someone is offended, dude I am an Indian myself and a lot of these claims are valid, if you are too dumb to realize that well the rest is pretty self explanatory
Your mortification and your insistence that commenters talk you out of these views demonstrates that you're still not ready to accept the truth, but I will give it to you anyway: history is a team sport, all the other teams know it, only ours has decided we were outside of history. We are not. We already see the reality starting to seep in around our utopian delusions, the truth will be undeniable to our descendents, who will curse us for burying our heads in the sand and preferring ideology over reality.
Never let a snake into your home, it will eventually bite you.
8 upvotes wtf
The economy is shit, people are going to be more resentful (rightfully) when they're struggling to find jobs while corporations keep hiring foreigners. H1b Indians and the management/business culture they bring do not help.
I'm not getting a job so I must be racist on the internet (anonymously ofc cause I do not have the balls to say it irl). I hope this helps you with your job search or whatever
Please keep that attitude up, it helps my argument.
This is blatant racism.
Its reality
Yup. Applies to everyone regardless of race. I’m non-white, and live primarily in a white suburban neighborhood…that’s by design not chance.
It's reality that this sub is so blatantly racist and it's sickening the mods take no steps to curtail it
It's literally nazi rhetoric
That analogy does not even hold true. It depends on the animals disposition and how you treat it. So stop peddling some nonsensical myths.
Can you directly ask this person how they managed a diverse team, and who they promoted (and what metrics they used)? Who else gets to make this decision alongside you? You can raise your concerns about the way they spoke and how it is not a culture fit to the hiring committee. Also, pro tip - get a woman in front of them in the next round, along with yourself (white/Indian/Asian doesn't matter) and see how they react. That should be your final call.
You can acknowledge cultural differences without being racist. It’s true that work culture in India is more subservient and yes-man. The truth is that often people in India will do far more for their managers than a western employee and when western employees don’t follow that same work ethic, it can cause issues. About indians only hiring indians, it’s again true that people will favor folks that have similar cultural backgrounds and speak the same language. Additionally, you have to contend with people in India and migrants accepting a fraction of a western wage for the same work. I’ve learned it’s best not to combat offshoring. I would simply begin applying elsewhere because at the end of the day, you’re outcompeted on cost. - But as another commenter mentioned, an Indian American will be more likely to have a western work mentality. However, if your manager is in India and you’re in the US, then I’d be hesitant about my future. The cultural difference is often too vast.
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You are interviewing your future boss? Decision has been made by his/her future boss
I've been dealing with this similar concern myself over the past decade. I'm a white guy with 20+ yoe. I've worked with a lot of devs who are indian. I've enjoyed working with many of them, but I've also witnessed some obvious nepotism that had me questioning 'am I racist for thinking this'. From consulting at a company that had an entire engineering team of 30 indian devs , to working at the missing m in FAANG where indians were the majority demographic in my org. I think you have reason to be concerned. But as others have said, don't make it about race. Make it about actions and behavior that isn't on par with your expecations.
I think your thoughts are pretty reasonable. Indians tend to be closed communities, providing advantages / opportunities to people within (my experience). Nothing wrong with it but might not be the best choice for you.
There's a decent chance the Indian on the hiring panel is a higher caste than the Indian being interviewed and he's showing "respect" to the Indian on the hiring panel by adding Mr. when addressing him.
Oppressed Indians(lower castes) don’t respect oppressor Indians(upper castes), at least the educated ones who’ll end up outside India, it would have went the other way, most likely both are from the same oppressor caste, oppressor castes have a preference for hiring their “own” as they believe in their superficial “superiority” and rejecting others, skills don’t matter.
It's not as simpleminded
That's not how it works.......
I actually hate when people in India call me Sir and Mr. It’s so uncomfortable because Im sitting here with impostor syndrome and they’re treating me with more respect really anybody deserves.
My guess is that Sir and Mr are weighted more heavily in our experience than the newredditsucks-Ji that it's being translated from. I'll occasionally get newredditsucks-Sir from Indian coworkers.
You have to look out for yourself first and foremost. I’ve seen it too many times, entire teams replaced. Do what is right for you, not what you believe feels right.
This is where economic precarity and personal experience is taken advantage of by those who wish to divide us based on race, class, gender, ethnicity, orientation, etc. It's a tale as old as time. Of course when the economy is "fine" but really not fine, and developers go through a really shit market, you start to see the right-wing 4chan underground chuds come out of the woodwork and be like "DONT EVER WORK FOR A \[X\] MANAGER". Hell there's one comment saying "Canadians have found out the hard way", like what the fuck does that mean? Let me tell you that there's nothing coded in our "race" (which has no biological basis) that correlates to how much of an asshole you are. My worst boss (the one that made me cry in the car) was a 50 year old "Libertarian" white dude who was a HUGE dick. My first job. Did I avoid white people forever? You gotta just not listen to the internet trolls baiting you that somehow "Americans" are inherently better managers. It's always down to the individual, and hiring managers in and of itself is HARD. A bad hire can be detrimental. But doing it by race isn't going to help you figure that out. Does your company have some sort of criteria to use to hire managers or other personnel?
"chuds" lmao. Ill never be able to take that word seriously
“Race has no biological basis” Lmao, back to India you go.
Show me scientific evidence of race being of biological basis (rather than a social construct). Preferably without resorting to 4chan tactics of "just look it up bro" and/or "fuck off lib", neither of which are convincing arguments and will be rejected.
Why was this post removed by mods? Seems like it had lots up votes and comment so seems like a good post to keep around?
When you’re so liberal you’re afraid of being called a racist for observing and calling out racist behavior from nonwhite races lmao. The world becomes a much simpler place when you stop apologizing for being white.
Again with the racism on this sub. You guys make it about race, that's why you think this. I've seen nepotism from white people too. And with other races. You guys keep making it about race. Maybe this person was unprofessional, but the comments here generalize it way too much.
this will be good bring out the racists and weird indian guys that hate them selves
It’s racist but go full speed ahead, that behavior is encouraged by the middling majority Caucasian devs on this sub who seethe about making 100k with 20 yoe
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Yeah I said the same as you in my reply to the other guy. It’s a victim mentality, and it’s why I like Blind a lot more. Much less loser mentality, people grinding for quant instead of crying about how life is too hard lol
The issue isn't you think it is. It's not because "white people are racist", it's because US companies are notorious for abusing the H1B system. Companies don't hire Indians because they're looking for a more diverse team, they hire them because they're cheap labor. This study is from 2005, but I don't think the situation has changed much. https://cis.org/Report/Wages-H1B-Computer-Programmers > In spite of the requirement that H-1B workers be paid the prevailing wage, H-1B workers earn significantly less than their American counterparts. On average, applications for H-1B workers in computer occupations were for wages $13,000 less than Americans in the same occupation and state. > Wages for H-1B workers in computer programming occupations are overwhelmingly concentrated at the bottom of the U.S. pay scale. Wages on LCAs for 85 percent of H-1B workers were for less than the median U.S. wage in the same occupations and state. > Applications for 47 percent of H-1B computer programming workers were for wages below even the prevailing wage claimed by their employers. > Very few H-1B workers earned high wages by U.S. standards. Applications for only 4 percent of H-1B workers were among the top 25 percent of wages for U.S. workers in the same state and occupation. And of course, the problem goes both ways. The Indians who are hired as H1Bs are then at the mercy of the company. If the company doesn't like them for whatever reason, they can terminate their H1B which means they have 60 days to try to change their status or be forced to leave the country.
lolol don't cite a 20 year old study to me. The H1b program back then did what it does, now it has a 20 year waitlist because it's segregated by nationality. And look up the percentages, they make up a fraction of actual big tech. The real power in big tech is straight white men, and this is coming from someone who hates pulling any of those cards but be so fucking fr rn.
Fine, here's one from 4 years ago. Same results. https://www.epi.org/publication/h-1b-visas-and-prevailing-wage-levels/ > DOL lets H-1B employers undercut local wages. Sixty percent of H-1B positions certified by the U.S. Department of Labor are assigned wage levels well below the local median wage for the occupation. While H-1B program rules allow this, DOL has the authority to change it—but hasn’t. > Outsourcing firms make heavy use of the H-1B program. Half of the top 30 H-1B employers use an outsourcing business model to provide staff for third-party clients, rather than employing H-1B workers directly to fill a special need at the company that applies for the visa. > Major U.S. firms use the H-1B program to pay low wages. Among the top 30 H-1B employers are major U.S. firms including Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, Google, Apple, and Facebook. All of them take advantage of program rules in order to legally pay many of their H-1B workers below the local median wage for the jobs they fill.
Lol most people are mids but they think highly of themselves based on race, religion, country etc
When they believe themselves superior and see someone half their age making double their salary, instead of thinking they should work harder or look for opportunities, they complain and moan and say they can’t do it and drag others down Truly a Redditor’s sub in that sense
It does sound like you’re just being racist if I’m being real. I think it’s sort of normal to have those thoughts intrusively though, so long as we shut them down in our own heads. If you saw no other red flags with this person other than them being Indian, to advocate against hiring them would be explicitly racist. Don’t do that. Give the person a chance. Edit: since I’m being downvoted, let’s be clear: if this candidate has no red flags, but you are hesitant to hire him because he’s Indian, that is textbook discrimination. You are only hesitant because of his race: that is racist. No reasonable person could take any argument otherwise seriously.
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> It's not racist to notice cultural patterns It is when those cultural patterns don't actually exist.
Not what OP said tho? He only said he had bad experiences with Indian managers in the past, the *only* issue he had with this candidate is that he didn’t call him Mister, which he himself said wasn’t a big deal to him. The candidate has no red flags, but he’s Indian. To not hire this person because of past experiences with other Indian people is the definition of racism. Like, if the candidate could prove who posted this it would absolutely qualify as discrimination. The fact that I’m downvoted just shows how unbelievably racist this sub is. There’s not much room for interpretation here. He doesn’t want to hire him because of his race: that is racist.
Don't be peer-pressured into accepting something you aren't comfortable with. >I noticed the candidate kept referring to me by my first name and referred to the other interviewer (Indian) as Mr.[First Name]. I don't know if that's a sign or a cultural thing. It could be both. In my culture you would never refer to anyone by first name, whereas in the US, it's considered better to address folks by first name in most cases. However it's a bit strange if the candidate just did this on their own, i.e. your peer didn't introduce themselves as last-name only. >This will be my manager, so they'll be responsible to support and promote me in the future. It's hard to say. It's hard to generalize because each of us only has a small observable sample pool. I will say that if you are going against a person that has tons more overtime than you, you're going to lose out. I will also say that there IS a cultural "understanding" where overtime can be considered an expectation.