Comments on: Mixercast fires people from it’s team in India

By: lavnish

lavnish — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 06:01:14 +0000

I completely agree with RV

By: rv

rv — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:16:24 +0000

@Abdul – I would say they were really smart in doing this. They managed to hire some of the best people in India (I know most of the people who worked in MC) and create a really good product with a lean budget (and some promises may be). Now they have a cool product which they can show off to people and get funded and now they think the team who build that is of no value-add as they now have the money to have a local team in the place where they came from. And believe me for this, you are not alone I know of at least 3 different cases like this.
@Another Developer – I tend to disagree with your comment about the code quality of Indian programmers and for that matter a lot of softwares and web applications which are being used by the Fortune 50’s are developed in India (and not rewritten elsewhere). I have been part of more than 100 project’s myself and there has been probably 3 or 4 isolated cases in which this has happened and in most of the cases (2 in this instance) I would say that the person on the other side just didn’t want this project to be done out of India and was unnecessarily making peoples life toucher so the project can be taken away. There were only 2 cases in which the problem was genuine.
“As a start up using India engineering to get started is good, respect for your team is necessary but also remember that you are getting paid to produce and not to learn on the job.” – It’s the interviewers responsibility to choose the right candidate who can perform on the job rather than those who practice on the job. If the interviewer is not capable of identifying the difference then its his fault not the candidates. Secondly, I have seen that, because its India people want to pay programmers 10% of what they pay in the US and if thats the case you will only get a programmer who is worth 10%. I agree that the reason for outsourcing to India is because of lesser cost but when people want to recruit guys at 10% of the cost they would spend there, one would only get candidates who are beginners and not pro’s. What you pay is what you get – it’s that simple.

By: Abdul Qabiz

Abdul Qabiz — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:28:06 +0000

@Another Developer: I understand what you mean. But let me tell you, in this case of Mixercast, everything was done from scratch in India, even the first couple of versions. So I would not say quality of code was bad, infact Mixercast has some amazing architecture underneath.
However, I mentioned last paragraph (about code quality in India), that’s in general context (outsource or whatever). Sorry, it got mixed with main subject of the post.
Thanks for the comment.
@Bill: My mistake, I don’t have proof and I was not sure, I should have taken care while posting. Thanks for pointing it out, I have update the post and accepted my fault. Once again, I don’t mean to offend anyone, sorry I can not disclose the name of that person.
Thanks
-abdul

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:23:24 +0000

“They couldn’t reconsider my case where as I know, they allowed someone else to exercise, even when they guy was fired before vesting period.”
I can fully understand your feelings. But whenever you rant also please put forward proof. Do not hit from the back.
Who is this guy/gal ?

By: Another Developer

Another Developer — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:01:56 +0000

Ok, yes you are dead on getting fired before your vesting period has given you your options is wrong.
I have had the experience of working with several firms in India and unfortunately the code is not always top notch. I have been through a fair share of projects where I have to go in and re-write code and made the product more extensible. As a start up using India engineering to get started is good, respect for your team is necessary but also remember that you are getting paid to produce and not to learn on the job. Sure some of that happens regardless on the job but reality is you are not getting paid to learn but to produce.
Being outsourced several times for an India crew has made me a little biased. So take my comments with consideration. But to see more US based workers get a salary once again as opposed to outsourcing helps the economy here.