I mean no disrespect, by this observation.

Eventually I found two. One of them was a really solid hire. Backbone of the team. Still not as vocal as any of the non-TCS devs (one of whom was also Indian, but very vocal about his opinion), but he got stuff done and did it well.

For the right bill rate, it could be a pretty entertaining role to play.

> Many times, I wish that our Indian contract workers, would speak out when they see something wrong, about process, quality, or business requests.

> our US-born hires are way quicker to say something to management if they feel something is wrong

Apparently the obvious and easy solution here is to only get US-born hires. So why don't you?

This seems to be an unnecessarily aggressive take on it.

If I (an American) were working for an Indian company, I would plan to learn and understand what the culture is like in Indian companies, and then do my best to conform to that. If I didn't believe I'd feel comfortable in that environment, then I wouldn't take the job. I would expect an Indian working at an American company to do the same.

I get that it can be difficult, and that some of these cultural things aren't just company culture, but are deeply ingrained, real cultural differences between people of different backgrounds.

Having said all that, I do think a US manager who hires reports from India (or from any other country with a different culture than the US) should be aware of what cultural differences exist, and try to meet their employees in the middle as much as they can.

I do agree with the grandparent, though, that I don't want to work with people who are "obedient", at least in the way I'm guessing the great-grandparent meant (perhaps I'm inferring the meaning incorrectly, though). I agree that I want people who won't just do what management says, and will instead apply critical thinking to the work they get assigned, and question things that don't make sense.

I've many times been hired in companies to say things employees didn't have the political clout to say out loud. If anything goes wrong, or someone isn't happy, I'm the fall guy.

I ended up quitting and they replaced me with a contractor who did the same at 4x the cost.

The funded startups in India are paying very good money to their staff. Even somewhat junior resources with 4-5 years of experience can get in excess of 50l inr per anum, which is roughly 65k usd in cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore & Gurgaon.

In the US, it's univerally 2 weeks.

My colleagues were shocked when I confirmed that offering more than two weeks’ notice in the US is super nice to your employer, and two weeks is not considered unprofessional.

A large part of the justification of using outsourced workers is that they live in an area with a lower cost of living than the company's headquarters, so they can be paid less while still having a good quality of life.

So comparing your salary to American workers doesn't really say anything about whether or not you're "underpaid", but it's how your salary compares to others in your area. If you just want to earn more money, you could move to the USA, but there's a cost associated with that (even ignoring the difficulty in getting a work visa) and you may find that your "1/4 salary" is worth more at home that it is in the USA.|

There are certainly a lot of employees that have moved away from the SF Bay Area to take a job in an area with a lower cost of living and even though they make significiantly less money, they still have a better quality of life (in particular, they can afford a house)

If two people are doing the same job and giving the company $X profit, it's only fair that they are being paid the same regardless of where they live. Think optimizing a marketing campaign that changes monthly revenue from $10M to $30M, both people should be compensated similarly since they are bringing the same profit to the company.

But also if two people are doing the same job, it's fair they are compensated the same amount of $, regardless of whether one produces $X and another $Y depending on the company situation or their cost of living. Think optimizing the same program to run in 0.1s instead of 1s, assuming everything is the same, for Google that's worth millions but for your neighbor it's worth hundreds of $, but both are gonna pay you 10h * your hourly rate.

Those two examples are vastly incompatible; companies will of course insist that they pay you based on your expenses, while workers based on how they help the company, but in the end there's a contradiction, and since they cannot both be right they must both be wrong. The "right" solution is that they'll pay you based on the market, how much they think you are worth, your experience, your negotiating abilities, etc.

Maybe a good quality of life compared to other people from the same area... but nowhere even close to that of an American worker.

No idea where you got that "1/4 salary is worth more at home" from, when in my experience I used to be able to feed myself with 10 GBP/week on average in UK, now I'm spending close to 15 GBP/week in Moldova. Tech/computers/phones are about twice as expensive here, used cars ~10 times more expensive at the lower-end, mid/high-end about the same (at least you don't have to spend crazy amounts of money on parts since getting the MOT equiv here is much easier, so you can fix your car with whatever hammer and lattice from your neighbor's garage..)

Utilites about the same. Rent is cheaper, since most people live with their families overcrowded in tiny appartments...

The cost of "living" is higher, most people just don't know how poor people live. Most people can't even imagine eating ten pounds a week...

If you want the same quality of life as an American worker, the best way to achieve it is to be an American worker since you can always pick and choose things that are objectively "worse" in any arbitrary country. For example, you cite the high cost of cars as an example of why a country has a worse quality of life, but others may point to American car dependence as worse for their quality of life.

No idea where you got that "1/4 salary is worth more at home" from

Probably because that's not what I said. I said "you may find that your "1/4 salary" is worth more at home that it is in the USA.", Obviously I didn't mean that to mean in all situations. I wouldn't expect that someone living on £10/week in the UK would be able to live comfortably on £2.50/week in any arbitrary country

I have a friend that took advantage of COVID work from home to move to Indonesia (where his wife is from) - he said they pay less for all costs of living than he did just on their apartment in the SF Bay Area. He's still drawing his Bay Area salary, but is not going back to the office, when return to office becomes mandatory, he'll just quit and retire where he is. He feels that he has a far superior quality of life there. It's not the same as Bay Area life, but far more relaxing.

It has nothing to do with CoL and everything to do with a company paying what they think is competitive with the other options you have.

I live somewhere with a higher CoL than the states. American companies open branches here, and pay much lower, local salaries.

Thinking it has anything to do with CoL is pure "Just World" fallacy.

Nope, the justification is just “they can be paid less”. The rest is irrelevant.

This is happening now too, as many high paying jobs are coming on India and other parts of the world through remote work. Eventually I believe your cost of living will have no impact on the salary you get.

(i.e., are other local companies offering worse or better benefits?)

So if OP says that they get 1/4th of the salary that people from US get for same role, then I feel that he is most likely underpaid.

I'm curious what you mean by illegal. Do you mean they won't pass emissions or safety?

Although 1/4th sounds a bit extreme for India. My understanding is that FAANG is paying more than half - and considering the cost of living - I know a lot of people that willingly took gigantic pay cuts to transfer back to India.

I mean - for one - ~45% of your income goes straight to tax in CA - in India IIUC it's 20%.