Interviews with Indian developers [modified]
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During last weeks our company had interviews with many developers from India. Both phone interviews and meetings that we arranged in Delhi last week. It is not easy to find good developers in Norway these days, and we already hired two developers with Indian background, so we thought it could be worth to find more. We don't have any plans to outsource our development, it is about to invite people working in Norway. Here are some observations that might be interesting. 1. Certification does not count at all. Just ignore words like MCAD, MCSD etc. 2. Current salary says more than project experience. It sounds cynical, but none of developers with salary under 4-5 lacks (1 lack = 100 000 rupies) was able to discuss design aspects of software development. But when we talked to people with salaries 6 lacks and more, they usuall demonstrated good understanding of how computer programs work. And the differences in salaries are huge - almost 10 times. 3. When you meet really good developers their salaries are already on such level that it's not clear if they gain anything economically from moving to Europe. Yes, their European salaries will still be higher than what they currently get in India, but with all those European taxes, gasoline prices and house costs they will often be able to make less savings after all expenses than they are currently making in India. 4. Everybody talks about unit tests, but it's just manual tests! Very few used NUnit. 5. I can't believe outsourcing of small and medium sized projects to India can give any advantages. Both in terms of costs and deadlines. Especially now when a lot of companies practice test driven development. My biggest surprise was to realize how little can MS certification mean. A few examples from conversations with developers who had MCAD or even MCSD in their CVs: "We can use Int16 to store credit card numbers because credit card has 16 digits". "To store password in a database we can choose a PASSWORD SQL data type, and then the value will be stored using asterisks". "The most efficient way to check a string for emptiness is to compare it with "", because "" is a value type and is very efficient to use". So my main experience from these interviews is that when hiring developers from India you have to expect very big contrasts, and it is difficult to find good candidates just by reading their CVs. I guess more difficult than when you read CVs from developers in Europe or USA. You get great CVs with a lot of projects and certification exams listed. But many
Vagif Abilov wrote:
"To store password in a database we can choose a PASSWORD SQL data type, and then the value will be stored using asterisks".
:-D. And I am glad that he didn't tell you about a new
Asteriskalgorithm inSystem.Security.Cryptography.Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage Tech Gossips
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During last weeks our company had interviews with many developers from India. Both phone interviews and meetings that we arranged in Delhi last week. It is not easy to find good developers in Norway these days, and we already hired two developers with Indian background, so we thought it could be worth to find more. We don't have any plans to outsource our development, it is about to invite people working in Norway. Here are some observations that might be interesting. 1. Certification does not count at all. Just ignore words like MCAD, MCSD etc. 2. Current salary says more than project experience. It sounds cynical, but none of developers with salary under 4-5 lacks (1 lack = 100 000 rupies) was able to discuss design aspects of software development. But when we talked to people with salaries 6 lacks and more, they usuall demonstrated good understanding of how computer programs work. And the differences in salaries are huge - almost 10 times. 3. When you meet really good developers their salaries are already on such level that it's not clear if they gain anything economically from moving to Europe. Yes, their European salaries will still be higher than what they currently get in India, but with all those European taxes, gasoline prices and house costs they will often be able to make less savings after all expenses than they are currently making in India. 4. Everybody talks about unit tests, but it's just manual tests! Very few used NUnit. 5. I can't believe outsourcing of small and medium sized projects to India can give any advantages. Both in terms of costs and deadlines. Especially now when a lot of companies practice test driven development. My biggest surprise was to realize how little can MS certification mean. A few examples from conversations with developers who had MCAD or even MCSD in their CVs: "We can use Int16 to store credit card numbers because credit card has 16 digits". "To store password in a database we can choose a PASSWORD SQL data type, and then the value will be stored using asterisks". "The most efficient way to check a string for emptiness is to compare it with "", because "" is a value type and is very efficient to use". So my main experience from these interviews is that when hiring developers from India you have to expect very big contrasts, and it is difficult to find good candidates just by reading their CVs. I guess more difficult than when you read CVs from developers in Europe or USA. You get great CVs with a lot of projects and certification exams listed. But many
Vagif Abilov wrote:
It is not easy to find good developers in Norway
Try and lower the price of beer in Norway I'm sure that will help.
Grady Booch: I told Google to their face...what you need is some serious adult supervision. (2007 Turing lecture) http://www.frankkerrigan.com/[^]
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Vagif Abilov wrote:
"To store password in a database we can choose a PASSWORD SQL data type, and then the value will be stored using asterisks".
:-D. And I am glad that he didn't tell you about a new
Asteriskalgorithm inSystem.Security.Cryptography.Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage Tech Gossips
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Vagif Abilov wrote:
It is not easy to find good developers in Norway
Try and lower the price of beer in Norway I'm sure that will help.
Grady Booch: I told Google to their face...what you need is some serious adult supervision. (2007 Turing lecture) http://www.frankkerrigan.com/[^]
Indians don't drink so much beer :)
Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them. Jack Handey.
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Indians don't drink so much beer :)
Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them. Jack Handey.
But the way a few guys are addicted to smoke, they subject thier neighbors to extreme passive smoking and fumigating the entire area like anything. :-D
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage Tech Gossips
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During last weeks our company had interviews with many developers from India. Both phone interviews and meetings that we arranged in Delhi last week. It is not easy to find good developers in Norway these days, and we already hired two developers with Indian background, so we thought it could be worth to find more. We don't have any plans to outsource our development, it is about to invite people working in Norway. Here are some observations that might be interesting. 1. Certification does not count at all. Just ignore words like MCAD, MCSD etc. 2. Current salary says more than project experience. It sounds cynical, but none of developers with salary under 4-5 lacks (1 lack = 100 000 rupies) was able to discuss design aspects of software development. But when we talked to people with salaries 6 lacks and more, they usuall demonstrated good understanding of how computer programs work. And the differences in salaries are huge - almost 10 times. 3. When you meet really good developers their salaries are already on such level that it's not clear if they gain anything economically from moving to Europe. Yes, their European salaries will still be higher than what they currently get in India, but with all those European taxes, gasoline prices and house costs they will often be able to make less savings after all expenses than they are currently making in India. 4. Everybody talks about unit tests, but it's just manual tests! Very few used NUnit. 5. I can't believe outsourcing of small and medium sized projects to India can give any advantages. Both in terms of costs and deadlines. Especially now when a lot of companies practice test driven development. My biggest surprise was to realize how little can MS certification mean. A few examples from conversations with developers who had MCAD or even MCSD in their CVs: "We can use Int16 to store credit card numbers because credit card has 16 digits". "To store password in a database we can choose a PASSWORD SQL data type, and then the value will be stored using asterisks". "The most efficient way to check a string for emptiness is to compare it with "", because "" is a value type and is very efficient to use". So my main experience from these interviews is that when hiring developers from India you have to expect very big contrasts, and it is difficult to find good candidates just by reading their CVs. I guess more difficult than when you read CVs from developers in Europe or USA. You get great CVs with a lot of projects and certification exams listed. But many
Vagif Abilov wrote:
Certification does not count at all. Just ignore words like MCAD, MCSD etc.
The number of Indians I see asking for help with cheating on these I'm not surprised. I worked hard for my MCSD so these cheaters really irritate me.
Vagif Abilov wrote:
Everybody talks about unit tests, but it's just manual tests! Very few used NUnit.
Strictly speaking a unit test does not require a framework like NUnit to be present. Doing them manually still counts as unit testing - but, realisitically anyone that does unit testing manually is going to make lots of errors and the testing won't be consistent.
Vagif Abilov wrote:
"We can use Int16 to store credit card numbers because credit card has 16 digits".
:omg: And your response was?
Vagif Abilov wrote:
"To store password in a database we can choose a PASSWORD SQL data type, and then the value will be stored using asterisks".
Come on... I hope your making that one up?
Upcoming events: * Glasgow: Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... "I wouldn't say boo to a goose. I'm not a coward, I just realise that it would be largely pointless." Ready to Give up - Your help will be much appreciated. My website
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Vagif Abilov wrote:
Certification does not count at all. Just ignore words like MCAD, MCSD etc.
The number of Indians I see asking for help with cheating on these I'm not surprised. I worked hard for my MCSD so these cheaters really irritate me.
Vagif Abilov wrote:
Everybody talks about unit tests, but it's just manual tests! Very few used NUnit.
Strictly speaking a unit test does not require a framework like NUnit to be present. Doing them manually still counts as unit testing - but, realisitically anyone that does unit testing manually is going to make lots of errors and the testing won't be consistent.
Vagif Abilov wrote:
"We can use Int16 to store credit card numbers because credit card has 16 digits".
:omg: And your response was?
Vagif Abilov wrote:
"To store password in a database we can choose a PASSWORD SQL data type, and then the value will be stored using asterisks".
Come on... I hope your making that one up?
Upcoming events: * Glasgow: Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... "I wouldn't say boo to a goose. I'm not a coward, I just realise that it would be largely pointless." Ready to Give up - Your help will be much appreciated. My website
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
Vagif Abilov wrote: Certification does not count at all. Just ignore words like MCAD, MCSD etc. The number of Indians I see asking for help with cheating on these I'm not surprised. I worked hard for my MCSD so these cheaters really irritate me.
I accept. Most of them just use dumps and clear off. The bona fide value of the certifications is diminishing in Indian territory.
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage Tech Gossips
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Vagif Abilov wrote:
Certification does not count at all. Just ignore words like MCAD, MCSD etc.
The number of Indians I see asking for help with cheating on these I'm not surprised. I worked hard for my MCSD so these cheaters really irritate me.
Vagif Abilov wrote:
Everybody talks about unit tests, but it's just manual tests! Very few used NUnit.
Strictly speaking a unit test does not require a framework like NUnit to be present. Doing them manually still counts as unit testing - but, realisitically anyone that does unit testing manually is going to make lots of errors and the testing won't be consistent.
Vagif Abilov wrote:
"We can use Int16 to store credit card numbers because credit card has 16 digits".
:omg: And your response was?
Vagif Abilov wrote:
"To store password in a database we can choose a PASSWORD SQL data type, and then the value will be stored using asterisks".
Come on... I hope your making that one up?
Upcoming events: * Glasgow: Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... "I wouldn't say boo to a goose. I'm not a coward, I just realise that it would be largely pointless." Ready to Give up - Your help will be much appreciated. My website
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
And your response was?
I was just lost.
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
Come on... I hope your making that one up?
I wish I could! :-D
Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them. Jack Handey.
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But the way a few guys are addicted to smoke, they subject thier neighbors to extreme passive smoking and fumigating the entire area like anything. :-D
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage Tech Gossips
They'd struggle in the UK then. Smoking in public places (which includes all workplaces) has been banned here since Sunday.
Anna :rose: Linting the day away :cool: Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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During last weeks our company had interviews with many developers from India. Both phone interviews and meetings that we arranged in Delhi last week. It is not easy to find good developers in Norway these days, and we already hired two developers with Indian background, so we thought it could be worth to find more. We don't have any plans to outsource our development, it is about to invite people working in Norway. Here are some observations that might be interesting. 1. Certification does not count at all. Just ignore words like MCAD, MCSD etc. 2. Current salary says more than project experience. It sounds cynical, but none of developers with salary under 4-5 lacks (1 lack = 100 000 rupies) was able to discuss design aspects of software development. But when we talked to people with salaries 6 lacks and more, they usuall demonstrated good understanding of how computer programs work. And the differences in salaries are huge - almost 10 times. 3. When you meet really good developers their salaries are already on such level that it's not clear if they gain anything economically from moving to Europe. Yes, their European salaries will still be higher than what they currently get in India, but with all those European taxes, gasoline prices and house costs they will often be able to make less savings after all expenses than they are currently making in India. 4. Everybody talks about unit tests, but it's just manual tests! Very few used NUnit. 5. I can't believe outsourcing of small and medium sized projects to India can give any advantages. Both in terms of costs and deadlines. Especially now when a lot of companies practice test driven development. My biggest surprise was to realize how little can MS certification mean. A few examples from conversations with developers who had MCAD or even MCSD in their CVs: "We can use Int16 to store credit card numbers because credit card has 16 digits". "To store password in a database we can choose a PASSWORD SQL data type, and then the value will be stored using asterisks". "The most efficient way to check a string for emptiness is to compare it with "", because "" is a value type and is very efficient to use". So my main experience from these interviews is that when hiring developers from India you have to expect very big contrasts, and it is difficult to find good candidates just by reading their CVs. I guess more difficult than when you read CVs from developers in Europe or USA. You get great CVs with a lot of projects and certification exams listed. But many
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Vagif Abilov wrote:
Oslo, Norway
So you are hiring... is this remote work ? Or does the guy come to norway ?
http://www.readytogiveup.com/[^] - Do something special today.
It's for our Oslo office.
Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them. Jack Handey.
-
During last weeks our company had interviews with many developers from India. Both phone interviews and meetings that we arranged in Delhi last week. It is not easy to find good developers in Norway these days, and we already hired two developers with Indian background, so we thought it could be worth to find more. We don't have any plans to outsource our development, it is about to invite people working in Norway. Here are some observations that might be interesting. 1. Certification does not count at all. Just ignore words like MCAD, MCSD etc. 2. Current salary says more than project experience. It sounds cynical, but none of developers with salary under 4-5 lacks (1 lack = 100 000 rupies) was able to discuss design aspects of software development. But when we talked to people with salaries 6 lacks and more, they usuall demonstrated good understanding of how computer programs work. And the differences in salaries are huge - almost 10 times. 3. When you meet really good developers their salaries are already on such level that it's not clear if they gain anything economically from moving to Europe. Yes, their European salaries will still be higher than what they currently get in India, but with all those European taxes, gasoline prices and house costs they will often be able to make less savings after all expenses than they are currently making in India. 4. Everybody talks about unit tests, but it's just manual tests! Very few used NUnit. 5. I can't believe outsourcing of small and medium sized projects to India can give any advantages. Both in terms of costs and deadlines. Especially now when a lot of companies practice test driven development. My biggest surprise was to realize how little can MS certification mean. A few examples from conversations with developers who had MCAD or even MCSD in their CVs: "We can use Int16 to store credit card numbers because credit card has 16 digits". "To store password in a database we can choose a PASSWORD SQL data type, and then the value will be stored using asterisks". "The most efficient way to check a string for emptiness is to compare it with "", because "" is a value type and is very efficient to use". So my main experience from these interviews is that when hiring developers from India you have to expect very big contrasts, and it is difficult to find good candidates just by reading their CVs. I guess more difficult than when you read CVs from developers in Europe or USA. You get great CVs with a lot of projects and certification exams listed. But many
Vagif Abilov wrote:
We can use Int16 to store credit card numbers because credit card has 16 digits
Amazing. Must be a VB programmer...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
It's for our Oslo office.
Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them. Jack Handey.
Vagif Abilov wrote:
It's for our Oslo office.
And the skill set you are looking for?
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Vagif Abilov wrote:
It's for our Oslo office.
And the skill set you are looking for?
Smart people :-) .NET, back-ends, understanding of security, performance optimization, TDD skills.
Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them. Jack Handey.
-
Vagif Abilov wrote:
We can use Int16 to store credit card numbers because credit card has 16 digits
Amazing. Must be a VB programmer...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Amazing. Must be a VB programmer...
I doubt that. They wouldn't know about Int16 let alone what it was used for.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
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Vagif Abilov wrote:
"To store password in a database we can choose a PASSWORD SQL data type, and then the value will be stored using asterisks".
:-D. And I am glad that he didn't tell you about a new
Asteriskalgorithm inSystem.Security.Cryptography.Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage Tech Gossips
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar wrote:
Asterisk algorithm
that's a spin encoding right? ;P
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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During last weeks our company had interviews with many developers from India. Both phone interviews and meetings that we arranged in Delhi last week. It is not easy to find good developers in Norway these days, and we already hired two developers with Indian background, so we thought it could be worth to find more. We don't have any plans to outsource our development, it is about to invite people working in Norway. Here are some observations that might be interesting. 1. Certification does not count at all. Just ignore words like MCAD, MCSD etc. 2. Current salary says more than project experience. It sounds cynical, but none of developers with salary under 4-5 lacks (1 lack = 100 000 rupies) was able to discuss design aspects of software development. But when we talked to people with salaries 6 lacks and more, they usuall demonstrated good understanding of how computer programs work. And the differences in salaries are huge - almost 10 times. 3. When you meet really good developers their salaries are already on such level that it's not clear if they gain anything economically from moving to Europe. Yes, their European salaries will still be higher than what they currently get in India, but with all those European taxes, gasoline prices and house costs they will often be able to make less savings after all expenses than they are currently making in India. 4. Everybody talks about unit tests, but it's just manual tests! Very few used NUnit. 5. I can't believe outsourcing of small and medium sized projects to India can give any advantages. Both in terms of costs and deadlines. Especially now when a lot of companies practice test driven development. My biggest surprise was to realize how little can MS certification mean. A few examples from conversations with developers who had MCAD or even MCSD in their CVs: "We can use Int16 to store credit card numbers because credit card has 16 digits". "To store password in a database we can choose a PASSWORD SQL data type, and then the value will be stored using asterisks". "The most efficient way to check a string for emptiness is to compare it with "", because "" is a value type and is very efficient to use". So my main experience from these interviews is that when hiring developers from India you have to expect very big contrasts, and it is difficult to find good candidates just by reading their CVs. I guess more difficult than when you read CVs from developers in Europe or USA. You get great CVs with a lot of projects and certification exams listed. But many
Do you hire developers from Ukraine?
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Do you hire developers from Ukraine?
Sure!
Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them. Jack Handey.
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Sure!
Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them. Jack Handey.
Do you provide employees with apartments? What about moving expenses?
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Do you provide employees with apartments? What about moving expenses?
We don't pay for the apartment, but we can help finding it. And we will cover flight ticket (and I guess some associated expenses).
Вагиф Абилов MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them. Jack Handey.
