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Comment by bhouston | Hacker News Reader

I was dealing with a smart IT engineer from India and then I found out that he has sold me code for peanuts he had created for another client (and was already owned exclusively by that client, which was a major venture backed company), and then I caught him selling the code I paid him well to create exclusively to a third client also for peanuts. Basically no regard at all for IP rights and the contracts he signed, just doing whatever he could to make a quick buck. Not sure if it was just him or a cultural thing. But ended up an IP nightmare.

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I hate to say it (as I am Indian), but it's a cultural thing. Basically, it's all about solving the problem by any means necessary, regardless of cost to the environment, cost to others, future problems etc. This is changing somewhat, but rather slowly.

It certainly depends on who you are dealing with. It definitely isn't a cultural thing. Ethics and ethical people exist everywhere. Had it not been there wouldn't be these many tech companies or businesses in India.

Consequence of demographics? Competition in India and China are arguably fiercer because of scale. If you’re not pulling out all the stops then you might be handicapping yourself relative to your peers.

Wow, that actually explains a lot of problems I have with the way my Indian team work. Thanks for the heads up!

That basically hits the nail on the head, but it's not the full extent of it. We have ["Jugaad" culture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad), where we actually take pride in doing things that would be labeled outright fraud in a lot of places.

I also can't see how its changing, I've become rather cynical from having to deal with it constantly. I sure hope you're right, though.

I was about to mention "Jugaad" in my original comment - my dad talks about the concept proudly all the time. I am sort of proud of it, but also hate the conniving aspect of many jugaads!

At work, we've had issues with Indian candidates informing us during interviews that they've already recently accepted an offer / started a new job, but that they're willing to come work for us instead. Completely oblivious to the fact of how big of an immediate red flag that is.

In some cultures, you're smart to get ahead any way you can, and they'd call anyone a fool who followed some set of rules or principles instead of getting ahead. For them, rules are artificial, arbitrary social constructs with zero benefit, while results are concrete. It's hard to argue they're wrong.

A business not wanting to invest time hiring, training and integrating an employee who is likely to leave prematurely is not an abstract principle.

Then the business must be willing to pay generously.

That depends on expectations, whether in a given industry or culture. In most professional settings showing your hand as essentially a mercenary in terms of allegiance and showing no stickiness, will result in considering an alternative candidate, in the US.

Yes I think there is some deceit required for those implementing this philosphophy but it doesn't change the strategy.

We, also got burned by someone who accepted another offer and quit, a week after beginning work with us. Obviously, that guy--and whoever recommended him--are on our shitlist now. Word does get around hopefully.

> and they'd call anyone a fool who followed some set of rules or principles instead of getting ahead

> It's hard to argue they're wrong.

Except for the fact that in this very thread there seems to be quite a backlash against them. Seems to be very short-term and selfish thinking.

If the cost of multi-multi-billion dollar industry is backlash on the internet forums, that's hardly a difficult choice.

Except when that "backlash on the internet forums" is a reflection of what is happening in reality which seems to be the case here.

>It's hard to argue they're wrong.

Eugenics. Thalidomide. Radium paint. Lead paint. Leaded gasoline. The list goes on.

It's quite easy to argue against taking shortcuts and eschewing rigor in favor of "results" if you know some history and have some perspective.

Actually it is quite easy, cost of doing business in such cultures is much higher as you can not really trust anything and must guard against a knife in the back at any moment.

There is a huge amount of friction that eliminates if counterparty can be trusted vast majority of the time.

A candidate who want to get better offer is a red flag ?

You can always negotiate, but if you accept an offer I expect you to commit.

Just curious, commit for how long? I have been in situations before, where I have accepted an offer, started a job and was informed 3 months later that the company mis-calculated the budgets/revenues and have to let go a bunch of people. Guess who gets let go first? The people who started the latest.

Doesn't this go both ways? In this day and age in America, there's no loyalty going in either direction, employer or employee.

Not entirely convinced that others' poor ethics are a justification for your own.

What argument can you possibly make for an ethical burden that amounts to one-sided loyalty? The REASON is would be immoral to have no loyalty to an employer is because it makes the employers loyalty one-sided. If the employer abandons their loyalty towards employees, as all modern employers did throughout the 1980s and have now established as standard business practice, then there is no ethical burden on the employee to remain loyal. In fact, it becomes unethical to be loyal, a betrayal of your family and self for an entity that does not respect you. I am sure there are a great many employers who expect that they should be permitted to acquire dirt cheap labor to build their profits with no consequences. Their desires are irrelevant.

"Make game of that which makes as much of thee."

There is no good reason at for any kind of ethic burden.

Some people steal; some might have even stole something from you. Doesn't mean you have to too, and I doubt most people are held back only by law/punishment.

I don't think you can equate me leaving an employer "early", for some definition of early, to theft. As long as the contract is "at will employment", which majority of American job offers are (sorry for my America centric view), then the contract is AT WILL, in both directions. In my mind there is no ethical, moral or legal lapse.

As a freelancer I feel I should try to commit for at least a year - and I will try to work a bit longer of possible. I believe this looks better on my resume as well.

I think it's hard for most jobs, at least in my space (mobile software) to do much effective work when staying only for -let's say- 3 months at some company.

But mismanagement happens. The example you mention of being let go after just 3 months should be the exception, not the rule. I certainly never experienced something like that. Then again I like to work for big clients, feels to me more guaranteed they will still be in business tomorrow and me getting paid.

Any commitment is only until a better offer comes along. Better is a bit loosely defined as there is a cost of burning the bridge with you by jumping (be that a day after accepting or after 5 years of working there), but at the end of the day there this is a business relationship and the extent of our obligations are only spelled out based on any contract we have signed, and our social obligations only extend to the extent that the cost of violating the social obligation outweighs the benefit. Any employee who doesn't see the other side as doing the same is eventually going to get burned by it.

I never quite understood this concept of loyalty or commitment to a business entity. You might interview the candidate and take it to the final stage with lot of effort but at the end of the day, the candidate is offered the job by the business entity and not personally by the interviewer. I don't see why the relationship should go beyond the applicable law of the land.

Of course, once the candidate joins the company, regular interpersonal concepts between employees that involve loyalty and commitment can be pursued.

Agreed, one-sided loyalty is a foolish activity. I never understood that either.

To all the people mentioning ethics - a company can and will fire people without any reason. I know a couple of people personally who can't sleep not knowing why they were fired. In 30 mins, they were walked out. That's incredibly unethical but for some reason, not giving advanced notice to your employer is considered unethical? Hypocrisy!

The problem is they have to give three month's notice when quitting a job. When other companies or headhunters learn that you gave notice, they do their best to hire you away from whatever new job you took.

Our HR Department now calls new-hires every couple of days to keep them engaged so they don't take a job elsewhere. It sucks when you hire someone, plan things three months in advance, and.... they don't show up to the job without ever telling you they took a job somewhere else.

>>It sucks when you hire someone, plan things three months in advance, and.... they don't show up to the job without ever telling you they took a job somewhere else.

And yet nobody ever agrees to lower the 3 month notice period rule.

The workers want no notice period.

The industry wants 3 months, so their benches are warm, and they can handle the buffer better.

How thoroughly one side has won indicates how thoroughly the power is held. One could call it legal enslavement.

The period is for both sides, so you cannot really say

> The workers want no notice period.

Im my anecdotal experience nobody wants "no notice period"

I am not sure how you can generalize. I would not consider it as a red flag unless the candidate in question has history of hopping too quickly. I have direct/indirect experience of being both the sides. I once left a company in couple of months because company's culture was totally different than what I expected. I have also seen a friend of mine getting fired in couple of months after joining a company because company felt he was a misfit

It is absolutely a red flag. If you've committed to another company, then you have no business interviewing elsewhere.

If you don't take a job seriously at one company, why would I expect you to take a job seriously at my company?

If I offer you a job, how can I be sure you'll show up for it, and not just take the next offer that comes along? I can't. So you're no longer in consideration as soon as you tell me you're disloyal to your other company.

In some industries in America (especially media companies, but it's also common in high-end retail), if your boss hears that you're looking for another job, you're immediately fired. Sometimes it's even written into the contract, if you have one.

If you are serious then you better give a generous offer so that is unlikely for other company to give better offer.

A job is a business. The loyalty is goes only as far what the company or the employee can offer.

Likewise a company can fire employee anytime as soon as that employee is not needed anymore or better employee come along.

I think the key word is "recently". It might have been many months already for the interviewing guy, but it sounds more like 2-8 weeks ago, and that is really fast (==bad) job hopping.

I would expect most developers to do the same thing if the offer was good enough, but I suspect they would be far less open to mention it. I'm assuming this is just a difference in cultural knowledge of how it looks. They might have been thinking of it as social proof of desirability where as more local developers are aware that culturally you are supposed to pretend to be loyal to the company.

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