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Comment by 8sigma | Hacker News Reader

Hi,I am also from India(staying in Bangalore) and would like some advice from you.I have over 5 years of experience as a Programmer.For the first 3 years I have worked as a contractor.From the last 2 years I am working as a Software Engineer in a small startup and my take home salary is 70000INR(monthly).I want to switch to a more stable job with better salaries.I have never worked for a big company.What does it take to earn such salaries in India?I did not pass out from any Tier 1 institute.Currently I am preparing for interviews with help of CTCI and CLRS books.It would be helpful if you can give me some advice on what measures I can take to get a job at one of the better paying companies.

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Both you and tata2020 have asked for advice from sures and, having often been in the position of hiring programmers from India, something really stands out:

I honestly couldn't tell if sures was an American, British or Indian through his writing. The use of punctuation, general cadence and adherence to the standards of written communication popular in America mean I have more immediate faith in him as a candidate (however unjustified that may be).

On the other hand (8sigma and tata2020) I can tell in a flash that you are from southern Asia, and your writing immediately evokes long online pages of poorly qualified Indian programmers seeking work or personal experiences of dealing with poorly-qualified programmers from India.

I'm not, in any way, a stickler for grammar or spelling. However, for reasons I am not sure of, a number of common conventions have emerged from Indians that differ dramatically from American/British usage in casual writing: Not placing a space after punctuation, using "From" rather than "for", "needful", etc.

I suspect you could do very well for yourself if you made a few small adjustments in your writing.

Hey, Thank you for the feedback. I am aware of my poor English skills. I am working on improving it. Can you offer me some tips on how I can improve it?

I see this thread has become a point of interest for many. I wish I could offer some wise advice. But the truth is that I have not done anything special or done any special preparation in my career.

The only thing I have done is learn tech and non-tech stuff. I do it everyday. It is easy for me because I like technology. Computers have been my hobby for a long time. I read a lot of books in all kinds of domains. And I read a lot more for my special domain of interest (distributed systems). So I think this naturally makes me equipped for most kinds of interviews. I do not like solving or reading about puzzles that do not have a relation with real world projects, so I am naturally bad at such kind of interviews.

I am myself not a fan of CTCI. But I think CLRS is a good start. Sorry I don't have better advice than this. Someone else in this awesome forum could be of better help to you.

Ready for making the move? Where can I find your resume? :)

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