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Comment by ramblerman | Hacker News Reader

This is a real risk when working with offshore teams in India.

We had to get involved in the interview process multiple times as the talent is absolutely there. But left to their own devices a lot of the sites ended up hiring friends or "cousins".

I'm not sure if that came down to Caste or just "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours" but it was far from meritocratic.

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I am not sure what type of companies you have worked with. But I have never seen this happening.

There are times when a client selected person is not taken in but the reason has never been what you have described.

Please do not generalise.

The talent is definitely there but working with Indian startups - Zomato, Flipkart, Ola, Byjus, etc. More interesting work for people than outsourced projects. Try finding alumni from Indian startups and they’d know how to hire and likely have connections with talented individuals to start.

There is definitely caste system in hiring process. If you take any big company operating in India, and you will most certainly find the caste system replicated in the corporate structure in India. The Brahmin caste dominates the corporate hierarchies and are the perpetrators of this system, typically through favoritism and through their early advantage (but their grip is loosening up slowly).

Then dont use offshore.

Hard to generalize about a country of over a billion people but in many areas of India there is a strong sense of “keep money in the family” which is why they like to hire their cousins. That’s also why even marrying first cousins is so common in certain areas. In the south, about 25% of people marry their first cousin.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#India

This makes me shudder to think of the genetic damage being done to these people. The rule should always be fresh genes to keep the lineage healthy.

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