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Comment by sumeruchat | Hacker News Reader

Occams razor says Indians are better software engineers than most cultures (except americans) because of our free thinking cultural values. I cannot imagine an average Japanese engineer being able to pick up new tools every month. I have worked from people from a lot of cultures to understand this. For instance right now Indian engineers are embracing AI tools much faster.

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One of the things that I value highly in my team members is the ability to admit when they don’t know something. In India, I’ve found that people don’t like to admit that they don’t know something. Even in everyday situations like asking for directions when walking in Delhi, you are more likely to get a wrong answer than someone saying they don’t know. I have not figured out how to with that on software dev teams.

Yeah I agree this is a major issue with Indians mostly because knowledge is considered as status. I think if done in a non direct tactful way most Indians will admit they are wrong. (Maybe less so to a foreigner) I think the right way to counter this is using LLMs

I spoke about this with some Indian colleagues I’ve worked with in the US. They said the same thing as you. Supposedly it’s super obvious when someone does not know something and is bluffing to save face. I haven’t learned to recognize this.

there's a little bluff in every buff, a flex in every muscle

I like how that rolls off the tongue, but don't quite understand it. Sounds like a good start for a poem, story, or book.

Is this a quote from somewhere?

No, it rolled right out of my brain, I couldn't resist

Anyone who has ever worked with Indian development teams knows that this is largely untrue. Unless your definition of “better” is different than most.

Well you can trust the data or your personal experience

There’s plenty of data to support my personal experience.

Isnt the premise of the whole post that the data shows this

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