These comments are probably true. And I say this from experience having worked at a large corporation for the last 6 years. Yes it might be one or two guys writing negative comments but it'll also be someone who has been really wronged and cannot let go of the pain. But you can believe that there would have been others who were also wronged during this guys tenure who are just too meek (as we engineers usually are) to say it out in public.
Reasons why its probably true:
A) The comments by themselves would not have been enough to fire the guy. There must have been enough complaints by their own staff. In my corporation we managed to get our manager fired in the same way. Everyone complained to HR. Though it took like a year. This guy actually had me on "communications performance plan". It was right out of dilbert.
B) Its very very difficult to be a good manager.
This is because its easier to play the political game than it is to actually be a leader with morals, the technical chops and great communication/relationship skills. So most people just kiss ass and shit on their reports and climb up the ladder.
The higher you go in a corporation the harder it is to be a good manager. Because the amount of communiction/relationship/leadership skills necessary really rises exponentially rather than linerally. I say this from my experience of having worked in one corporation for 6.5 years. I have had MANY managers but only one good manager.
C) Sucky indian managers (selection bias). But yes there are many.
Now, I'm indian but I have to say that most indians SUCK at being managers (I've been a sucky indian manager myself :) . I've tried to figure out why and the only ponits I can think of are :
1. In tech companies there are a lot of indians and therefore a lot of
indian managers.
2. Most managers suck at what they do. This because to be a good manager you have to be able to lead your employees but also be able to take orders from your own manager. Also you never get real world "practice" before your stuck into the role.
3. An indian on a H1-B is going to try harder to keep his job than one that doesnt and I think thats why they do downright deceitful things to look good to their own managers. Ie they become hardline task masters.
I've known quite a few bad indian managers. Infact if I get an indian manager the first thing I'll do that day is start looking for another job. The manager might turn out okay but I'm that disillusioned with them. Especially new ones.
PS: At the end of it all I did change. :) I got really huge pay increases for my best engineers and saved 1 from getting fired.
B) Its very very difficult to be a good manager.
This is because its easier to play the political game than it is to actually
be a leader with morals, the technical chops and great
communication/relationship skills.
Unfortunately, at most companies, if you don't play the political game, your career is screwed, too. I managed a team at a company and focused on what was best for my team and the product they were building. I managed to become the single-most hated person in the "division."
It was made worse by my passive-aggressive boss. I live by the philosophy "if you don't ask, you won't get anything", and he constantly said "yes" (to mostly reasonable requests). At the same time, when I had issues with employees (one guy who needed to be fired for complete incompetence), he wouldn't back me up on the actions that needed to be taken. Of course, rank and file only hears the "wronged employee's" side of the story.
Sorry, I'll stop ranting now.
TL;DR: Stay away from management in big companies. You can have your soul or success, but very, very rarely both.
Yup. It took me a long time to realize and accept this. I love Boyds quote on this (w.r.t working in the Airforce burecracy) "You have to make a choice - you can be somebody or you can do something."
By the way the same thing happened to me. I wasnt trying to fire him though, just tried to make him get better. He was really bad. He ended up getting a raise from my boss. Funny!
I say trying to fire him, but that is really more what I considered to be an almost forgone conclusion. Everybody on the team was sick of needing to pick up the pieces he dropped. Just like any company, we had to go through an attempt document him formally trying to improve to get to the point we could let him go.
So I did. I gave him a plan that he had to live up to. It was non-trivial, since he was a senior engineer making more money than almost anybody the engineering team, but it was doable.
My boss then made the mistake of moving him to a different manager to follow through with the plan. The goal was to show that we weren't just out for blood, but throwing somebody into a new environment (new team, new project, new coworkers) creates too many variables to track. On top of that, this engineer survived by hiding in those variables (and we knew that) and, as a result, was able to survive what would most likely have resulted in termination under me. Since he survived, my reputation with the engineering group was blown.
Quite literally, this guy was Dilbert's Wally. Six months later, the new manager was lamenting to me about this guy.
Lest it sound like I just have a grudge, I actually like the guy (even though I know he really doesn't like me). He is actually a really great people-person that, IMO, shouldn't be writing code. I really believe he should be a sales engineer. I think he would make a near-perfect sales engineer, in fact. I gave him that advice, but he didn't appreciate it. I don't blame him, but I stand by it.
I had another guy who was in this situation that you describe above. He actually used to be my boss before I became his.
Made more than me. His code was crazy bad. I mean I think he used to obfuscate it on purpose so as to keep his job. Every class was a friend of another class. But the code would work. It was a nightmare to maintain.
I was asked by senior management several times to get rid of him. I just kept thinking of his kids. I knew I couldnt live with myself if I did it. Because his intent was always good and he would do work that no one else wanted to do.
If I had to keep him for another year, I might have pulled the trigger - but I doubt it.
If it was my own startup I would have fired him immediately. You probably did the right thing.
John Boyd was one of the greatest strategist of the modern military era. In this case he was talking about working for a promotion versus working towards making the airforce better.
By his own admittance, OP worked for one company for 6.5 years and had ONE good manager. I suspect his bad experience with managers, Indian or otherwise, had as much or more to do with his employer and the work culture.
Another indicator that this is true is that he says that being on a work visa required his colleagues to push ethical boundaries. Having worked for many years, multiple employers and many managers on a work visa myself, I can assure you that this is not true everywhere, or even most places.
Seriously, any one on a work visa who is being pressured to do something ethically repugnant should change their job. In many cases this is easier than you would imagine.
I agree that since we are in New York its a cut throat environment but I would say that we have one of the best work cultures in the city. Other places (banks + hedgefunds) are much much worse.
But yeah it might be very different on the west coast.
And your wrong its not easy to change a work visa because you lose your line in the G.C race if your not in the 3rd stage. Thats the clincher.
With present EB3 approval rates, its possible this could set you back 5 years. EB3 India is a mess right now.
I agree that the green card process is quite ridiculous. The inability to change jobs while you are in it and in many cases, inability to even get promoted are two of the most ridiculous policies I have ever seen.
Fair enough - though see his point about the green card process. It's pretty painful to have that process reset on you, and to actually find an employer if you do lose a job.
What he meant, I rather suspect, is not so much as 'ethically repugnant' (in which case I might agree with you) but rather within the gray area, where unvoiced pressures such as these can affect the choices you make.
I understand that feeling and its not the real reason why I stated that indian managers are mostly bad. I also mentioned that there is an inherent selection bias.
My friends and I have had many many managers and a good many were indian. Only one of them I would rate as good. Funnily enough I used to be his manager a long time ago. I've actually learnt a lot from his style of leadership though I've never worked under him.
He (ie 1) is the exception who IMHO proves the rule.
I think the fact that your bad experiences with managers have inspired you to work hard on becoming a good manager is commendable. Fight the good fight!
If it is very very hard to be a good manager, it doesn't matter if your manager is Indian or not. right?
I've been on H1-B and I didn't think about my H1-B on a day to day basis to be a lousy manager/person.
On that list could be any number of things like mortgage, car payment, family & kids etc.
Your comment is great for explaining why being a good manager is hard. Not sure if I would assume that the comments about Madhu Yarlagadda are true.
Can you explain pt.3 ? I thought it is otherwise. People on work visa (after grad degree from US and not imported directly from bodyshops) work a lot better and do not display qualities you mentioned. Am I mistaken?
The way I model it is that these guys believe that they will not get ahead if they dont pressure their employees. And their fear of being let go and losing their line in the g.c. queue forces them to put even more pressure on their employees.
One manager (IIT + MIT) once called my friend while he was waiting for the delivery of his second child. Incredible.
This is new york so it might be completely different on the West Coast.
I do think a bit of it is NY culture, but a lot of it is probably the belief that "driving hard" leads to more productivity which is near Universal, and probably more prevalent amongst people who come from hyper-competitive environments like IIT or the NYC financial world. Others who believe that "paying more" leads to more productivity are also wrong.
Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn is an excellent compendium of research on what drives people to work.
I am really eager to add very basic science & statistics to your arguments (please excuse me, I am a Richard Feynman fan):
1.) How many Indian managers have you worked with till now?
2.) How many of them did you find bad?
3.) Most importantly how many Indian tech managers exist?
I am really even more curious to find out the numbers before I can make any logical classification. However, if I am unclear about 3.) I would refrain from passing any strong judgement.
Reasons why its probably true:
A) The comments by themselves would not have been enough to fire the guy. There must have been enough complaints by their own staff. In my corporation we managed to get our manager fired in the same way. Everyone complained to HR. Though it took like a year. This guy actually had me on "communications performance plan". It was right out of dilbert.
B) Its very very difficult to be a good manager.
This is because its easier to play the political game than it is to actually be a leader with morals, the technical chops and great communication/relationship skills. So most people just kiss ass and shit on their reports and climb up the ladder.
The higher you go in a corporation the harder it is to be a good manager. Because the amount of communiction/relationship/leadership skills necessary really rises exponentially rather than linerally. I say this from my experience of having worked in one corporation for 6.5 years. I have had MANY managers but only one good manager.
C) Sucky indian managers (selection bias). But yes there are many.
Now, I'm indian but I have to say that most indians SUCK at being managers (I've been a sucky indian manager myself :) . I've tried to figure out why and the only ponits I can think of are :
1. In tech companies there are a lot of indians and therefore a lot of indian managers.
2. Most managers suck at what they do. This because to be a good manager you have to be able to lead your employees but also be able to take orders from your own manager. Also you never get real world "practice" before your stuck into the role.
3. An indian on a H1-B is going to try harder to keep his job than one that doesnt and I think thats why they do downright deceitful things to look good to their own managers. Ie they become hardline task masters.
I've known quite a few bad indian managers. Infact if I get an indian manager the first thing I'll do that day is start looking for another job. The manager might turn out okay but I'm that disillusioned with them. Especially new ones.
PS: At the end of it all I did change. :) I got really huge pay increases for my best engineers and saved 1 from getting fired.