Title. And that goes for all the WITCH companies (Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Cognizant, HCL). I write this post in hopes that no one else makes the same mistake that I did. I know people understand that WITCH=bad, but I wanted to write in more concrete detail exactly why these companies are so terrible. Also, this post is for me so that if I ever feel the grass could be greener, I’ll look at this post and see how bad things really used to be for me, and it’ll keep me humble. The pain I suffered over the last year won’t heal so easily. So without further ado, here are just a few negatives: - dog shit pay ($27/hr in HCOL like SF and NYC, literal burger flippers that are high school drop outs make close to that with less stress and higher chance of promotion) while your actual billing rate to the contracting company is close to $100, but they take 80% of that for themselves - Will be forced to learn some random outdated tech stack until they feel they can contract you out to a company by faking your resume with more experience and credentials than you actually have (thereby putting super high expectations on you) and ofc they won’t tell you that they faked the experience. At my current position, my manager has often said “but I thought on your resume you’ve done X years of Y?”….I’m literally a new grad that is non-CS. Also, had to pass regular Goldman Sachs interview loop that other people do to get 100k+ offers + benefits, meaning I did leetcode interview questions. For 27/hr and shit treatment. - no system of leveling or promotion. I’ve seen guys with 15 YOE still making 50k. It’s pathetic. You are competing with Indians that do nothing but study and code, and these Indians will do anything for their contractors, so it is very hard to stand out. - contracting company treats you like a slave. As a contingent worker, you will be treated as a 2nd class citizen, someone solely there to clean up the shit of the actual employees. Given no guidance or training since according to your faked resume, you are an expert at whatever tech stack they are currently using. Hours are usually around 60-70. I would often work until 10 pm. When I took 3 sick days off because I was nearly bed ridden, I was required to send an email every morning reaffirming that I was indeed sick. Manager even tried FaceTiming me but I ignored it - forced me to relocate away from my family and friends with very little notice to a random state and have yet to reimburse me for the expenses ($300 plane ticket, $100 in Ubers, money for lunch/dinner in airport, etc), not to mention 3 day stay in a hotel while I desperately tried to find an apartment in probably the worst renters market ever I could go on and on but you get the point. Certain things they have done I’m pretty sure are borderline illegal and have given me ptsd for life. I will never forget the week that they wanted to place me in a contracting position - it was the worst week of my life. My blood pressure was constantly high, because they threatened that if they couldn’t place me I’d lose my job. And as I said before these placement interviews were basically leetcode questions while THEY HAD BEEN TRAINING ME IN FULL STACK. It’s a good thing that I had been leetcoding independently or I never would’ve gotten the Goldman “offer”. Was asked 2 LC mediums and solved both optimally, no thanks to Infosys. Anyway, if you got all the way here, thanks for reading this, and beware. Would love to hear stories from other WITCH people, or ig anyone who wants to expose their shit company. Btw I’m at a much better company now with better TC and WLB so there are happy endings, just got to work hard and always have grit. TLDR: if you want to experience what modern slavery is like, go ahead and apply to WITCH companies
Tldr?
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TLDR; “A citizen joined Infosys and has complaints” Infosys hires without loop in India and people join just to get an on-site to the US. Those folks want to work rigorously to stay and it also works out for the company.
This will sound bad, but you are feeling entitled. Why did they hire you at your present employer? Why not a burger flipper? Could it be prev experience at WITCH? I have never been at a WITCH or any contractor job ever. I have seen some really bad engineers from them too. But I have seen good, hardworking people too who started their job there and moved out. And they are great engineers. Its certainly better than no job.
They hired me, quite frankly, cause I aced the coding interviews. I graduated from a good school. I highly doubt Infosys name helped at all. I’ve also seen great people work at WITCH, my problem isn’t with them, it’s with the abuse
Damn this sounds horrible. Can’t imagine myself in this position. Glad it’s nice for you now!!!
Thanks, I appreciate that! I guess the one silver lining is I appreciate so many things in my life that I didn’t before because that entire period was just terrible for me
👏
Glad you are out of there
I interned at a bank that gutted their independent contractors and hired witch ones. Guys were coming off a plane from India to replace the ones that left. Management turned into shit, lots of Indian old school style stuff. Very toxic
Yup, sounds about right. No surprise that banks are the ones that partake in this stuff. All they care about is reducing expenses for themselves, and nothing is cheaper than hiring contractors from India. A lot of the tasks at a bank don’t require much creativity or expertise, it’s a lot of grunt work or KTLO stuff that any actual engineer would never put up with
Just like you said, people were making 20-25/hour and the bank was paying TCS 75-100.
Why are you surprised by this? The only reason a non-Indian should ever join WITCH is if they are trying to find an Indian wife, but you can achieve that by just hanging out in QA at most companies. WITCH is horrible but this is also known. Body shops are abusive and exist primarily to commit fraud.
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As a witch veteran I can say it all depends on your project. Other than poor TC, I had overall really good experience. Plus you only join WITCH when you had no other option, and WITCH helps millions of people earn livelihood though at 🥜 TC
I’m sure YMMV with these sorts of companies, I just think there are thousands of better options out there
Yup, true. Anyone in WITCH (specially me) should switch as soon as they find better opportunity.
It is hard to not think of you as entitled when you write things like “these Indians do nothing but study and code “. Do you really think in your current company you wont have to compete with people who do nothing but study and code. WITCH culture is worse than you have described, i am not defending them. There is racism, regionalism and is not an even okay place to work.
I’m simply comparing Indians at a consulting body shop with the avg engineer a tech company in the US. I’d estimate most people on this website work 30-50 hours a week, with no weekend work. When I worked with the Bangalore team, they were easily putting in 14-16 hours per DAY, and working on the weekends. And this was normal to them. They have an insane work ethic and it would be silly of me not to recognize it. I absolutely will have to compete at any workplace I go to get promotions, but this is similar to saying that IIT JEE is a tougher exam than SAT. It’s just a fact. People in China and India will often hook themselves up to IV bags to study all day and night. I’ve never heard of Americans doing that.
Yeah, fair observations. But maybe you dont know that culture is common in India. They have to overwork or they wont survive. And it is not just overwork, they have to show that they are overworking by coming in weekends. These things dont happen in USA because of number of opportunities and number of people. Also strong labour laws which is non existent in India.
Infosys, the Indian way. What else did you expect?
I didn’t expect it to be this bad ig. I had no other option as someone who was trying to break into tech with no relevant experience, but now I realize I should’ve just stayed unemployed and kept searching