Working for US companies while based in India presents significant challenges.
Having spent over a decade in tech and experienced both sides of the equation, here are my observations:
With the recent shift in the tech industry, many companies, including my own, are moving a large portion of their workforce to India, seemingly due to cost considerations. However, after working with a US-based team for nearly a year, I can confidently say this arrangement often comes at the expense of work-life balance (WLB) and harmony.
The significant time zone difference results in minimal overlap, and flexibility from the US side is generally limited. Few team members are available past 10 PM their time, yet many meetings and office hours fall between 1:00 AM and 3:00 AM IST. While recordings are available, they lack the interactivity needed for effective participation.
For senior engineers like myself, the challenges are amplified. During the day, I manage my India-based team, and it falls on me to sync with the US team during early mornings or late nights. This schedule leaves little room for balance. I've observed that many colleagues appear overworked, with a noticeable number being online well past 10 PM regularly.
This setup often feels unsustainable, especially for those who value a healthy work-life balance.
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Discussion
(5 comments)- 12 months agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
I have definitely seen this in the companies I've worked at.
Facebook doesn't have engineers in India, but when I worked there from 2017 - 2022, it was very clear that US-based teams had significantly more power than the teams in other offices. (I worked in Menlo Park, the global headquarters.)
The overseas engineers are often treated as cogs in the machine, where mistakes or delays are less tolerated. There is a sense of 'out of sight, out of mind' since those engineers are unable to participate in all-hands or decision meetings.
It's also easier to blame/vilify a person or team if they're across the world from you.
Have you found any ways to protect your work-life balance or get more involved while in India?
- 12 months agoStaff Software Engineer [Lead MTS] [OP]Taro Community
I used to hear this often that companies like Amazon move all their maintenance work to India. Experienced it first hand(I was in the UK) when we did an MVP which was well appreciated by our leadership, we then decided to move it to the team in Bangalore while moving to the next challenging project. I hear same about Google(mostly documentation work) and Microsoft (maintenance work on explorer and office).
Now being on the other side, few things which I think is missing and will remain a problem in the near future.
1. Most of the perks like team lunch, outings are entertained for the US folks only(anyways it doesn't matter to me now).
2. No 9-5 work schedule which means no autonomy on the WLB which results in the following:- One can never commit to anything including time for health and wellness.
- Can't have enough family time, specially for kids.
- It becomes very hard to move away from machine, you never know when one will pinged from the leadership asking for some critical decision making questions.
I mean I know India is providing cheap labour(the salary for the same position is at least 3X in the US) but having no work boundary doesn't makes sense.
As of now I have no solution, getting more involved I am not sure as I then need to fully sync with all the folks in the US (PM, Directors and sister teams) which seems like a self destruction. I think this needs to be solved sooner than later probably with stricter laws (in Europe one cannot work during weekends) but its another discussion.
- 0
2 months agoMentor Coach for SWEs | Former Staff Software engineerMy friends in India have shared this as well and this imbalance in quite frustrating for the workforce there.
Is it possible for you to find a few hours in the mid-afternoon? I hear that things start to quiet down around 2-3 pm India time and don't pick up until 9-10 pm again.
(Admittedly, this friend is not a developer and she's not raising a family either, so her way of carving out time for herself may not work for you.)
- 02 months agoStaff Software Engineer [Lead MTS] [OP]Taro Community
As I mentioned as a tech lead I need to help juniors during IST, even if I am able to carve some time, it is not going to be sustainable.
- 0a month agoMentor Coach for SWEs | Former Staff Software engineer
Been meaning to follow up. It sounds like you need a combination of ruthless prioritization + delegation. That's hard to do through writing back and forth. But a lot of success I have had with my clients is by making an exhaustive list of everything they do and taking stock of the strengths and opportunity areas of their team members.
The exhaustive list will help you identify tasks that you can drop altogether, lightening your load. Knowing the strengths and opportunity areas of your team members will help you identify the tasks you may be able to delegate to them, thereby up-skilling them and lightening your workload.
FWIW, I do this routinely in my one-person venture right now and it's a high ROI activity. It's enabled me to build the right automations and drop/streamline by SOPs so that I can scale myself.
Good luck!
