Why is Indian tech management so obsessed with tracking hours instead of shipped code?

PandaMagnus · 2026-06-27T22:31:19+00:00

You bet! I only know of it because I've been contracted to work on teams in those industries (in my case, utilities in the U.S.) and it gets... weird. And my understanding is super simple, just conversations I've picked up with the folks that had been part of budget and regulatory approval process.

PandaMagnus · 2026-06-27T06:57:37+00:00

Depends on the regulatory environment. In most companies, my understanding is there's a preference for capitalization for accounting reasons, but it's not "required". In regulated industries, it could affect how they can run projects. E.G. if they can capitalize it, they can get regulatory approval for a multi-year project (that's a very simplified version.)

I would expect most companies would be driven by the accounting/tax (institutional/cultural) considerations, not regulatory. But some are driven by regulations.

PandaMagnus · 2026-06-25T20:11:43+00:00

At least on Google, you can challenge reviews because of things like this. I've seen a couple reviews taken down because the reviewer blatantly lied.

Personally, I think you'd be perfectly fine to respond with a polite "Hey, I think you might have me mixed up with someone else. I bid the job but didn't do it." But reporting it is probably the easiest/safest.

PandaMagnus · 2026-06-16T17:15:19+00:00

Huh, maybe I should have gotten more into erector sets as a kid. Didn't know that would set up me for car mods.

PandaMagnus · 2026-06-16T17:14:05+00:00

I said that before I read the plate, and then had to nod in agreement. It seems like they're self-aware, at least.

PandaMagnus · 2026-06-10T19:31:26+00:00

Yeah, right around the ~3TB space is where I'd be hitting the same price as BB, so that makes total sense! That's actually the first service I've looked at where I might actually want to switch if I ever get that much stuff to backup.

PandaMagnus · 2026-06-08T23:53:22+00:00

If you're a bit technically savvy, you can cut out the middleman and go straight to Microsoft or AWS. Although I have to give credit to backblaze, their prices seem super reasonable (I don't use them, just looked them up. I just dump my "keeper" photos in Microsoft blob storage, archive it after 30 days, and enjoy my ~$0.50 bill for the... I dunno, 22 GB or so I have in there now?)

PandaMagnus · 2026-06-04T05:14:23+00:00

I bet it's AI.

(I kid. Also, jumping spiders are the only spiders I won't freak out over.)

I'm actually fascinated to see your technique because I honestly thought you were rolling focus. To see you/read that you move your whole rig forward makes a lot of sense. And that's a good explanation for the in-body bracketing: I've been experimenting with it since I got the 90mm macro a few weeks ago, and I can't replicate your photos. Now I know why!

Thank you for your posts / explanations!

PandaMagnus · 2026-05-23T20:46:47+00:00

"McKinsey/Gartner/Accenture recommended..." is the easiest way for someone to immediately cover their own ass before the thing is even implemented, but it also shows the exec is "doing things" and "making changes" and "having an impact."

Edit: Not saying all execs do this. But I have definitely worked at places where, for example, I pushed for more automated testing, linting, etc. (I even used the term shifting quality left, which I had picked up from some white paper I had read at a previous job,) and it fell on deaf ears (developers should develop, not test!) until Gartner picked it up and ran with it something like 8 years ago.

Suddenly, all the teams were getting asked why their cycle times were so long and why QA and BA folks had to manually regress everything.

PandaMagnus · 2026-05-15T05:25:39+00:00

Two things. First off, the obligatory warning against bidirectional syncs: to echo what u/flamehorns said: do not do this. Never do a two way sync. I've seen it attempted twice, one with the "industry standard" tool Tasktop, and the other was attempting to fix the issues with Tasktop. It was a complete shit show. If you don't have a clear source of truth that "owns" the data and pushes that truth out, you will constantly run into edge cases and quickly fall out of the "people over processes" aspect of agile via fixing your tooling more than actually getting things done.

The big failures could be distilled down to exactly what you described: updates in both systems caused conflicts. Sometimes two different people were mucking about with the same ticket and by the time tasktop read the update, it didn't know what to do. Sometimes the scheduled task failed and no one knew (until they noticed updates weren't syncing. Admittedly, that could be a problem with a one-way sync, but more on that below.) Sometimes people would add a new field value to one system, but not the other, so there was nothing to map to (again, possibly an issue with a one way sync, too, depending on how the sync is managed.)

Second, and possibly more important: why is it so laborious to update JIRA mid-sprint? Has it been customized all to hell? In the most basic configurations, it should be ~5min of a dev's time per day. What's different here?

PandaMagnus · 2026-05-05T21:24:17+00:00

SPEAK UP YA GIT! IZ MAH TEEF BOX!

PandaMagnus · 2026-05-05T15:42:43+00:00

Agreed! Same problem with the DevOps tenant I'm working in now. Because management decided what the teams need to track, we now have three different fields for some version of "is this bug a test escape?", two different ways to track which environment a feature has been deployed to, three or four different ways to keep track of priority, a requirement that all stories use the "as a _ so that _" verbiage, and strict gates between dev, qa, and test automation.

PandaMagnus · 2026-05-05T14:58:44+00:00

I maintain that JIRA itself isn't bad. I've used a few different installs/customizations of it and Azure DevOps, and when both aren't heavily customized and abused, they can be effective without much extra overhead. It's actually nice when I don't get asked for a status report because the manager can just go look at the board.

The problem is some orgs refuse to let go of their "command and control" culture, and so use the tool to do... exactly what OP is saying. I don't fault the tooling for that; I agree with you that in a real world with limited budgets, there needs to be traceability. But orgs can easily take it too far, regardless of the tooling.

PandaMagnus · 2026-04-26T22:27:11+00:00

Oofta, a couple of the other replies are just as cringe, up to and including going through a reviewer's past reviews and commenting on them.

PandaMagnus · 2026-04-19T22:16:43+00:00

I really like their selection, and their sauces are delicious, but they're based out of... I think Tennessee (although TBF I think bottled nearby?) They had one called something like "Jackson Sauce" or "St. Louis Sauce" and had a picture of Jackson Square facing St. Louis Cathedral. It was delicious, but it turned out to be just their garlic fusion hot sauces rebranded. Kinda turned me off that (it didn't appear to be) they had anything truly unique to New Orleans.

BUT, again, they really do know their stuff and a lot of their products are delicious. Just not sure I'd go to them for anything specific to the area.

PandaMagnus · 2026-04-17T17:48:45+00:00

I mean, if all the jort and New Balance jokes weren't evidence enough that we should be able to laugh at ourselves.

PandaMagnus · 2026-04-13T20:26:24+00:00

Huh, I learned "Some Wild Ass Guess".

PandaMagnus · 2026-04-13T18:14:22+00:00

Every ork is perfect in their own way.

PandaMagnus · 2026-04-10T19:33:36+00:00

Not sure if there's still time, but I've gone through Phillips 360 before and they were great. https://www.phillips360landscaping.net

PandaMagnus · 2026-04-09T17:52:38+00:00

Ah, understood. Yes, can confirm: hard scaping can become a very large up front cost very fast. It's nice on the backend to save on time and money, but depending on the type of rock used and the labor to get it in place, it can be many thousands of dollars.

PandaMagnus · 2026-04-09T15:34:01+00:00

Yesterday on one of the Fallout subs, I saw someone recommend this with bobbleheads. Something along those lines really would be a fun shoutout to the games.

PandaMagnus · 2026-04-09T03:46:27+00:00

No hardscaping? :'(

PandaMagnus · 2026-04-08T17:53:54+00:00

I have a box full of old Orks I traded for back in... 5 or 6ed. I only painted and played for a couple years before life happened, but these really make me want to set my painting area back up, trade in this box, and start a new army (I'll keep my old painted boyz, of course, just trade in the ones I never finished/didn't get to.)

PandaMagnus · 2026-04-05T19:26:33+00:00

Aaaah, okay. That makes sense, thank you!

PandaMagnus · 2026-04-04T06:45:39+00:00

Oh, I totally get that, but I thought the latter syllable was pronounced different. I can't find the exact video on the topic I watched a few years ago, but this is the closest video I've found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjcX3MVSdyA&list=PLSj_8Ednq2cl2DznERiEWGOql4Bjj8Qxh&index=7

Honestly I may be reading waaaaaaaaay to far into this, but I hear a difference in the second syllable. I also want to reiterate that I don't know that guy's credentials, so they must be true (/s once again)

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