The ones for hire at Infosys aren't necessarily untalented. They're very smart, but keeping your job often means fitting in, going with the flow, and doing what you're told.
Also the very technically adept ones at Infosys are skilled enough to land other jobs within 2-3 years of joining.
That said, Infosys and other WITCHes pay very low. My cousins who are farmers earn 2x what Infosys pays thanks to a mix of farm subsidies, government rural employment schemes (MGNREGA), and local government jobs. And this is a common story for a massive portion of India now.
It's gotten very difficult for WITCH to pay Tier 1 salaries so they've expanded IT offices in Tier 3 Metros like Indore, Lucknow, Bhopal, etc because $4-8,000/yr goes much farther in those cities.
In my college Infosys was always seen as the option only slightly better than unemployment. Actually this was not even the popular view by the time I left.
I will age myself and maybe out myself but while infosys may not have been a dream job during my college days (pre infosys IPO), it soon was. The company probably wasn't any different in skills but there weren't too many people in tech those days. Minuscule. And post IPO infosys laid the foundation well those days, sold the company well and was indeed a dream job at least for a little while. But that's ancient history now.
Indeed. Between roughly 1995-2000 it was the place to be. The hyper growth that followed post ~2002 brought in dilution in talent, benefits were cut (e.g. stock options were discontinued mid 2002) and the emergence of global companies opening India offices made it even less desirable.
There's a meme about Infosys' 3L/annum salary. Funnily that was exactly my starting salary there (post confirmation) in 2002.
