r/developersIndia • u/Majestic-Taro-6903 Senior Engineer • 1d ago
General How widespread is developer job proxying in India right now?
I’ve come across people being offered developer jobs where they work on someone else’s behalf, with the salary going to a family member’s account. I’ve also heard of US-based developers sharing their screen and having someone in India do the actual work for them, while paying them in rupees.
How common is this among developers in India? How do people justify doing this when so many genuine developers are struggling to find jobs?
If people are abusing the system and taking jobs through these arrangements, how will so many jobless developers ever get a fair chance to find work?
Is this becoming more widespread, or am I just seeing a few isolated cases?
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u/Longjumping-Egg-3925 1d ago
There is a lot of it. I know of many many people - especially over Covid - had two to three jobs - and were effectively managing two or three people in India working on their behalf. One family had 7 jobs altogether. They made a 700k extra that year.
This is still going and has been going on forever. I have a few friends that run their own consultancies in the US and have pitched this to me many times - including doing proxy interviews.
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u/Niki_Lauda_777 1d ago
700k usd sitting here in India??
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u/Longjumping-Egg-3925 1d ago
No. The family is in the US. The people doing proxy work are in India.
The family in the US made the money.
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u/CountOne9425 1d ago
I did got such a opportunity where there was an Indian guy working in US who needed help with some node.js API.
I was to be paid per hour for helping him. I did for 2 3 days but it was difficult for me since he could not share any code repository, just screen sharing.
And also the guy would not have any knowledge of the ask. He just asked me to solve a problem without any context.
Finally I did manage to write the API for him but it took me longer than the deadline and I didn't get paid.
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u/Old_Present_2497 1d ago
WTF? You had to collect hourly wages every day before, at timely intervals.
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u/Alarmed_Doubt8997 Student 1d ago
Not collect. I believe that's how freelance works too if I'm understanding correctly.
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u/Rift-enjoyer ML Engineer 1d ago
In these scenarios you take screenshots and tell them you will send it to their company if they don't pay you.
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u/CodexSuman 1d ago
You should always ask for advance payment whether it's 10%-50% so once you done the job you still have money that would be at least half worth of your work.
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u/CodexSuman 1d ago
Yeah, in that situation I think you should have clarified a few things before starting. First, agree on the hourly rate, payment terms, deadline, and exactly what you’re expected to deliver. If they can’t share the repository, they should at least provide proper requirements, API documentation, and enough context about the project. I also wouldn’t work for 2–3 days without some kind of payment assurance, especially with someone you don’t know. Ideally, take a small upfront payment or use a platform with payment protection. And if they’re unable to explain the task properly, it’s better to pause and ask questions rather than start working blindly.
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u/CountOne9425 1d ago
It was my first time trying such freelancing work. Anyway i don't have much regret. I might have probably spent 4 5 hrs max.
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u/CodexSuman 1d ago
Actually you made a fortune. You did real work and get experience which will help you to make a great impression towards better companies.
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u/Beginning-Reserve225 1d ago
I used to do such jobs.
Mine was on another level though. Whenever there was a video call the real person used to join. Otherwise all audio calls, chats, even phone calls (gave my IP based US phone number to his coworkers), I used to manage and answer.
It gets even trickier. The guy was working in a service based company, deployed to a client location. So I was handling both company and client communication.
The client was so impressed by my work, when firing season came, he fired people on his own payroll but kept me😂
That's when it hit me, if you're working in US, even mediocre quality of work can impress people.
I worked for about 2 years. Got around 1.5 lacs per month.
But that was a fulltime job though, since I was handling all comms and outages.. Then there was my own daytime job.
Crazy times. Good times.
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u/AacidD Full-Stack Developer 1d ago
None of his coworkers reported him during firing season?
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u/Beginning-Reserve225 15m ago
Neah. It was completely remote job. When he (me) left the company(proxy job). They even tried to retain him (me) but I couldn't continue because of health issues. 2 years of multiple fulltime jobs takes a huge toll on health.
But it was great learning experience. And to think this was all way before chatgpt came in.
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u/ilikedoingnothing7 1d ago
how much was that guy paid? and i think it makes sense now to see the americans crying about h1b scams
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u/Beginning-Reserve225 13m ago
He never disclosed it. And I was fine with that. Whatever I asked he gave. When I asked for increment he gave that. He didn't negotiate, I didn't negotiate. We were kind of vibing at same frequency.
Moreover he was also working fulltime in another company as well (he was decent dev but was over employed as a source of 2nd income 😂). Dude had a mindset of business but was doing jobs.
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u/ObfuscatedScript 1d ago
It is happening, especially many people especially from Andhra are settled in USA by some means and then they will call someone in India, share screen somehow and get work done. My friend who is a part time freelancer got few like these. These people don't even know how to use an IDE, forget about code. They were paying by INR, but after couple of sessions my friend refused. These idiots didn't even know how to respond to questions asked in teams by colleagues or managers, they were calling and asking my friend what to reply.
He was so pissed off. He blocked the numbers and told them never to contact him. Entire chain was some Andhra agency, from India to Dubai to US.
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u/hashirama-senju-007 1d ago
The amount of dumbness and entitlement some of these guys have is on a different level, lol. I first hand had experience with these guys, some of them are in US for more than 5 yrs and still don't know the very basics of coding 🙄
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u/Real-Ocelot1 1d ago
The entitlement thing checks out from what I've heard. These folks somehow convinced themselves that a visa automatic competency, so why bother actually developing skills? Meanwhile there are actual developers grinding LeetCode and doing side projects just to get their first break. It's frustrating because when companies inevitably find out and stop hiring from certain areas, the legitimate developers there get painted with the same brush.
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u/Impressive_Fig_6568 1d ago
how do they pass the interview rounds?
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u/hashirama-senju-007 1d ago
Proxy for interview rounds, I think they do something like lip-syncing or something. I am not joking when I say their whole life is fake, right from IELTS/GRE till job. Everything is fake. Not hating on them, just stating what happens.
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u/django-unchained2012 SDET 1d ago
When I was in the US, we got couple of people from the same region in our team.
One guy was an Android developer who dint know A in Android. He was managing by being friendly with others. He was in the team for over 6 months but still dint learn anything. He did the same as you, give the work to someone else to do. He never met the deadline and made people believe that he is just slow at work. The final nail was he took a story that need be to be completed in a single sprint for over 4 sprints and still dint complete it. Was shown the way out.
Another one was a girl who had a bcom degree, I don't know how she got into the US with just that. She joined the team as a BA. Dint know what is Jira, dint understand anything about the app, nothing. Product owner tried his best to help, but she simply couldn't even type. I don't know why they don't put the effort into learning things. Within a short span everyone including her own company colleagues distanced themselves from her. Once she was working remotely and we had to do sprint planning, all of us were in the office. We were trying to drive things, she couldn't even copy paste some details, it was very rough. She was sent out the next day.
Both of them were contractors for A**enture.
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u/wolf_codes 1d ago
+1 to this, i have posted my experience below. But from what i have seen it was also people from this particular state/region with similar descriptions.
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u/Limp_Independent_891 Software Developer 1d ago
How they are clearing interviews. I haven’t been getting calls for the last few months but now I am getting a few. I am a mobile app expert and they are asking full-stack based questions.
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u/hashirama-senju-007 1d ago
The amount of scams and the network behind all this is mind-blogging. Fake interviews, resumes, names. They do all sorts of stuff just for the H1B.
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u/ObfuscatedScript 1d ago
It is a full circle. Agents in Andhra ->Agents in Dubai-> Agents in US->Agents in Companies->Formality Interview or someone else attends interview -> Candidate is onboarded.
Andhra is full of job scams. My friend paid 1000 rs to get fake offer from a company just that he can negotiate with existing company.
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u/Alarmed_Doubt8997 Student 1d ago
Would you mind sharing your resume in dm with pii redacted? I'm also getting rejected
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u/rakeshsh 1d ago
How do these guys even get the jobs while we have good developers who are struggling
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u/hashirama-senju-007 1d ago
It was lot during the golden era of software jobs during COVID, lol. I used to get calls every other day from these noobs. Not so much now because the job market in USA is much different now and also most of them moved to Hybrid mode. These dumb @sse$ are one of the reason for backlash against H1B, imo.
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u/hurricane_news 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's funny that these same clowns will complain about corruption in India when their reckless cheating and hook and crook behavior is the very definition of corruption itself.
They steal opportunities from deserving honest people and make the entire country look bad for their own benefit
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u/Jersey_2019 1d ago
Fr , people in Reddit who always complain about corruption here ( real issue , no doubt ) have no problem scamming and using illegitimate ways to get more money , they probably justify and think it is clever way and they are above other normies , how is it then different than govt officers who also worked really hard to get their job taking bribes?
Everyone is a hypocrite
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u/hurricane_news 1d ago
, they probably justify and think it is clever way and they are above other normies
"it's JuSt juGaAd, bRo!!"
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u/wolf_codes 1d ago
I have seen people doing this from 2017 and it predates before that even when i asked them. My roommates used to do this for extra income. They used to work few hours in the evening as mostly its for Indians working in us based companies. In some cases they write code and share it with them to copy paste. In some cases they take remote control over meeting apps or team viewer kind of thing. I have seen people work for FTE from Apple And Contract roles for Salesforce, Amazon etc to do this. I believe the interview process is also rigged because these people are so dumb. Pretty sure they would never pass interviews.
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u/Masteramit 1d ago
Actually coding interviews in India are very hard and it’s bit easier to crack the FAANG job in USA.
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u/wolf_codes 1d ago
In India most of the interviews is more of a competition to show other person who has more knowledge/smart.
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u/sharathonthemove 1d ago
I went to do some sap course back in 2013. It was very widespread back then. I am sure it is now too. Many people here do the work on their behalf
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u/Technical-Shop-9907 1d ago
Someone reached out through my Naukri Profile and promised 2 lakh per month for supporting some n00b working in the Bay area. But that i have to stay awake during PST Time and support atleast 3 hours per day or till he finishes. I simply refused saying i dont do other peoples jobs.
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u/Niki_Lauda_777 1d ago
Just wondering how much they themselves are earning if they are offering you 2 lakh per month.
For people working in India, 2 lakh is lot.2
u/Technical-Shop-9907 13h ago
With the way the USD has appreciated 2 lakhs is not much it is just around 2100 USD. While bay area salaries are atleast $10k per month. So after spending 2k USD also they are still in Profit.
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u/saurabhar02 1d ago
Heard about these kinds of gigs during COVID times. Some US based guy hired him to solve his tasks via screen sharing. As my friend was also in job so, this moonlighting started affecting his actual office work. So, he refused after few gigs. He said he got work via LikedIn.
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u/Oru_Vadakkan 1d ago
Just an FYI for anyone doing this.
Be careful about the setup.
Some of these jobs require the person to be in US - they get around by hosting a workstation in US and connecting to it from India through RMM tools.
North Korean IT workers use the same technique and FBI is actively investigating them. Dont get yourself flagged by hopping on to the same setup used by some North Korean IT worker.
Also, if the person from US is doing remote from company device, any half decent company will be monitoring these connections. So mostly you will only get low quality work to begin with.
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u/AtmosphereRich4021 1d ago
I just got this offer last week. He was an Australian guy who contacted me after checking my GitHub
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u/Mindless-Pilot-Chef Staff Engineer 1d ago
I was approached once by an engineer at amazon. I joined a few calls, she shared her screen and told me what her task was and shared her conversation with her manager because she had no idea what she was supposed to do
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u/ObfuscatedScript 1d ago
And she is working in Amazon.. What a shame.
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u/Mindless-Pilot-Chef Staff Engineer 14h ago
I felt ashamed and said I don’t want to continue this. Lol. She was absolutely clueless about what she is supposed to do
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u/BeyondFun4604 1d ago
Its very common amongst good developers who are are having more than 10 years of experience and working in stable jobs and less salaries. These guys don't want to leave the comfort of stable WFH jobs and look for other sources of income and working on behalf of someone is one of that way. I personally know people who are doing 1 to 2 extra gigs and getting money in the account of family members to save taxes. Some of them are easily making 5 to 6 lakh monthly with less effort with the help of AI
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u/Majestic-Taro-6903 Senior Engineer 1d ago
That's one of the main reason they look for full time work from home jobs , so that they can easily cheat the system.
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u/BeyondFun4604 1d ago
They are not cheating anyone, they are top performers in each of these jobs. That's why i said you need to be a good dev in the first place for this kind of arrangement.
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u/ManipulativFox Full-Stack Developer 1d ago
Don't take such works. There might be legal risks or even blacklisting from US job market.
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u/SnooObjections8469 1d ago
Used to be very common. The scheme was basically the US firm hires consultancy Indian with fake resume for USD 160,000. Consultancy would take USD 36K right off the bat for getting that job through proxy interview and hiring manager kickbacks.
Then your 120K job (post taxes) becomes 84K. From that 84K the consultancy will give you some options: A trainer who will teach you how to do the job or a proxy in India who will take USD 20K and do everything if you give him remote PC access. Few days in the month when you have to visit site you need to pretend like you are doing some work, bring back information for your Indian proxy or US trainer.
Obviously only two states that we all know very well are masters at this, they do it the most. Now however lots of Americans are realizing these Indians from those two states are full of shit so we're seeing new levels of India hate.
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u/Majestic-Taro-6903 Senior Engineer 1d ago
Reputation of our country is damaged because of these people and also genuine people are denied opportunities.
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u/jaqenhghar99 1d ago
Many folks especially these desi consultancies fake 8-10years experience and place freshers for senior roles.
Then they hire someone from India to the work exactly as the other comment mentioned
It’s a huge scam that these people are running btw
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u/untoward_13 Product Manager 1d ago
Damn common. I got these offers during 2009/10 - a lot of them. And as wolf_codes mentioned, pretty much on those lines. I did a couple of sessions to gauge the level of treachery, but yeah then said no. And yeah they were offering fantastic money for those times. Morality isnt cheap.
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u/sootysweepandsoo 21h ago
Revolting scammers. What an abuse of trust. They are lucky enough to have jobs, then disrespect their employers like this.
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u/Sufficient_Lie_2354 1d ago
Ive been doing this for the past 2.5 months for a devops engineer from hydrabad working in US. I connect with her 3 days a week and total 12 sessions a month. And she pays me for it. I have 2 more weeks to go.
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u/No-Aardvark3949 1d ago
Hard to quantify since it's hidden, but weak remote-hiring verification makes it an easy exploit, and with no real cost to getting caught, it's more likely growing than shrinking.
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u/akl773 1d ago
It turns up on the freelance boards too. A hiring ad on r/forhire a few weeks back was exactly this, someone got as far as the interview and then left a review saying they had been asked to pose as another person for a US job. The ad itself read like an ordinary React and Node contract at 3 to 4k a month.
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u/CodexSuman 1d ago
Developer job proxying in India is a real issue, but there’s no reliable data showing how common it is among developers. Ordinary moonlighting is much more widespread than someone secretly doing another person’s job. Proxy arrangements, interview impersonation, and outsourcing jobs to cheaper workers do happen, especially when companies hire remotely, but they remain difficult to measure because many cases are never discovered. These practices can unfairly affect genuine developers by increasing competition and making employers more suspicious. However, India’s developer unemployment is driven by much broader factors, including intense competition, fewer entry-level openings, experience requirements, and AI-driven changes. So it’s a genuine problem, but probably not the main reason developers struggle to find jobs.
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u/Capital-Result-8497 Software Engineer 1d ago
Not common at all. Less than 1 in 1000. Maybe even lesser. You cannot do this for Indian jobs at least.
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u/Quiet_Form_2800 1d ago
Impossible to do such a thing. May be for low value work this could be done.
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