Edit: This post was late approved. I thought it was not going to be posted so I shared this post in r/india instead.

So I went to masters directly after B.Tech. Never worked in India.

1st manager, white American: A pushover. Would never say no to anything. Was very detached. Max freedom, but the team became very chaotic. Another older Indian uncle in the team took advantage of the situation to create some absolute painful to work with systems. Horrible team to begin software engineering career with. I pitched some nice projects in this team and got to build them, but I absolutely did not grow as an engineer in this team.

2nd manager, Chinese: Micromanager to the core. Never used to fight for his people during appraisals. Another newly minted manager in the department who was a very close friend of mine told me this. Constantly belittled people publicly. Narcissistic. Competent, but used to bend over backwards to cover his shortcomings. Insecure. Good mentor and good engineer though. Learnt a lot in this team. In a way regret leaving this team.

3rd manager, white American: Was on his way to returning back to being an IC. Was not happy being a manager. Was managing an extremely talented team. The team pretty much managed themself. Again, very detached. Didn't really care about the affairs of the team. A complete pushover. Max freedom, a lot of scope for chaos. Nobody took advantage of him. So the team ran smoothly. Incredibly smart. Extremely strong engineer. Compassionate and empathetic but deeply introverted.

4th manager, Indonesian: Racist asshole. Used to say shit to me like "All you Indians are toxic people. All you Indians are scammers". Very very incompetent. Absolutely clueless about what was happening in the team. Felt like a character from one of those Saas Bahu serials. Was more interested in gossip than actual work. Couldn't rely on him for mentorship or guidance or thought leadership. Did not get any work done at all. Cause I was constantly fighting with him. Talking to HR about him. At one point, I just stopped doing office work and focused completely on Leetcoding and interviewing.

Now. I am switching jobs. I will be working for an Indian manager. 20 years of experience. Worked as a Principal engineer in Intel. Strong resume. A bit crooked. Contradicted himself quite a few times during the interview process itself. But the role is very very interesting and the pay is very good, so I couldn't say no.

He will be eventually handing over the reigns to a newly minted team lead. Sri Lankan, MS in CS from Princeton.

What do I need to know about working for Desi managers. All of my experience has been with very famous product based companies. This is the team I want to settle down in for the next 2 to 3 years at the least. What advice would you give me to make the most of this time and grow as an engineer.