[RandomCSGeek]

TLDR: The best go to US, the next best to MNCs and startups, the rest are the ones you get when you pay peanuts.

Here's how Indian engineers get jobs.

The very top(maybe 0.01%) get directly hired by US MNCs. This gives some people the "Indians are smart" stereotype.

The next top(0.01% - 1%) work for US MNCs in India, or the few top homebred companies. Foreigners will rarely deal with them, as they are working on products, not services.

The next few go into startups and some good service companies. These service companies are costly, after all, they have to pay much higher than what Infosys or TCS would do, to maintain these people. I don't know how many american tech workers come across these people, but a few must be. These people are probably the source of few comments saying that "some Indian workers I worked with were good".

Now, the lower ones, will get into likes of TCS, Infosys and hundreds of small service companies that work on basis of "hire enmasse, at cheap, and sell at little higher cost". Now if you are paying peanuts, it is very foolish to expect people like Linus Torvalds. This gives people the, "Indian engineers are shit" stereotype.