The tech world relishes rankings. Fastest growing sector, highest paid skill, most in-demand framework. Now, a new lead role in tech is around, and India seems to be grabbing it, albeit it’s not an achievement.
Indian developers are getting caught cheating more than anyone else. A wave of interviewers across companies, continents and hiring pipelines say the same thing.
A Redditor on r/developersIndia said that India cheated the most during interviews. In the now viral post, “I took several tech interviews, and our Indian developers cheated the most”, the user, who is a hiring manager, said Indian developers cheat the most and it is basically a common behaviour now.
“I am involved in hiring several developers (80+) across the globe, and one of the trends I noticed is that a lot of Indian developers cheat, sometimes blatantly, during these interviews, while developers from other places don’t,” they added.
They explained that the situation is so bad at this point that “we have earned a reputation that if a developer is doing well in the interview, they are suspected of cheating.”
Some are subtle, some are outright comic. One interviewer wrote that a candidate had both hands under her chin while code continued to type itself. Another said he watched eyes dart mechanically between two monitors. “I have seen magic,” he joked. Except, none of this is funny anymore, because the pattern is too large to be dismissed as anecdotal.
It Gets Worse
The most uncomfortable evidence came from Codeforces. Data shared by Pranav Mehta, who is a senior software engineer at Mercor, showed that India had the highest number of cheaters in their contests. Not by a small margin. Nearly twelve times higher than Vietnam, the next on the list.
“It’s easy to fall back on pseudo-nationalism and cry of bias or discrimination. But to be honest, actions like cheating in contests or sending toxic messages to GSoC contributors do reflect poorly on the entire community,” Mehta said.
Some argued that the numbers are skewed because Indians form a large part of the user base. But, the scale is still stark. Russia and China have far lower cheating rates despite fierce competition. Mehta said that excuses miss the point. “Normalising such behaviour doesn’t just hurt our individual reputation. It creates a stereotype that affects every Indian techy trying to make a mark.”
The rise of AI is one part of the answer. Interviewers say they can now recognise ChatGPT-generated code almost instantly. Word by word. Line by line. Even variable names match. A developer who used to interview regularly said candidates often repeat answers with the exact phrasing he sees on AI tools.
When asked to explain what they just wrote, they freeze. Another wrote that bad candidates get lost in the AI-generated maze. They push out code they do not understand and inputs they cannot reason about.
Other hiring managers are changing their methods completely. One said they explicitly allow candidates to use ChatGPT only to observe how they use it. They watch prompts. They watch iterating patterns. They watch how people adapt output when told to modify the solution.
“The ones who actually understand what they’re doing survive,” the interviewer said.
Who’s to Blame?
Still, blaming the system is not justified. The cheating problem is real enough that large tech companies see it as a strategic risk. Google is bringing back at least one in-person round because of how common AI-assisted cheating has become.
“It’s a combination,” Microsoft India head Puneet Chandok, earlier told AIM. “We’re using AI as part of all our processes, including hiring, and always with the human in the loop.” He said that interviews now go deep into AI fluency because developers must know how to work with these tools responsibly.
Google’s Sundar Pichai earlier also said that in-person assessments give interviewers a clearer read on whether a candidate actually understands computer science fundamentals. Virtual interviews make it harder to verify competence when the candidate might be circulating prompts behind a muted camera.
Engineers inside NVIDIA say body language reveals more than people think. Avoiding the camera. Constantly shifting gaze. Long delays before answering obvious follow-ups. Companies now use tools like CoderPad to observe code being written in real time. Everyone hiring knows they are in a new era.
Some founders insist at least one round must happen face to face. “Micro expressions and body language reveal a wealth of information,” Ankush Sabharwal of Corover.ai, earlier told AIM. He pointed out that people reading out polished answers stick out because their responses have no depth or spontaneity.
Even stricter proctoring has not stopped cheating attempts. One candidate at Wipro used his local IDE because the test environment lacked IntelliSense. He claimed he solved the problem honestly. HR forced him to resign for malpractice.
Developers have their own frustrations. Many feel the interview process itself is flawed. They say panelists often show superiority, ask irrelevant questions or arrive unprepared. Some point out that interviewers themselves use ChatGPT to prepare questions, then get offended when candidates use the same tool for answers.
One wrote that cheating in India starts early. Exams reward memorisation and shortcuts. Colleges prioritise placement numbers. Students learn to clear tests instead of learning skills. And this habit carries into work life.
Companies now want proof of reasoning, not memorised answers. They want real discussions. They want candidates who can think.
Developers frustrated with the system are demanding interviews that reflect actual job work. They want live pair programming. They want practical tests, and interviewers who are as prepared as they expect candidates to be.
The tech world will not stop using AI. Candidates will not stop experimenting with tools. Companies will not abandon automated filters. But, everyone now agrees on one point: If cheating becomes the norm, trust collapses.
India cannot afford that collapse.
