Just a thought about the "huge" salary difference. Are you taking the Purchasing Power Parity(PPP) into account? I know that PPP is too macro for comparing very specific cases but it does steer the discussion in the right direction.
Let's say, an engineer's monthly salary is $10,000 in the US and he can afford X level of arbitrary "comforts in life". To be able to afford the same X level of arbitrary "comforts of life" in India, he'd need just $3000 - $3500.
These numbers are for illustration purposes only. Actuals will vary. of course.
No amount of salary will give you clean air and tidy streets. Some people will just prefer that as part of their package. But I guess few months / years of experience won't hurt westerners.
When you talk about PPP, keep in mind to factor in housing and other modern lifestyle conveniences. These are very very expensive if you price it as a percentage of your salary. Even in the Bay Area, a Home is still 5-6X annual income of a typical software engineer. In India, it is more like 10-15X.
To give some idea of the market - people are starting to count stock options as future income in order to qualify for home purchases. The median home price that sold recently in San Jose is close to a million dollars.
5-6X will not get you a nice house in a nice area. It will just get you a small house. In San Jose, the cheapest ones I'm seeing are in the 500-600K range - smaller than 1000 sq ft.
as a counter to that, in third world countries, rent is often a way better deal all round, so if you're not hung up on home ownership, you can get by pretty well for less.
This is most certainly not true. I don't deny there will be shitty houses for a drop-dead rents, but you can also get a fairly luxurious rentals in Mumbai and Bangalore, at least (I don't have personal experience with other cities).
Companies try to do that in America where they justify your income based on the fact you live in an area where you have high PPP. (Urbana,IL vs Palo ALto,CA)
That doesn't make it right to do or that this behavior will get the high quality talent pool every company says they will hire. So why do you think that it will work in this case?
Let's say, an engineer's monthly salary is $10,000 in the US and he can afford X level of arbitrary "comforts in life". To be able to afford the same X level of arbitrary "comforts of life" in India, he'd need just $3000 - $3500.
These numbers are for illustration purposes only. Actuals will vary. of course.