On the contrary I think the frugality strategy has lead to hiring the top talent in India and not in the US. Therefore the pay here is higher compared to the bigger companies (not MNCs but product as well), I am from an Indian unicorn startup and the pay was very competitive. The US opinion of any Indians IT worker seems to be the same, that is that we are service oriented workers who don't code, therefore I'd take it with a grain of salt on what they say.

But yeah, the talent here is good since hiring talent is cheaper here compared to US. If you have to pay 170k$ to hire the best in US then in India you'll be able to hire the best at 50 LPA which is about 70k$.

I have been part of many interview panels and they haven't been any easy interviews as such.