You're going to hear the same answer you always hear, which never satisfies people, but it's a culture thing. Americans are more willing to say "no" or try and negotiate with their boss/leadership on what they can realistically accomplish. The end result is that engineering will push back against unrealistic deadlines or unreasonable feature requests - theoretically making a successful outcome more likely. You'll notice this has nothing to do with skill or intelligence (well, maybe "soft skills"). But - and this might be controversial - providing that feedback to leadership makes you a better programmer.
In the US the expectation setting works both ways: management tells employees what it expects of them, and employees tell management what they're realistically capable of achieving. Management will ask for extra, and employees will sometimes get less done than they promised (sometimes because there were unforeseen difficulties, extenuating circumstances etc), but in the end it all works out.
It seems like it's a two-way street, isn't it? If American devs are more likely to say "no" and push back, then American managers/bosses on some level come to expect that behavior.
I wonder what it's like at Indian tech companies with Indian engineers. Managers there must have a cultural way of dealing with this that works.
IMO, that's the big problem with offshoring. It's rarely the case that the company that offshores stands up an office in the other country and staffs it with people who were held to the same standards in hiring as candidates for U.S.-based jobs would be. If companies did it that way, they might be more successful at navigating cultural differences, but most of the time they use subcontractors instead.
In the US the expectation setting works both ways: management tells employees what it expects of them, and employees tell management what they're realistically capable of achieving. Management will ask for extra, and employees will sometimes get less done than they promised (sometimes because there were unforeseen difficulties, extenuating circumstances etc), but in the end it all works out.