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> In every single time, management outsourced and took the bid from the lowest priced company. Turns out good engineers make good money. I've worked with some

by mullr 8y ago

> In every single time, management outsourced and took the bid from the lowest priced company. Turns out good engineers make good money. I've worked with some brilliant engineers from India-based consulting teams, and they were not cheap.

GFischer 8y ago
I've worked with tremendously good Indian engineers as well. But in most cases they were already in the U.S. on some kind of visa, permanent residents or citizens. I have had good experiences with outsourcing in India itself as well, there are some serious teams there too. But there were some bad cases as well. Money is definitely an indicator of quality, expensive might not mean good but cheap almost always means they're not top talent.
thewizardofaus 8y ago
This is exactly right , I feel like a lot of problems mentioned in this thread are a result of hiring the cheapest engineer/developer/etc.
- redhale 8y ago
  Yes, exactly. The problem is that for many companies that decide to outsource, the motivating factor is cost savings. "Why pay $80-100/hr for an Indian engineer when I can pay $20?" And then six months down the road, "why are all our systems so shoddy?" "Why are our development cycles so long?" As a consultant, I've seen this pattern so many times it's insane. And depressing... and for better or worse, lucrative.
  - j45 8y ago
    Paying more doesn't guarantee this. Lots of new developers want those top rates and deliver the same sub standard quality. On the other end, expensive consultants can be highly ineffective. An HR manager once said each hire is a compromise in some way because no two candidates are alike. One key in hiring remote is to take some extra time to get to know the candidates via video calls to create a connection and better determine what their strengths and weaknesses are, and get the conversation to a point where the compromise is acknowledged and you can talk about their ability to learn what they don't know and examples of that. How effectively a developer can learn and apply new knowledge is they main thing I look for. Learning while you work is the new norm, but hiring is not always setup that way.
- segmondy 8y ago
  I don't buy it, easy to blame developers. Why not blame poor communication and specs?
  - briandear 8y ago
    To work with many offshore firms, the “specs” part is a nightmare. The specs might as well be code because common sense isn’t generally so common. For example, sending a forgot password email: actual question: “Should the email go to the email address in the user’s record?” Multiply that by layers of “project managers” and over and over, that means that $35 per hour costs 3 times as much yet yielding a quality level that wasn’t $105 per hour worth.

by mullr 8y ago

GFischer 8y ago

I've worked with tremendously good Indian engineers as well. But in most cases they were already in the U.S. on some kind of visa, permanent residents or citizens. I have had good experiences with outsourcing in India itself as well, there are some serious teams there too. But there were some bad cases as well. Money is definitely an indicator of quality, expensive might not mean good but cheap almost always means they're not top talent.

thewizardofaus 8y ago

This is exactly right , I feel like a lot of problems mentioned in this thread are a result of hiring the cheapest engineer/developer/etc.

redhale 8y ago
Yes, exactly. The problem is that for many companies that decide to outsource, the motivating factor is cost savings. "Why pay $80-100/hr for an Indian engineer when I can pay $20?" And then six months down the road, "why are all our systems so shoddy?" "Why are our development cycles so long?" As a consultant, I've seen this pattern so many times it's insane. And depressing... and for better or worse, lucrative.
- j45 8y ago
  Paying more doesn't guarantee this. Lots of new developers want those top rates and deliver the same sub standard quality. On the other end, expensive consultants can be highly ineffective. An HR manager once said each hire is a compromise in some way because no two candidates are alike. One key in hiring remote is to take some extra time to get to know the candidates via video calls to create a connection and better determine what their strengths and weaknesses are, and get the conversation to a point where the compromise is acknowledged and you can talk about their ability to learn what they don't know and examples of that. How effectively a developer can learn and apply new knowledge is they main thing I look for. Learning while you work is the new norm, but hiring is not always setup that way.
segmondy 8y ago
I don't buy it, easy to blame developers. Why not blame poor communication and specs?
- briandear 8y ago
  To work with many offshore firms, the “specs” part is a nightmare. The specs might as well be code because common sense isn’t generally so common. For example, sending a forgot password email: actual question: “Should the email go to the email address in the user’s record?” Multiply that by layers of “project managers” and over and over, that means that $35 per hour costs 3 times as much yet yielding a quality level that wasn’t $105 per hour worth.