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cheaper...same quality This is the offshoring holy grail. Let’s be honest here please, exactly the same structures and cultures that allow effective remote wor

cheaper...same quality This is the offshoring holy grail. Let’s be honest here please, exactly the same structures and cultures that allow effective remote work also enables continued and increased offshoring. With the accompanying negative effect on US developer salaries. Indeed companies should be focusing on this significantly!

wolfgke 7y ago
> This is the offshoring holy grail. Let’s be honest here please, exactly the same structures and cultures that allow effective remote work also enables continued and increased offshoring. The (microeconomic) problem with offshoring is that other countries (think of India, to use a stereotype) have a quite different level of education, work morale, sense of quality etc. That is why it worked so badly. On the other hand, inside a common cultural area, this should be much less of an issue.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  I have development teams in a variety of locations around the globe (including Boston and Mumbai areas). The Indian primary education system is quite good, as is IIT. We get excellent work out of India, with the primary downsides being the related factors of 10.5 hour time zone difference to either US coast and higher demands for coordination/communication. If India was in a time zone with more overlap with the US, the situation would be far more dire for the average US software developer I think.
  - geerlingguy 7y ago
    Well, you also get what you pay for; many companies are not willing to put in serious HR groundwork and hiring efforts in India, and it shows. There are plenty of great devs and employees I’ve met and am friends with in India... but many companies I’ve worked for/with are not willing to spend the money or time investment in consistently getting this level of employee.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      Quite right! We took several years to get to this point and two different local HR/leadership "regimes", so it's not all peaches and cream to be sure. If you go in and just want "lots of bodies, cheap", you're going to light money on fire, waste your time, and pull your hair out.

wolfgke 7y ago

> This is the offshoring holy grail. Let’s be honest here please, exactly the same structures and cultures that allow effective remote work also enables continued and increased offshoring. The (microeconomic) problem with offshoring is that other countries (think of India, to use a stereotype) have a quite different level of education, work morale, sense of quality etc. That is why it worked so badly. On the other hand, inside a common cultural area, this should be much less of an issue.

sokoloff 7y ago
I have development teams in a variety of locations around the globe (including Boston and Mumbai areas). The Indian primary education system is quite good, as is IIT. We get excellent work out of India, with the primary downsides being the related factors of 10.5 hour time zone difference to either US coast and higher demands for coordination/communication. If India was in a time zone with more overlap with the US, the situation would be far more dire for the average US software developer I think.
- geerlingguy 7y ago
  Well, you also get what you pay for; many companies are not willing to put in serious HR groundwork and hiring efforts in India, and it shows. There are plenty of great devs and employees I’ve met and am friends with in India... but many companies I’ve worked for/with are not willing to spend the money or time investment in consistently getting this level of employee.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    Quite right! We took several years to get to this point and two different local HR/leadership "regimes", so it's not all peaches and cream to be sure. If you go in and just want "lots of bodies, cheap", you're going to light money on fire, waste your time, and pull your hair out.