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For once, stay in touch with this client, and get to know how they are doing. It's not impossible they come back to you, sometime - not necessary either, but o

For once, stay in touch with this client, and get to know how they are doing. It's not impossible they come back to you, sometime - not necessary either, but offshoring is much much more to manage than just a lower price tag - and perhaps they don't know it, yet.

pcunite 7y ago
This, keep the lines of communication open. Email them three months from now to ask how things are going.
- spydum 7y ago
  This is absolute truth, it’s very likely you will be called back if the vendor they chose starts cutting corners. You might even have more work to clean up the mess they leave behind.
  - joelaaronseely 7y ago
    I fourth this comment. It's possible that everything will go swimmingly for them. But it's also possible they'll run into all kinds of problems, such as inexperienced programmers, poor communications, slower feature deliveries, difficulty with managing the team, etc. There's a skill that good programmers have of understanding at a visceral level what the customer is asking for and delivering that and more. But a good programmer often does this "effortlessly" which leads a company to believe that all programmers are like this, so you should just find the cheapest one. They're not all the same and companies that have made this mistake quickly learn to cherish their good programmers (whether employees or contractors).
mcv 7y ago
My impression is that a lot of companies are moving away from off-shoring. It's cheaper on paper, but you introduce a communication hurdle and sometimes you simply get what you pay for. I've got great experience with Indians working in Europe, not so great with Indians working from India. My impression is that the best Indian developers tend to move here, because they'll be able to earn European/American rates.
- zach43 7y ago
  > I've got great experience with Indians working in Europe, not so great with Indians working from India. My impression is that the best Indian developers tend to move here, because they'll be able to earn European/American rates. as an Indian developer working in the US, I have to say that this is a bit of an unwarranted stereotype, despite being repeated often on HN and Reddit There absolutely is a large contingent of good developers in India (as you'd probably expect from a country with over a billion people), but they are mostly working with locally-managed projects and teams. A lot of them wouldn't work for outsourcing companies because of the poor pay and hours. There is a bit of confirmation bias going on here: since western companies will frequently outsource to the low-cost shops in India, they will mostly see poor quality work. I don't think its fair to generalize this to all Indian devs.
  - mrkstu 7y ago
    If the likelihood is that he’ll never actually get to work with the most skilled devs, as per your own post, the de facto reality of his generalization is going to be true.

pcunite 7y ago

This, keep the lines of communication open. Email them three months from now to ask how things are going.

spydum 7y ago
This is absolute truth, it’s very likely you will be called back if the vendor they chose starts cutting corners. You might even have more work to clean up the mess they leave behind.
- joelaaronseely 7y ago
  I fourth this comment. It's possible that everything will go swimmingly for them. But it's also possible they'll run into all kinds of problems, such as inexperienced programmers, poor communications, slower feature deliveries, difficulty with managing the team, etc. There's a skill that good programmers have of understanding at a visceral level what the customer is asking for and delivering that and more. But a good programmer often does this "effortlessly" which leads a company to believe that all programmers are like this, so you should just find the cheapest one. They're not all the same and companies that have made this mistake quickly learn to cherish their good programmers (whether employees or contractors).

mcv 7y ago

My impression is that a lot of companies are moving away from off-shoring. It's cheaper on paper, but you introduce a communication hurdle and sometimes you simply get what you pay for. I've got great experience with Indians working in Europe, not so great with Indians working from India. My impression is that the best Indian developers tend to move here, because they'll be able to earn European/American rates.

zach43 7y ago
> I've got great experience with Indians working in Europe, not so great with Indians working from India. My impression is that the best Indian developers tend to move here, because they'll be able to earn European/American rates. as an Indian developer working in the US, I have to say that this is a bit of an unwarranted stereotype, despite being repeated often on HN and Reddit There absolutely is a large contingent of good developers in India (as you'd probably expect from a country with over a billion people), but they are mostly working with locally-managed projects and teams. A lot of them wouldn't work for outsourcing companies because of the poor pay and hours. There is a bit of confirmation bias going on here: since western companies will frequently outsource to the low-cost shops in India, they will mostly see poor quality work. I don't think its fair to generalize this to all Indian devs.
- mrkstu 7y ago
  If the likelihood is that he’ll never actually get to work with the most skilled devs, as per your own post, the de facto reality of his generalization is going to be true.