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Agreed, wake me up when cheap outsourced developers actually works out. I've yet to see it. I have nothing against foreign developers but most of the outsourcin

Agreed, wake me up when cheap outsourced developers actually works out. I've yet to see it. I have nothing against foreign developers but most of the outsourcing shops I've had the displeasure of working with are 0.2-0.5X developers at "only" 0.6+X of the cost. I know there are developers in other countries that can run circles around me but they aren't working for pennies. Also this mindset completely disregards things like timezones, language barriers, and understanding/relating to your customers. Every experience I've had with "let's save money by using this outsourcing firm" has been terrible and a complete failure, even if it took the execs years before they would admit it and reverse course. Sure, for a few years you can coast on what the developers you laid off/fired built but cracks will start to show and you can't just slot in developers like RAM sticks. It takes time to fully understand any system but execs are so shortsighted and oblivious to gross hacks being done to get something to work. It only takes a few years of outsourced code management before it turns into a house of cards. Hell, most software already is somewhat of a house of cards, if you bring in people that do not care about anything but billable hours they aren't even going to maintain the current mess, they will do the easy thing every time until your software is completely unmanageable.

lucumo 5y ago
> Agreed, wake me up when cheap outsourced developers actually works out. This actually happens quite a lot in my West-European country. Companies that aren't too picky about language knowledge can get cheap(er) Eastern European developers to do a lot of work. It works out well for the company. I'm one of the last expensive local developers, so I work with them quite often. These developers are well-educated and very capable. They are in the same or an adjacent timezone, so there's no issue there. They have little to no knowledge of my local language, but that's not a big issue for us because we do most of our work in English anyway. There is no daily/weekly face to face interaction of course, but with WFH that doesn't happen with local developers either. There are just no insurmountable problems with nearshoring anymore. And since you can easily save 30-50% on a developer's salary by doing so...
- SauciestGNU 5y ago
  Agreed, before the war I worked with an outsourced team in Ukraine, and I was blown away with the quality of their work and the professionalism of all the devs I talked to in that shop. That being said, I'm not worried about outsourcing. I believe I bring enough value to the table to withstand those pressures, even if eventually I have to take a wage hit to compete.
jollybean 5y ago
"wake me up when cheap outsourced developers actually works out. " You're missing the point here. They're not going to be hiring from 'body shops' they're just going to be hiring people 'remote' - just like you. Why do you think that you in 'Small Town Ohio' are going to get hired over the guy in France at 80 cents on the dollar, or Poland 60 cents on the dollar, when they have decent language skills. You're going to find out quickly that 'core education' in a lot of countries is as high, if not higher than US. Brazil has iffy educational standards but their upper 1/3 get a good education, and India the ratio is worse but population higher. The number of good devs. from China is blowing up. US is 5% of the world's population, and educational standards vary. It's a big world and Google etc. have no 'loyalty' to America.
- peteradio 5y ago
  At some point you end up shitting your own bed with this behavior. Development will cease to be lucrative if this plays out, so now you have a deficient technical knowledge base in America and a deficient manufacturing base? What exactly is America's future here? I really don't think you can be deficient in both or there is nothing left but pure balls.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > What exactly is America's future here? I really don't think you can be deficient in both or there is nothing left but pure balls. Shithole country that can't do shit, with a capitalist upper-class that's rich enough to insulate themselves from the shithole aspects. It's the libertarian utopia we've all dreamed about. It will last until the foreign societies cease to recognize the American upper-class's paper ownership interests.
  - JohnWhigham 5y ago
    That's why you have to get out as soon as you can. The money in being a code monkey in the West is on borrowed time. The tried and true money is in management. Managing people always pays well.
    - 5y ago
pjmlp 5y ago
Consulting does work a lot with outsourcing, it doesn't matter if it is terrible, most companies aren't in the software sector. It only needs to be good enough to keep the lights on, and the occasional escalation to sort out any big issue is seen as business as usual.
lumost 5y ago
> Sure, for a few years you can coast on what the developers you laid off/fired built but cracks will start to show and you can't just slot in developers like RAM sticks. This is the key point, software is a creative field - and you ultimately aren't going to get more than maintenance/routine upgrades from an outsourced firm. They simply don't care enough to want to go beyond their contract. You aren't going to be able to get top-tier talent to work in your timezone if that means working a graveyard shift.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  The trick here as an ambitious MBA is to carefully estimate whether you can coast long enough that you get rewarded for successfully cutting costs, but are also able to jump ship before shit hits the fan. Leverage a series of short term wins/long term failures to rocket yourself up to the top.
1270018080 5y ago
All of the good foreign developers are in America making 10x more than they would be in their home country.

lucumo 5y ago

> Agreed, wake me up when cheap outsourced developers actually works out. This actually happens quite a lot in my West-European country. Companies that aren't too picky about language knowledge can get cheap(er) Eastern European developers to do a lot of work. It works out well for the company. I'm one of the last expensive local developers, so I work with them quite often. These developers are well-educated and very capable. They are in the same or an adjacent timezone, so there's no issue there. They have little to no knowledge of my local language, but that's not a big issue for us because we do most of our work in English anyway. There is no daily/weekly face to face interaction of course, but with WFH that doesn't happen with local developers either. There are just no insurmountable problems with nearshoring anymore. And since you can easily save 30-50% on a developer's salary by doing so...

SauciestGNU 5y ago
Agreed, before the war I worked with an outsourced team in Ukraine, and I was blown away with the quality of their work and the professionalism of all the devs I talked to in that shop. That being said, I'm not worried about outsourcing. I believe I bring enough value to the table to withstand those pressures, even if eventually I have to take a wage hit to compete.

jollybean 5y ago

"wake me up when cheap outsourced developers actually works out. " You're missing the point here. They're not going to be hiring from 'body shops' they're just going to be hiring people 'remote' - just like you. Why do you think that you in 'Small Town Ohio' are going to get hired over the guy in France at 80 cents on the dollar, or Poland 60 cents on the dollar, when they have decent language skills. You're going to find out quickly that 'core education' in a lot of countries is as high, if not higher than US. Brazil has iffy educational standards but their upper 1/3 get a good education, and India the ratio is worse but population higher. The number of good devs. from China is blowing up. US is 5% of the world's population, and educational standards vary. It's a big world and Google etc. have no 'loyalty' to America.

peteradio 5y ago
At some point you end up shitting your own bed with this behavior. Development will cease to be lucrative if this plays out, so now you have a deficient technical knowledge base in America and a deficient manufacturing base? What exactly is America's future here? I really don't think you can be deficient in both or there is nothing left but pure balls.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > What exactly is America's future here? I really don't think you can be deficient in both or there is nothing left but pure balls. Shithole country that can't do shit, with a capitalist upper-class that's rich enough to insulate themselves from the shithole aspects. It's the libertarian utopia we've all dreamed about. It will last until the foreign societies cease to recognize the American upper-class's paper ownership interests.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  That's why you have to get out as soon as you can. The money in being a code monkey in the West is on borrowed time. The tried and true money is in management. Managing people always pays well.
  - 5y ago

pjmlp 5y ago

Consulting does work a lot with outsourcing, it doesn't matter if it is terrible, most companies aren't in the software sector. It only needs to be good enough to keep the lights on, and the occasional escalation to sort out any big issue is seen as business as usual.

lumost 5y ago

> Sure, for a few years you can coast on what the developers you laid off/fired built but cracks will start to show and you can't just slot in developers like RAM sticks. This is the key point, software is a creative field - and you ultimately aren't going to get more than maintenance/routine upgrades from an outsourced firm. They simply don't care enough to want to go beyond their contract. You aren't going to be able to get top-tier talent to work in your timezone if that means working a graveyard shift.

anonporridge 5y ago
The trick here as an ambitious MBA is to carefully estimate whether you can coast long enough that you get rewarded for successfully cutting costs, but are also able to jump ship before shit hits the fan. Leverage a series of short term wins/long term failures to rocket yourself up to the top.

1270018080 5y ago

All of the good foreign developers are in America making 10x more than they would be in their home country.