4 ms·

Anecdotally, I only keep hearing horror stories of Indian outsourced dev work. Yet Indian outsourcing companies continue to show record profits and revenue eve

• ushakov 4y ago
  they continue getting fat contracts for blaming rights
• mschuster91 4y ago
  > Why do they continue getting fat contracts even if the general consensus is that it doesn’t work out well? Because usually even the sum of a "fat contract" + cost of dealing with issues is lower than the amount of money saved by outsourcing, or at the very least the amount of money spent on dealing with issues is part of the general company "administrative/dealing with bullshit overhead" estimate and so doesn't show up on the balance sheet anywhere.
• addicted 4y ago
  Because outsourcing anything sucks, whether to India or within the U.S. The only reason you don’t hear horror stories about outsourcing to the US is because no one does that since there is no reason to. Most companies that are offshoring to India are doing really well (which is almost every major IT company). The difference is that they aren’t “outsourcing”. They’re simply developing teams there that work in collaboration with and using the same principles as their teams in the US. As long as you offshore in a way that keeps incentives aligned (which is rarely the case with outsourcing), you will probably do equally well.
  • aledalgrande 4y ago
    I tend to agree with this. I remember seeing outsourced work done by a Canadian consultancy for a Canadian startup, where in the contract it was required to write passing tests: the tests where testing nothing and were tautologies, so of course always passing.
• GnarfGnarf 4y ago
  I'm guessing there are many tiers of quality and reliability in Indian consulting companies. The good ones are loaded with work, don't need to advertise, and are found by their customers through word of mouth. Or else will only talk to big clients. The shady ones are easier to find, coast on the reputation created by their better competitors, and don't deliver anywhere near the quality.
• darkerside 4y ago
  Because people don't post about consistently and successfully run outsourced projects on hacker news
• LgWoodenBadger 4y ago
  Bakshish. On-shore Indians in appropriate positions getting kickbacks for “selecting” a vendor they have a relationship with.
• akhmatova 4y ago
  Why do they continue getting fat contracts even if the general consensus is that it doesn’t work out well? Same reason McDonald's, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell continue to earn tens of billions in profits each year. Despite the fact that even their most loyal customers surely know (on some level) that their product is barely edible slop, and is probably shortening their expected life span with each and every bite.
• AdrianB1 4y ago
  The record profits are because they charge north of $60,000 for developers they pay less than $10,000 per year. The biggest winner of outsourcing is the outsourcing companies, the other one is the management doing outsourcing, cashing in bonuses and running away on time.
• ethbr0 4y ago
  A lack of proper skip level management at all levels. C* / VP is the one looking at the budget and deciding out-sourcing makes sense. The problems with out-sourcing results are technical and detailed and only obvious to those at the other end of the reporting chain. To a C* / VP, they see "Weird, my projects keep missing their schedules for no discernable reason." To a developer, they see "This code is obvious shit and devs are missing basic hygiene practices." There's no link from the latter to the former. And so out-sourcing continues.