The best developers I've worked with, in my career, were all from contracting firms. (Distillery, Ralabs, EPAM.) First thing: If you outright fire your contrac

The best developers I've worked with, in my career, were all from contracting firms. (Distillery, Ralabs, EPAM.) First thing: If you outright fire your contracting firm, you'll loose all of their knowledge. This could harm your company more than you realize, depending on how much your business relies on their knowledge of the code and your processes. What I would do is have some employees who work for you, who are experts and "in charge." They should be experienced in hiring and screening, and should be able to give you an honest assessment of your code base's maintainability. At that point you can decide, with your expert employees, how much to outsource with your current firm, how much to outsource with a new firm, how much to insource, and most importantly, what you are doing wrong in your relationship with your developers. The thing is, software development can fail for many reasons, and a lot of them have more to do with you than your vendor. You might have unrealistic expectations, you might need to work more closely with your contractors, or your contractors might be "warm bodies punching a clock." It's hard to know unless you have people you can trust hands-on.