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A friend of mine - against my loud objections - hired some Pakistani offshore group to build an app for him around 2015 or so. $15k "estimate" but it was all ti

by pc86 2y ago

A friend of mine - against my loud objections - hired some Pakistani offshore group to build an app for him around 2015 or so. $15k "estimate" but it was all time & materials not flat rate. They had an "office" with a "CEO" in NYC but no staff, just a PO Box. The whole thing was super fishy and I said as much but he didn't care because they were cheap. Fast forward nearly 18 months into the 6 month contract, and about $40k later, there is no working app and the "CEO" says "well I would love to give you some of your money back but the contract has expired so I am no longer able to do that, we could sign another one for $20k to finish if you'd like." I've worked with probably a dozen offshoring companies in my life in one way or another and every single one of them has been deceitful to the point of being fraudulent, and puts out some of the worst code you have ever seen. I tell everyone considering it that if you can afford it, you're getting scammed in one way or another. You're better off going with a US-based firm that guarantees you'll get American workers who are physically in the US working on your product. I'd rather hire Deloitte or Accenture for 10x the price - I know they offshore a ton but you'll at least have avenues to get your money back if they don't deliver.

erikerikson 2y ago
<cough>Thoughtworks</cough>
- spitfire 2y ago
  Expand on the a little please. I’d like to know the background.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - erikerikson 2y ago
    [Apologies: I mistook the context with my original reply and just realized that] GP suggested Deloitte and Accenture. They do offer technical consulting services but really as an afterthought specializing in accounting and business consulting. Thoughtworks (home to Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, Zhamak Dehghani and so many more) is far more savvy, had been a far better presence in the industry, and has more highly skilled people. I am a bit partial but with reason.
    - spitfire 2y ago
      Oh okay. I thought you had something negative to say about thoughtworks. I’ve known a few people who worked there and thought there was some messy business i didn’t know about.
      - erikerikson 2y ago
        TL;DR: I recommend it as a workplace and service provider. In balance, I have absolutely nothing negative to say; I loved working there and felt great about the work we did for others. Consultancies and their clients can be messy but it was a wonderful place to overwork (relative to my personal capacities). The technologists were top notch, people cared to do good work and deliver real business value, and the ambient emotional intelligence was soothingly glorious.
    - itronitron 2y ago
      so savvy that they coined the term "Dependency Injection" as some magical software architectural pattern...
    - bsder 2y ago
      Your semi-regular reminder that Fowler and Beck were part of the brain trust involved with the gigantic disaster that was the "Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Comprehensive_Compensation_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Comprehensive_Compens...
scarface_74 2y ago
Almost none of the types of companies you are referring to use US staff for the grunt work. They may have sales, management and leads in the US. But even the major firms like Deloitte and Accenture use off shore labor for the most part. You’re not going to want to pay the rates that they will charge for their best of the best hands on developers based in the US and if they did start staffing lots of devs in the US, they wouldn’t be price competitive. I have worked at AWS Professional Service (full time direct hire) and now work at a third party consulting company as a “staff consultant”. Only a few large and/or well funded companies (and government agencies pre-DOGE) were/are willing to pay the rates that the companies charge to have me on a project. Even then, they lean on me far more for leadership and strategy than hands on keyboard
Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
Reminds me of one of my favorite stories on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/2xjrdy/when_met_with_my_suggestion_to_use_git_on_his/cp0wxg2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/2xjrdy/whe... tl;dr - Company CTO hires off-shore dev consultant to write an app, the code is horrendously bad, doesn't even fulfill requirements, and has to be thrown out because it's such a bug-ridden mess. Company scrambles to produce the app internally and succeeds. Later, they need to launch a new product, CTO decides to rehire the same off-shore consultant.
- pc86 2y ago
  Honestly at the CTO level even making that first hire is borderline fireable depending on how bad it was. Second time is very quickly approaching "what salary/bonus/options/401k match can we claw back because this is professional negligence" territory.
SoftTalker 2y ago
Right because Deloitte and Accenture engagements have no history of running wildly over projections on time or budget. They don't do $15k app projects anyway.
torginus 2y ago
Well, speaking anecdotally, I personally know some rather excellent East Euro mobile devs who could probably build anything (within reason) for $60k-$80k a year, and do it rather well. (Not advertising anyone's services, just mentioning the rates good devs work for around here).
- bluGill 2y ago
  They exist for sure. They are not working for the out sources because they have found someone willing to pay them what they are really worth - this might be a lot less than they could make in the US, but a lot more than they can make from the cheap outsourceers. You can find great offshore labor, but you need to hire someone who knows the country to manage those people as not everyone is great. You also need to be willing to pay the great people.

by pc86 2y ago

erikerikson 2y ago

<cough>Thoughtworks</cough>

spitfire 2y ago
Expand on the a little please. I’d like to know the background.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- erikerikson 2y ago
  [Apologies: I mistook the context with my original reply and just realized that] GP suggested Deloitte and Accenture. They do offer technical consulting services but really as an afterthought specializing in accounting and business consulting. Thoughtworks (home to Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, Zhamak Dehghani and so many more) is far more savvy, had been a far better presence in the industry, and has more highly skilled people. I am a bit partial but with reason.
  - spitfire 2y ago
    Oh okay. I thought you had something negative to say about thoughtworks. I’ve known a few people who worked there and thought there was some messy business i didn’t know about.
    - erikerikson 2y ago
      TL;DR: I recommend it as a workplace and service provider. In balance, I have absolutely nothing negative to say; I loved working there and felt great about the work we did for others. Consultancies and their clients can be messy but it was a wonderful place to overwork (relative to my personal capacities). The technologists were top notch, people cared to do good work and deliver real business value, and the ambient emotional intelligence was soothingly glorious.
  - itronitron 2y ago
    so savvy that they coined the term "Dependency Injection" as some magical software architectural pattern...
  - bsder 2y ago
    Your semi-regular reminder that Fowler and Beck were part of the brain trust involved with the gigantic disaster that was the "Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Comprehensive_Compensation_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Comprehensive_Compens...

scarface_74 2y ago

Almost none of the types of companies you are referring to use US staff for the grunt work. They may have sales, management and leads in the US. But even the major firms like Deloitte and Accenture use off shore labor for the most part. You’re not going to want to pay the rates that they will charge for their best of the best hands on developers based in the US and if they did start staffing lots of devs in the US, they wouldn’t be price competitive. I have worked at AWS Professional Service (full time direct hire) and now work at a third party consulting company as a “staff consultant”. Only a few large and/or well funded companies (and government agencies pre-DOGE) were/are willing to pay the rates that the companies charge to have me on a project. Even then, they lean on me far more for leadership and strategy than hands on keyboard

Sohcahtoa82 2y ago

Reminds me of one of my favorite stories on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/2xjrdy/when_met_with_my_suggestion_to_use_git_on_his/cp0wxg2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/2xjrdy/whe... tl;dr - Company CTO hires off-shore dev consultant to write an app, the code is horrendously bad, doesn't even fulfill requirements, and has to be thrown out because it's such a bug-ridden mess. Company scrambles to produce the app internally and succeeds. Later, they need to launch a new product, CTO decides to rehire the same off-shore consultant.

pc86 2y ago
Honestly at the CTO level even making that first hire is borderline fireable depending on how bad it was. Second time is very quickly approaching "what salary/bonus/options/401k match can we claw back because this is professional negligence" territory.

SoftTalker 2y ago

Right because Deloitte and Accenture engagements have no history of running wildly over projections on time or budget. They don't do $15k app projects anyway.

torginus 2y ago

Well, speaking anecdotally, I personally know some rather excellent East Euro mobile devs who could probably build anything (within reason) for $60k-$80k a year, and do it rather well. (Not advertising anyone's services, just mentioning the rates good devs work for around here).

bluGill 2y ago
They exist for sure. They are not working for the out sources because they have found someone willing to pay them what they are really worth - this might be a lot less than they could make in the US, but a lot more than they can make from the cheap outsourceers. You can find great offshore labor, but you need to hire someone who knows the country to manage those people as not everyone is great. You also need to be willing to pay the great people.