4 ms·

If what's described is true: a) Tons of money to be made b) Tons of unmet demand Why the outsourcing market isn't growing as much as it should? There are plen

by koide 14y ago

If what's described is true: a) Tons of money to be made b) Tons of unmet demand Why the outsourcing market isn't growing as much as it should? There are plenty of places with more than capable programmers which are usually paid in peanuts not only when compared with SV, but when compared to people in the same country. That smells like a niche waiting to be disrupted. He who solves the trust and quality perception and control issues, will become very rich.

mtrimpe 14y ago
The problem with outsourcing is not 'quality perception,' it's the actual quality. The good programmers around the world command good salaries, whether out-sourced or not. In the end it doesn't matter whether you're in India or the the US; there are just not that many great programmers around.
- koide 14y ago
  That's why I said quality perception and control. This is, making sure you are producing what's needed. As to the rest, I'm baffled. How can you even think it doesn't matter where you are? Different cultures value differently different jobs. For example, I know of places where programmers are not valued much and it doesn't matter how good you are, you'll not earn more than a corporate salesman. Maybe it doesn't matter for the top 0.5% who end up going to work for Google or Facebook anyway. But there are lots of jobs for merely above average programmers, which are very well compensated in the US, but not at all well elsewhere.
  - veemjeem 14y ago
    disrupting culture sounds hard. Software isn't a field students in china work towards because there just isn't as many jobs there as other fields. The pay is fairly mediocre so top students from universities aren't exactly dying to get into that field. It may take at least a generation or two to convince the masses that software engineering is just a good of a job as chemical engineering.
    - koide 14y ago
      The point is you don't need to disrupt that culture. That culture is in fact what would permit the idea to work. There are badly paid good programmers already in China and elsewhere. If you can manage to produce quality work and convince people to hire you consistently (big if, I know) in the high paying market, you can leverage the existing programming population oferring wages a lot higher.
dasil003 14y ago
There's a lot to be said for face time. Given an average contractor, if you bring him on site and meet with the team for 3 days a month, I bet the ROI easily doubles. Getting value out of outsourced workers is a skill more rare than programming itself.
- koide 14y ago
  And that's why it's a perfect niche for disruption: High barrier to entry, lots of money in the market. Yummy.
  - veemjeem 14y ago
    But usually that high barrier is erected by incumbent companies in that field, whereas the "incumbent" in this case is mindshare and perception. I'm not so sure a sole individual or company could change that easily... it's like when slavery was abolished, it still took the USA quite some time to treat african americans as equals.
imechura 14y ago
My personal observation has been that the difficulty and set backs in the corporate adoption of outsourcing have not been due to the lack of capable programmers. It has been associated with the lack of regular collaboration between the outsourcing resources and the customer. As a whole, this industry has not perfected the art of specification. An analysts with the ability to comprehensively specify software requirements is a scarcer resource than a programmer who can properly print a binary tree. The lack of adherence to proper standards surrounding specification is generally compensated by ongoing collaboration between development teams and stake holders (hence the wide adoption of SCRUM). Separating the two entities with geographical, cultural and language barriers causes a break down in collaboration and that allows the deficiencies in specification to cause the project to fail. I would argue that a bad team of coders with a water-tight set of requirements will have a greater chance of success than a team of rock stars with vague and incomplete requirements.
guard-of-terra 14y ago
"more than capable programmers which are usually paid in peanuts" Where does that happen? I have troubles imagining this.

by koide 14y ago

mtrimpe 14y ago

The problem with outsourcing is not 'quality perception,' it's the actual quality. The good programmers around the world command good salaries, whether out-sourced or not. In the end it doesn't matter whether you're in India or the the US; there are just not that many great programmers around.

koide 14y ago
That's why I said quality perception and control. This is, making sure you are producing what's needed. As to the rest, I'm baffled. How can you even think it doesn't matter where you are? Different cultures value differently different jobs. For example, I know of places where programmers are not valued much and it doesn't matter how good you are, you'll not earn more than a corporate salesman. Maybe it doesn't matter for the top 0.5% who end up going to work for Google or Facebook anyway. But there are lots of jobs for merely above average programmers, which are very well compensated in the US, but not at all well elsewhere.
- veemjeem 14y ago
  disrupting culture sounds hard. Software isn't a field students in china work towards because there just isn't as many jobs there as other fields. The pay is fairly mediocre so top students from universities aren't exactly dying to get into that field. It may take at least a generation or two to convince the masses that software engineering is just a good of a job as chemical engineering.
  - koide 14y ago
    The point is you don't need to disrupt that culture. That culture is in fact what would permit the idea to work. There are badly paid good programmers already in China and elsewhere. If you can manage to produce quality work and convince people to hire you consistently (big if, I know) in the high paying market, you can leverage the existing programming population oferring wages a lot higher.

dasil003 14y ago

There's a lot to be said for face time. Given an average contractor, if you bring him on site and meet with the team for 3 days a month, I bet the ROI easily doubles. Getting value out of outsourced workers is a skill more rare than programming itself.

koide 14y ago
And that's why it's a perfect niche for disruption: High barrier to entry, lots of money in the market. Yummy.
- veemjeem 14y ago
  But usually that high barrier is erected by incumbent companies in that field, whereas the "incumbent" in this case is mindshare and perception. I'm not so sure a sole individual or company could change that easily... it's like when slavery was abolished, it still took the USA quite some time to treat african americans as equals.

imechura 14y ago

My personal observation has been that the difficulty and set backs in the corporate adoption of outsourcing have not been due to the lack of capable programmers. It has been associated with the lack of regular collaboration between the outsourcing resources and the customer. As a whole, this industry has not perfected the art of specification. An analysts with the ability to comprehensively specify software requirements is a scarcer resource than a programmer who can properly print a binary tree. The lack of adherence to proper standards surrounding specification is generally compensated by ongoing collaboration between development teams and stake holders (hence the wide adoption of SCRUM). Separating the two entities with geographical, cultural and language barriers causes a break down in collaboration and that allows the deficiencies in specification to cause the project to fail. I would argue that a bad team of coders with a water-tight set of requirements will have a greater chance of success than a team of rock stars with vague and incomplete requirements.

guard-of-terra 14y ago

"more than capable programmers which are usually paid in peanuts" Where does that happen? I have troubles imagining this.