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Outsourcing is "hard" (and usually fails) because usually, the process is performed by a middle manager who (a) is trying to optimize for cost, which hurts qual
by michaelochurch 12y ago
Outsourcing is "hard" (and usually fails) because usually, the process is performed by a middle manager who (a) is trying to optimize for cost, which hurts quality and is expensive in the long run, and (b) doesn't have the technical talent and therefore can't recognize it. In any country, the bottom of the barrel is going to be bad. But if you don't have the ability to pick talented people and others in the market do, you end up getting hurt by adverse selection. Then, outsourcing becomes really expensive.
Painting Bob as a slacker doesn't tell the whole story. He had to set up his own business. At least while he was ramping up, he had to hire, fire, train, and check the work. At the same time, he had to deal with inconveniences caused by time zones, and cover his tracks. Maybe he slacked once it was established and he could coast, but it's not easy to set up a business like that.
To win at the outsourcing game, you need to (a) pay well, so that people care, and (b) pick great people, because paying incompetent people well doesn't do anything. Going overseas might make (a) easier, but it doesn't make (b) less hard.
- thaumasiotes 12y agoI don't intend to paint him as a slacker at all. I respect that what he did took a lot of effort to establish, but I doubt he did a lot of hiring and firing himself -- the article I read on this guy said he employed an existing chinese consulting company. What I'm assuming is that he paid that company enough to engage several engineers at once, which means I'm not surprised that "his" output was considered especially impressive. I think the greatest obstacle to retaining chinese engineers is actually (c) communication across the language barrier.
- opendais 12y agoI suspect at the start he would have done code reviews because otherwise he couldn't know if the other party [the consulting firm] was a competent entity. I'm sure once he figured out their level of competence and how far he could trust their agency [e.g. How much direction they needed to succeed], I suspect that is really when the slacking started. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the second or third consulting company he had tried. Honestly, I doubt that process took more than 3-6 months. Do you find most Chinese programmers don't know written English?
- thaumasiotes 12y agoAll (recent) chinese people are supposed to know English (it's a mandatory subject at all levels of schooling), but fluency levels vary widely. It's generally not a big focus for engineers. At the startup I worked at last year, the founders had decent english and the employees knew almost nothing. The college students I know can communicate at an acceptable level, but (a) they are still highly prone to misunderstandings unless I make the effort to use simple phrasing and (b) there's a huge selection bias in which people I'm on speaking terms with. I do find that for almost all the chinese people I know, it's more effective for me to communicate with them in written chinese (but, sadly, spoken english, as my spoken chinese is appalling). So summing up... there might be a decent population of chinese programmers who can communicate in written english, but there's a much, much larger population that can't.
- opendais 12y agoFair enough. :) I guess the much, much larger population is going to make less money if they do outsourced/consulting time work since they have to deal with a middleman because of it [who will take a cut and do project management/sales].
- thaumasiotes 12y agoAlso, this may sound weird, but jobs speaking english can pay better than programming jobs, which will cut down on the number of english-speaking programmers.
- opendais 12y agoThat sounds very weird but different job markets I suppose. Why do you think that is?
- thaumasiotes 12y agoJobs speaking english involve serving english-speaking foreigners, who have money.