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Ask HN: Are developers in India highly over-rated?

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Re: Ask HN: Are developers in India highly over-rated?

#21

Indian developers are not over-rated. Infact noone outsources India because they think they think that Indian coders are geniuses. They know that Indian developers are mediocre but management believes that mediocre is "good enough" at half the price , and guess what , it might hurt your ego , but in many cases mediocre developers + long working hours can solve most problems that typical devs encounter. You just need…

Often what they leave behind is nearly unmanageable code that cost's 2x as much to maintain and support.

No problem, just double your outsourcing team!

Re: Ask HN: Are developers in India highly over-rated?

#22
There's some top talent in and from India, but they will be as hard to find or expensive to pay as anywhere else. It may have been slightly different in the past, but it settled quickly at a point where you get what you pay for. Developers below the top talent in India can often be worse than bad developers locally, between the distance, language, managerial and cultural differences you can end up with a mess that would have been easier to diverge away from with local developers. However, if you can manage that well it can work out and you may be able to build bigger teams over time.

Re: Ask HN: Are developers in India highly over-rated?

#23

Indian developers are not over-rated. Infact noone outsources India because they think they think that Indian coders are geniuses. They know that Indian developers are mediocre but management believes that mediocre is "good enough" at half the price , and guess what , it might hurt your ego , but in many cases mediocre developers + long working hours can solve most problems that typical devs encounter. You just need…

Often what they leave behind is nearly unmanageable code that cost's 2x as much to maintain and support.

Then you need to review the code once in a while and also put some code quality related clauses in the contract.

If you do that you'll find that outsourcing to India is actually not such a bad idea and guess what , we're cheap :D.

Re: Ask HN: Are developers in India highly over-rated?

#25
By whom?

Most Western engineers I have worked with don't think much of their Indian counterparts. While no single assessment will ever properly fit everyone in such a large group of people, the quip goes "the Chinese will do exactly what you tell them to do, but nothing else; the Indians will do exactly nothing you tell them to do but a whole lot besides." This seems about right to me, so I don't think anyone is being over- (or under-) rated. If you hand a project to India you will get something that mostly works, is three times as complex as it needs to be, took five times too long to produce, and is completely unmaintainable. Despite some very impressive individual results, the education system in India is atrocious, on the job education nonexistent, and technical leadership and independence completely lacking, so this result isn't surprising. Americans or Brits sent through the same system and given the same management would produce similar results.

By the people who decide that work should be done by Indian engineers instead of those in the company's home country? The answer is more complicated. Most corporate management is extremely short-sighted; the incentives of the role demand it. Their primary incentive (handed down by their superiors) is typically lowering home-country head count, average salary (and in the US, especially those oh-so-costly medical and insurance plans), and other coarse personnel cost metrics. By these metrics, Indian engineers are not overrated. By the metrics the company will actually be judged by the competitive marketplace, which include time to market, total development cost, and product quality, they are overrated. Managers who think about these things will conclude that the cost of Indian engineers relative to what they produce has been bid up beyond fair value; i.e., they're overrated. But few do.

Re: Ask HN: Are developers in India highly over-rated?

#26
post #22

There's some top talent in and from India, but they will be as hard to find or expensive to pay as anywhere else. It may have been slightly different in the past, but it settled quickly at a point where you get what you pay for. Developers below the top talent in India can often be worse than bad developers locally, between the distance, language, managerial and cultural differences you can end up with a mess that wo…

I think top talent competes globally so it's able to either move to where it makes more money or demand higher rates. It's the anonymous guy in the cube whose skills may range from incompetence to excellent, but you don't know what you're getting at first.

Re: Ask HN: Are developers in India highly over-rated?

#27

Indian developers are not over-rated. Infact noone outsources India because they think they think that Indian coders are geniuses. They know that Indian developers are mediocre but management believes that mediocre is "good enough" at half the price , and guess what , it might hurt your ego , but in many cases mediocre developers + long working hours can solve most problems that typical devs encounter. You just need…

Often what they leave behind is nearly unmanageable code that cost's 2x as much to maintain and support.

You are being too kind, generally it best to throw it away and start from scratch again.

Re: Ask HN: Are developers in India highly over-rated?

#28
Ok, here's the thing. Indian developers are not overrated. The developers that you are trying to hire might be overrated. Very good developers in India mostly work for big product companies or startups. Most good developers do not freelance. And coming to technology consulting companies like TCS, Infosys etc.., hire a lot of new college grads at cheap salaries who have no clue about the work and make them slog.

So, if you want good freelance developers it might be difficult to find good one in India. But, if you are a startup that gained some traction in the US or elsewhere and want to start an office in India, you'll find good developers if you pay well.

Re: Ask HN: Are developers in India highly over-rated?

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often what they leave behind is nearly unmanageable code that cost's 2x as much to maintain and support.

Then you need to review the code once in a while and also put some code quality related clauses in the contract. If you do that you'll find that outsourcing to India is actually not such a bad idea and guess what , we're cheap :D.

I have done both. The devil is in the details, they can meet some guidelines but wiggle out of others. As stated it becomes a game. As such it is imperative that you spend a lot of time coming up with the metrics you will use to determine quality. Be VERY wary of anything that has lines of code in it

Overall it has been my experience that you pay multiple offshore resources to get the output of 1 onshore resource. If you bring them from offshore to onshore their productivity does go up some. The caveat to that is they do have really good QA teams and I wouldn't hesitate to leverage them in that role.

Re: Ask HN: Are developers in India highly over-rated?

#30

Indian developers are not over-rated. Infact noone outsources India because they think they think that Indian coders are geniuses. They know that Indian developers are mediocre but management believes that mediocre is "good enough" at half the price , and guess what , it might hurt your ego , but in many cases mediocre developers + long working hours can solve most problems that typical devs encounter. You just need…

Often what they leave behind is nearly unmanageable code that cost's 2x as much to maintain and support.

Doesn't matter. Manager has saved costs on the project and looks good for it. They move on while a new manager handles the support/maintenance issues and the higher ups just become convinced that support/maintenance just happens to cost a whole lot of money.
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