Ask HN: Founders, what is the worst experience you had with developers? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Founders, what is the worst experience you had with developers?

#31

Post by icebraining » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

no1youknowz wrote: post #18

I have interacted with off-shore development teams from a specific country 3 times now. I'll say the country later. Every time the development team could not grasp what was required. You literally had to exchange 20 emails with them for each specific point. Of course, this just increased the length of time for scope and in all cases furthered the time of the project. Each stage of the application was over engineered…

That's par for the course when going for the cheapest bid, quality be damned, be it a local company or not. It's just that no local company in a richer country can compete on price, so the cheapest ones went away when globalization got going.

Most companies know one can't hire the cheapest job applicant, they try (more or less successfully) to vet them, yet somehow outsourcing companies are exempt. One wonders how much these managers actually want the project to succeed.

Re: Ask HN: Founders, what is the worst experience you had with developers?

#32

Post by redhale » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 9:14 PM UTC

thewizardofaus wrote: post #25

mullr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In every single time, management outsourced and took the bid from the lowest priced company. Turns out good engineers make good money. I've worked with some brilliant engineers from India-based consulting teams, and they were not cheap.

This is exactly right , I feel like a lot of problems mentioned in this thread are a result of hiring the cheapest engineer/developer/etc.

Yes, exactly. The problem is that for many companies that decide to outsource, the motivating factor is cost savings. "Why pay $80-100/hr for an Indian engineer when I can pay $20?"

And then six months down the road, "why are all our systems so shoddy?" "Why are our development cycles so long?"

As a consultant, I've seen this pattern so many times it's insane. And depressing... and for better or worse, lucrative.

Re: Ask HN: Founders, what is the worst experience you had with developers?

#33

Post by segmondy » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 9:14 PM UTC

thewizardofaus wrote: post #25

mullr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In every single time, management outsourced and took the bid from the lowest priced company. Turns out good engineers make good money. I've worked with some brilliant engineers from India-based consulting teams, and they were not cheap.

This is exactly right , I feel like a lot of problems mentioned in this thread are a result of hiring the cheapest engineer/developer/etc.

I don't buy it, easy to blame developers. Why not blame poor communication and specs?

Re: Ask HN: Founders, what is the worst experience you had with developers?

#34

Post by nemild » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 9:15 PM UTC

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #30

It's hard to know how to apply the appropriate 'grain of salt' when reading things like this thread. I worked for a small (~40 person) start-up before where there was rampant religious discrimination and inappropriate workplace behavior by executives, even the head of HR who functioned more like a culture gatekeeper to enforce the particular overt religious cultural aspects of the founder. When developers pushed back…

I disagree. Both sides can have issues, and it's not primarily the fault of "managers." You can see some issues that I list elsewhere in this thread.

The part I do agree with is that responsibility to address the issues often is in management.

I do wonder if every tribe thinks they're good, and it's the other side at fault? ... I think about this a lot in my media literacy work, where I explore the empathy gap:

https://www.nemil.com/s/part2-terrorism.html

https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media/blob/master/README....

Re: Ask HN: Founders, what is the worst experience you had with developers?

#35

Post by chrisper » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 9:16 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #6

ajspencer wrote: post #4

Could someone explain to me why this question has gotten so many upvotes? Are bad experiences with developers common? My impression is that most of the time perceived bad experiences with developers comes from being a bad manager.

No developers are often terrible. Source: developer

I can't tell if there is a comma missing or you really mean that noone is terrible?

Re: Ask HN: Founders, what is the worst experience you had with developers?

#36

Post by frozenport » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 9:16 PM UTC

We need a tool to convert a certain format to html, work flow required OCR and a few manual inspection items. An Indian outsourcing company took 2 months to finally setup the workflow. They'd be paid an initial fee, and every time we sent them a batch of file. They would stall on emails claiming national holidays. Memorable events included me needing to go through two levels of hierarchy before I was able to speak to a developer who knew how to change CSS or rather would change it.

This is when I realized that Indian society is fuck. Whatever modicum of knowledge one of them processes they jealously guard from their peers. It seems the kind of "better then tho" caste system is preserved in the knowledge economy. To an outside observer this knowledge was what a 18 kid with any motivation could learn.

I hired a Canadian (Also Indian) contractor to work with me to fully automate the system. We got done in 2 weeks and collected a substantial bonus. Our code is still in use a decade later.

Re: Ask HN: Founders, what is the worst experience you had with developers?

#37

Post by sonnyblarney » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

ajspencer wrote: post #4

Could someone explain to me why this question has gotten so many upvotes? Are bad experiences with developers common? My impression is that most of the time perceived bad experiences with developers comes from being a bad manager.

Most devs have no management experience and it's like trying to describe what 'drunk or high' means to someone who has never had a drink or smoked up.

It's trivially easy to 'blame management'.

It's often the case, but it's often not either.

Re: Ask HN: Founders, what is the worst experience you had with developers?

#38

Post by collyw » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 9:21 PM UTC

travelbuffoon wrote: post #2

Mine wanted to get paid. Can you imagine it? Building the best product ever just wasn't enough. P45's all round and the issue was solved, permanently.

So you didn't pay them?

Re: Ask HN: Founders, what is the worst experience you had with developers?

#39

Post by sudshekhar » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 9:22 PM UTC

no1youknowz wrote: post #18

I have interacted with off-shore development teams from a specific country 3 times now. I'll say the country later. Every time the development team could not grasp what was required. You literally had to exchange 20 emails with them for each specific point. Of course, this just increased the length of time for scope and in all cases furthered the time of the project. Each stage of the application was over engineered…

As several people have mentioned, quality doesn't come cheap.

At the same time, its interesting how broken this ecosystem is (despite the presence of several players vetting these 'companies').

My best suggestion: talk to Indian devs you know (and respect) and ask them for referrals of people back home.

Re: Ask HN: Founders, what is the worst experience you had with developers?

#40

Post by oldboyFX » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 9:25 PM UTC

no1youknowz wrote: post #18

I have interacted with off-shore development teams from a specific country 3 times now. I'll say the country later. Every time the development team could not grasp what was required. You literally had to exchange 20 emails with them for each specific point. Of course, this just increased the length of time for scope and in all cases furthered the time of the project. Each stage of the application was over engineered…

> In every single time, management outsourced and took the bid from the lowest priced company.

What was the initial bid of the Indian company that ended up costing $6 million dollars?

Stories like these make my blood boil. And to be fair it's not just Indian companies. There are plenty of EU/US based dev teams that consistently fail to deliver and the company still keeps paying them.

I wonder if management just can't deal with sunken costs or if someone is trying to steal money from their own company by making under-the-table deals with the development team.

I've had a couple of clients that dealt with "cheap" teams and wasted years of their life trying to get a product up and running. Taking them on felt like rescuing abused puppies from a shelter. Their eyes would light up every time they witnessed a working feature, no matter how simple it was.