51–60 of 121 posts
Working with vendors is logical for big projects but an obstruction for small projects. If we eliminate the middleman, outsourcers would pay less and developers would be paid more. There'd be less bureaucracy. There'd be greater loyalty.
I hope there was an easier way for outsourcers and developers to find each other.
One thing that jumped out to me reading the article was the author’s (or the organization’s) aversion to writing requirement spec (“detailed documentation”). That sounded very worrisome particularly considering the fact that the development was for a domain like that of Pharma, where rules & regulations shadows heavily on what and how things are done. I have some experience in developing software products for Pharma…
The process of writing software involves some interpretation and making good small-scale design decisions. Think of things like checking for buffer overflows and error handling. If you completely specify how this is handled everywhere you've practically written the software already. One trivial and silly real-world example: I'm currently working on a C codebase with a few developers in India. Sometime before I starte…
Often when I meet a programmer, I can tell if they are genuinely interested in programming, or just happen to be a programmer because of circumstances or because it's what they decided to do to make money. The latter when writing code for you would just want to somehow meet the specifications and head off for the next lunch. They would be the first ones to complain about their job on social networks. As sad as it is for them, you really don't want to hire them if your aim is to build high quality products.
There are still a lot of good, capable developers in India, available for hire and at affordable rates. You just need a good process to find them and filter out those without a genuine passion for writing code or for building products. Hiring random people without a thorough selection process is always a bad idea, no matter which country you hire from.
"But conversely, the Microsoft stack that I worked in and we were increasingly unifying around in Pfizer was simply much harder to find competence in" That's probably because the developers that are strong in Microsoft stack were already out of the country most likely pirated by companies in Singapore or in other parts of the world. Majors banks in Singapore had been pirating IT people in Philippines from QA to Proje…
Nice article and on the spot. There is a difference between offshoring and cheap-shoring (i.e what I call offshoring at very low costs). Most of the bad experiences you get from India are a result of cheap-shoring. You get what you pay for. Cheapshoring undervalues good engineers and overvalues a lot of bad engineers. I have seen this for almost 15 years (from the Indian side), and I don't like it. While some people…
$60k puts you in the same order of magnitude as other western countries: E.g. ~$65k gets you a senior developer in Berlin (=€60k) and similarly in Canada (=90k CAD), so a lot more competition in that bracket.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
$60k puts you in the same order of magnitude as other western countries: E.g. ~$65k gets you a senior developer in Berlin (=€60k) and similarly in Canada (=90k CAD), so a lot more competition in that bracket.
I'd say good programmers are relatively underpaid in Western Europe compared to the rest of the globe.
Nice article and on the spot. There is a difference between offshoring and cheap-shoring (i.e what I call offshoring at very low costs). Most of the bad experiences you get from India are a result of cheap-shoring. You get what you pay for. Cheapshoring undervalues good engineers and overvalues a lot of bad engineers. I have seen this for almost 15 years (from the Indian side), and I don't like it. While some people…
There's two sides to that coin though - these companies and other cheap-shorers, as crappy as they may be, provide better employment opportunities than most other available ones to people in smaller cities and villages. I've known many such people, and most of them see these BPO/KPO type jobs similar to how Americans see "crappy" McDonalds burger flipping jobs - a way to sustain themselves and keep employed, while looking for better more suitable opportunities. (And just like with the McDonalds burger flippers and Walmart cashiers, some get out, some choose to remain, and some get stuck in the same place "for just a few more months" forever.)
I suspect this is also the reason for the high churn rate that the author mentions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
$60k puts you in the same order of magnitude as other western countries: E.g. ~$65k gets you a senior developer in Berlin (=€60k) and similarly in Canada (=90k CAD), so a lot more competition in that bracket.
I'd say good programmers are relatively underpaid in Western Europe compared to the rest of the globe.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd say good programmers are relatively underpaid in Western Europe compared to the rest of the globe.
For what I can tell, London has starting salaries in the £30-40k range which compared to the $60-100k in the valley seems absurd, specially as cost of living in London is not that much different.
I think this has to do with UK culturally not valuing engineers as much compared to Germany.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The process of writing software involves some interpretation and making good small-scale design decisions. Think of things like checking for buffer overflows and error handling. If you completely specify how this is handled everywhere you've practically written the software already. One trivial and silly real-world example: I'm currently working on a C codebase with a few developers in India. Sometime before I starte…
Some of these examples made me smile. But this cannot be taken as a representative of all developers in India. I am an Indian developer, and have met several very smart people. Most of them are presently working for big US companies like Google or Adobe. Often when I meet a programmer, I can tell if they are genuinely interested in programming, or just happen to be a programmer because of circumstances or because it'…
the Philippines: "one of the starkest patterns I saw outsourcing there was their strong affinity to PHP. This isn't intended to be a derogatory... the LAMP stack is really appealing to folks who don't have much cash... the Microsoft stack... was simply much harder to find competence in. You'd go to a vendor and their default position was 'Yeah, we can do that in PHP and MySQL'"
I see some schools switching to Python as an introduction course. But generally, the pace at which the educational system move to update their curriculum is glacial. Heck, I even see some schools still teaching VB6!