Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

aymeric.gaurat.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 117 posts

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#101

Post by Evernoob »

geon wrote: post #99
maratd wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote Worker != Outsourced Worker. I didn't touch on the many reasons why, but I would certainly entertain the idea of hiring somebody remotely ... but never remotely on the other side of the planet. > Even if your assertion is true, $60 is dirt cheap. 60 x 8 x 5 x 52 = 124,800 That's a funny definition of dirt cheap. > While it is possible to find local talent, the pool of good developers is limited Not in a major…

>> Personally I'm on call 24/7. > Except when you're sleeping? 24/7 is by definition when you're sleeping. As in "call me when I'm asleep, and I'll get up and take care of your emergency".

No vacations? Family time? Socialising? You never drink? Ever??

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#102

Post by bad_user »

maratd wrote: post #94
bad_user wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work remotely, and I have to disagree with your points: So technically, he billed at $60 an hour Remote developers often do not have the same benefits as local employees. They do not have the same protections found in employment contracts, they do not have healthcare benefits, they must also buy their own hardware and office equipment and other requirements. Not to mention that if the work is contract-based, they m…

Remote Worker != Outsourced Worker. I didn't touch on the many reasons why, but I would certainly entertain the idea of hiring somebody remotely ... but never remotely on the other side of the planet. > Even if your assertion is true, $60 is dirt cheap. 60 x 8 x 5 x 52 = 124,800 That's a funny definition of dirt cheap. > While it is possible to find local talent, the pool of good developers is limited Not in a major…

    60 x 8 x 5 x 52 = 124,800
    That's a funny definition of dirt cheap.
No, it's perfectly accurate, unless you think that the cost of a developer is measured by his net revenue only.

I don't know the tax policies of every country, but the real cost of a developer will be at least twice his net revenue.

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#103

Post by bad_user »

Evernoob wrote: post #101
geon wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Personally I'm on call 24/7. > Except when you're sleeping? 24/7 is by definition when you're sleeping. As in "call me when I'm asleep, and I'll get up and take care of your emergency".

No vacations? Family time? Socialising? You never drink? Ever??

I'm the one that made that comment. I do take lots of vacations and have a really healthy life outside of work. And I sleep well at night too.

But I always have a 3G-enabled phone near me and I always keep a laptop around. I also have monitoring in place that alerts me in case shit happens before my managers even notice.

This is not about being available 24/7, but about being available when needed. That's in case of emergencies, which by definition are exceptional.

Also, if your customers are suffering because of a problem, good customer service means waking up and fixing the problem at 00:00, regardless of your location.

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#104

Post by aangjie »

balloot wrote: post #73
oz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. However: >author of this post refers to himself as a developer. It doesn't matter what he calls himself. If you can pass FizzBUzz, you're a developer. Maybe not a John Carmack, but a developer nonetheless. There is no sacred law written on tablets of stone and handed down from volcanic mountains that states "Developers who found startups must code or face eternal damnation." Rather, there is a holy precept…

Again, you are repeating this idea that all these other non-coding skills can be mastered on a whim. If you truly need an MBA type doing MBA things for your company, then you should go get one. Lord knows there's a zillion of them out there, almost all of which have a better resume than "I read MBA for dummies". Or to put this differently. If I was working for some larger company as a developer, and I went to managem…

Others have put this differently. But my experience working at a startup before and watching both the founder and marketing manager tells me there's a difference in startups. Atleast the one i was at. The founder had a vision that was pretty impossible to transfer to someone with all the nuances and subtle differences. And when someone(experienced too) else was marketing, he missed out/dropped out all those subtle differences, and was just practicing his Always Be closing principle. Maybe all startups don't have the same quality/problem. Maybe some startups are very fine calculated risks, that can and do manage to transfer/communicate their vision easily.

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#105

Post by aangjie »

balloot wrote: post #69
stonemetal wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter what X and Y are, that's just the wrong way to solve that problem. I don't know, If I can't do Y how am I going to hire an A player at the Y game. Being good at X means I can evaluate others in skill X.

OK, but here are your outcomes if you are good at X and need X and Y: You do X, hire Y - You have one skilled person, one question mark. You do Y, hire X - You have one unskilled person, one question mark. Seems pretty simple to me that the first is better. I suppose that you could make the argument that Y may be easy to pick up, but if that's the case it should be all the easier to just hire someone else with a prov…

Just to elaborate what i think stonemetal's point is that. You are good at X. you hire someone to do X. prob. of X being useless <<< prob. of y being useless(if you don't know y and hire for Y)

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#106

Post by hef19898 »

nlh wrote: post #21

I'll share a similar (positive) experience I had a few years ago. I'm not quite what I'd call a developer, but I'm a company founder who's "code savvy". I made the decision to outsource the development of a moderately big PHP project a few years ago -- I went through a LOT of profiles on oDesk and finally settled on a guy (who billed about $30/hr, which was on the high end for non-US guys on oDesk). He was _terrific_…

From my personal experience, the stigma outsourcing carries is not per se due to outsourcing itself. I work in a non-tech company and work a lot with our internal IT on both internal and external developments. And one thing they have in common is that the actual testing is done once the development is done. And there I don't see any difference between internal and external dev.

What is sure on the other hand is that if dev is outsourced, and I mean like in we buy it from someone who has some code crunchers on the other side of earth with a liason (again subcontracted) aat our place, is that internal developers have some acquired knowledge of processes and the business.

My personal opinion is, if you find some way to conduct tests and reviews during the development, your product will be less-bug ridden, more userfriendly and ready faster. And if you can pull this, it doesn't matter who does the development. Again, time and distance play a role, but that's not exclusive to outsourcing.

What non-tech companies usually do on the other hand is providing some specs, give them to some external big-name, hope everything goes fine and then conduct some final tests under high time pressure two weeks before go live. And when that doesn't work, they blame outsourcing while it's actually the process that is broken.

But that's actually good news for all the start-ups out there!

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#107

Post by kuroir »

maratd wrote: post #94
bad_user wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work remotely, and I have to disagree with your points: So technically, he billed at $60 an hour Remote developers often do not have the same benefits as local employees. They do not have the same protections found in employment contracts, they do not have healthcare benefits, they must also buy their own hardware and office equipment and other requirements. Not to mention that if the work is contract-based, they m…

Remote Worker != Outsourced Worker. I didn't touch on the many reasons why, but I would certainly entertain the idea of hiring somebody remotely ... but never remotely on the other side of the planet. > Even if your assertion is true, $60 is dirt cheap. 60 x 8 x 5 x 52 = 124,800 That's a funny definition of dirt cheap. > While it is possible to find local talent, the pool of good developers is limited Not in a major…

> Except when you're sleeping? And if your time zone = my business hours, that's a problem.

When I work with a company that it's on another timezone. I change my timezone myself to be awake and working when everyone else is working in the office. Even if it means I need to work from 10pm through 6 am.

I'm a remote worker that usually works with companies from the other side of the world and usually travels once or twice a year to do in-location jobs. But that's only when they pay is good enough / I'm interested in working with the people that hire me.

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#108

Post by pjmlp »

trafnar wrote: post #98
pjmlp wrote: post #88

Being forced to work on a big consultancy company, specialized in outsourcing, makes me sad reading this type of blogs. If you want to outsource development, at least keep it inside your country. Outsourcing to countries were cheap work and poor working conditions rule, just leads to exploitation of people. Sadly very few, get to improve their life conditions. I for one, wouldn't like to have my company's success tie…

Do you think these foreign workers would be better off without these programming jobs available to them?

I really don't know.

Sure these programming jobs open doors to them, even if they have to work sometimes 12 hours a day, with no vacations, no available compensations, no ability to have an union defending them, and earning a lot less than the companies that explore them should pay as a salary.

On the other hand lots of people are not able to get a job, because they just work 8h a day, have vacation rights, insurance, and an union that defends workers from corporation interests. Not to forget what is very important to business, they cost 5x the "price" of poor workers.

My dream is that the work conditions in poor countries improve to the point that exploring poor countries workers is no longer viable.

This is the point of view from someone that works in the off-shoring industry.

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#109

Post by nodrama »

maratd wrote: post #36
nlh wrote: post #21

I'll share a similar (positive) experience I had a few years ago. I'm not quite what I'd call a developer, but I'm a company founder who's "code savvy". I made the decision to outsource the development of a moderately big PHP project a few years ago -- I went through a LOT of profiles on oDesk and finally settled on a guy (who billed about $30/hr, which was on the high end for non-US guys on oDesk). He was _terrific_…

> My only frustrations were things that, unfortunately, can happen with outsourced work -- timing. My guy was an A developer, but a B/C time manager. So the project took about 2x as long as it should have. So technically, he billed at $60 an hour. And that is the issue with outsourcing. A local guy in your office might have gotten things done in half the time and cost you just as much. There is another issue with tim…

"So technically, he billed at $60 an hour"

He billed $30 an hour. He was an A developer. If you hire locally it doesn't mean you will get an A time manager too.

Also, just because you feel a project must be done in x weeks it doesn't mean you are right. If you need a lot of custom work, then nobody knows for sure how long it takes until somebody actually does the work. If you want something standard (wordpress installation) then it will be delivered in time.

Re: I am a developer, yet I outsource the development of my startup

#110

Post by dspillett »

maratd wrote: post #36
nlh wrote: post #21

I'll share a similar (positive) experience I had a few years ago. I'm not quite what I'd call a developer, but I'm a company founder who's "code savvy". I made the decision to outsource the development of a moderately big PHP project a few years ago -- I went through a LOT of profiles on oDesk and finally settled on a guy (who billed about $30/hr, which was on the high end for non-US guys on oDesk). He was _terrific_…

> My only frustrations were things that, unfortunately, can happen with outsourced work -- timing. My guy was an A developer, but a B/C time manager. So the project took about 2x as long as it should have. So technically, he billed at $60 an hour. And that is the issue with outsourcing. A local guy in your office might have gotten things done in half the time and cost you just as much. There is another issue with tim…

> So technically, he billed at $60 an hour. And that is the issue with outsourcing.

I would disagree with that as a general point and certainly as it being something specific to outsourcing.

Bad time management seems to be a common trait in technical people (I know it is one of my key failings) both in terms of simple punctually and in terms of estimating time/effort requirements - this is something you will run into even with a local developer (though the issue will likely be more visible and so perhaps caught and mitigated earlier) and this is why project managers and such exist. It is a different mind-set sometimes.

Also, almost all software projects are not well estimated. Features are missed from the initial spec, testing time is not fully accounted for, "last minunte" revisions are made as issues and new ideas come up during the development time (unless a full spec freeze is insisted upon), and so forth. A project taking twice as long (wall-clock time or man-hours time) as originally expected is not all that unusual.

The PP seems perfectly happy with the work done and the time/effort/cost it took, so I assume there is no accusation of swinging the lead or the underestimating being something that was due to general incompetence.

Outsourcing can work very well for some projects, particularly smallish ones, but you need to be very careful to manage things appropriately or the costs can quickly run away from a manageable place.

Post reply on HN