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Analysis of dev agencies with hourly rates, team size and tech stack

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Re: Analysis of dev agencies with hourly rates, team size and tech stack

#51

Post by yourapostasy »

tootie wrote: post #40
sacks2k wrote: post #31

I oversee the hiring of dev shops for a mid-sized company in the US and the rates for e-commerce/web development are all in the $120-$150/hour range. The funny thing is that some of these companies outsourced to the Ukraine and India and the rates didn't change. I would have thought that we would at least see some of the cost savings. Both companies that outsourced ended up being complete disasters (we are still clea…

Are these freelancer rates or bill rates to clients? Usually there's at least a 20% margin added to bill rates by agencies.

In this kind of discussion context, typically the OP's rates are the bill rates to clients (the OP's company). I normally see the smaller agencies clear 40-50% margin, and the big names are clearing 50-80%, so I wouldn't be surprised if those agencies in Ukraine and India were paying their teams in the $60-75 per hour USD range at most, which is considered really good in those parts of the world.

Re: Analysis of dev agencies with hourly rates, team size and tech stack

#54

Post by joshgachnang »

chrismorgan wrote: post #44

Something really, really annoying about this site: it uses automatically-progressing carousels that cause content reflow below them in the page. I encounter this sort of thing so often , and it’s really, really bad. Positively awful . Super disconcerting. In most cases like this, it’s just that one slide is longer than the others. In this case, there are a couple like that, but also for the rest, image tags have been…

Especially for a site filled with charts. I'm trying to compare some data, and all the sudden the data has moved to a new place. I stopped reading after 2 pages, even though I was very interested in the results. Easily one of the most frustrating sites I've used recently.

Re: Analysis of dev agencies with hourly rates, team size and tech stack

#55

Post by modzu »

chrismorgan wrote: post #44

Something really, really annoying about this site: it uses automatically-progressing carousels that cause content reflow below them in the page. I encounter this sort of thing so often , and it’s really, really bad. Positively awful . Super disconcerting. In most cases like this, it’s just that one slide is longer than the others. In this case, there are a couple like that, but also for the rest, image tags have been…

haha oh man im going to click a link.. is the page done loading..? think so.. here goes... content loads in and moves the target.. clicks wrong thing goddammit!!!

Re: Analysis of dev agencies with hourly rates, team size and tech stack

#56

Post by yonaguska »

thomk wrote: post #49
Alex3917 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of outsourcing for a writing job is weird. You don't see The New Yorker outsourcing their essays to Pakistan, Hollywood outsourcing their scripts to Ukraine, the NYT outsourcing their reporting to the Philippines, etc. Tech seems to be the only industry that thinks that hiring writers from overseas to produce content is somehow going to result in anything viable.

However if you have architects that design software properly in the U.S. and pass those specifications to outsourced staff, then it's akin to a NYT writer dictating his notes to be typed in and proofread by someone overseas. My point being; there's an efficient way to utilize cheap labor.

Right, but that proofreader might not totally understand nuances in language and how words take on different meanings to different audiences, even if they are the same words used.

Back to the programming reality from the analogy, I've seen outsourcing happen, for businesses that revolve around American customer bases and rules and regulations- now the code is outsourced, but the basic understanding of how business logic related to the real world use was gone. So the offshore team, while technically competent, was not equipped to make decisions about software with the consumer in mind. If you were working on something and it didn't really make sense in a real world sense, as a dev, you could go to your product person and raise concerns. Without the cultural context- those concerns never get raised.

Re: Analysis of dev agencies with hourly rates, team size and tech stack

#57

Post by tcgv »

Alex3917 wrote: post #45
sacks2k wrote: post #31

I oversee the hiring of dev shops for a mid-sized company in the US and the rates for e-commerce/web development are all in the $120-$150/hour range. The funny thing is that some of these companies outsourced to the Ukraine and India and the rates didn't change. I would have thought that we would at least see some of the cost savings. Both companies that outsourced ended up being complete disasters (we are still clea…

The concept of outsourcing for a writing job is weird. You don't see The New Yorker outsourcing their essays to Pakistan, Hollywood outsourcing their scripts to Ukraine, the NYT outsourcing their reporting to the Philippines, etc. Tech seems to be the only industry that thinks that hiring writers from overseas to produce content is somehow going to result in anything viable.

It's not that weird if you consider that a large chunk of software engineering is CRUD apps and digital plumbing, which doesn't require a lot of creativity. Nevertheless, I'm sure India, Ukraine and other countries have tons of talented developers that due to global economics are willing to work for a lower pay. Maybe the problem with the outsourcing model in these cases is that it's being poorly executed. It's already difficult enough to build a strong team within your own city, it wouldn't be any easier to do it remotely across the world, much less if you delegate it to an HR department purely focused on costs reduction.

Re: Analysis of dev agencies with hourly rates, team size and tech stack

#58

Post by majormajor »

thomk wrote: post #49
Alex3917 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of outsourcing for a writing job is weird. You don't see The New Yorker outsourcing their essays to Pakistan, Hollywood outsourcing their scripts to Ukraine, the NYT outsourcing their reporting to the Philippines, etc. Tech seems to be the only industry that thinks that hiring writers from overseas to produce content is somehow going to result in anything viable.

However if you have architects that design software properly in the U.S. and pass those specifications to outsourced staff, then it's akin to a NYT writer dictating his notes to be typed in and proofread by someone overseas. My point being; there's an efficient way to utilize cheap labor.

> architects that design software properly

That's a tall order, the root of a million missed deadlines is that software is notoriously hard to fully design without writing code.

Are you doing something you've done a hundred times before, or are there some twists?

Re: Analysis of dev agencies with hourly rates, team size and tech stack

#59

Post by thomk »

majormajor wrote: post #58
thomk wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However if you have architects that design software properly in the U.S. and pass those specifications to outsourced staff, then it's akin to a NYT writer dictating his notes to be typed in and proofread by someone overseas. My point being; there's an efficient way to utilize cheap labor.

> architects that design software properly That's a tall order, the root of a million missed deadlines is that software is notoriously hard to fully design without writing code. Are you doing something you've done a hundred times before, or are there some twists?

The best way to combat that is to not design anything too far into the future. This is where agile and sprints can be very helpful. It also means you are checking the work of the subcontractors on a regular basis. After a while you will learn how to communicate very well, you'll see the strengths and weaknesses of the staff and you can operate within those constraints.

That is the real work here; discovering acumen. Once you know that, you can hand out work that fits within their wheelhouse.

American developers excel at this because there's less of a communication gap. If an American can not do something he will tell you. If you are wrong about the way you are doing something, an American developer will tell you. Outsourced subcontractors will blindly do what they understood they were supposed to do without questioning anything resembling rationale.

Just know that going in.

You know what else is like that? A computer.

GIGO, etc.

Re: Analysis of dev agencies with hourly rates, team size and tech stack

#60

Post by rgbrenner »

Alex3917 wrote: post #45
sacks2k wrote: post #31

I oversee the hiring of dev shops for a mid-sized company in the US and the rates for e-commerce/web development are all in the $120-$150/hour range. The funny thing is that some of these companies outsourced to the Ukraine and India and the rates didn't change. I would have thought that we would at least see some of the cost savings. Both companies that outsourced ended up being complete disasters (we are still clea…

The concept of outsourcing for a writing job is weird. You don't see The New Yorker outsourcing their essays to Pakistan, Hollywood outsourcing their scripts to Ukraine, the NYT outsourcing their reporting to the Philippines, etc. Tech seems to be the only industry that thinks that hiring writers from overseas to produce content is somehow going to result in anything viable.

You picked a bad industry to make that point. Newspapers, magazines, etc frequently outsource work, including writing:

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/business/worldbusiness/19...

https://archives.cjr.org/short_takes/outsourced_edit.php

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/oct/07/reuters.pressa...

more recent: https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2015/jul/27/jou...

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