Craigslist and looking for a web/php/postgresql guy

[Matt Shields]

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 10:41 AM, Jerry Feldman <gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> On 11/03/2008 07:13 AM, Grant M. wrote:
>
>> I have to agree with the other posters, or at least in general. The
>> things that are the most problematic with offshoring is language
>> barriers and expertise. The former can be overcome with a bright,
>> bilingual project manager, however the latter is why you get "software
>> developers at McDonald's wages". It's because your paying McDonald's
>> wages, not because they don't want to make more. Back in the mid 80's,
>> you could buy a brand-new, dealer-fresh car for only $3990. That car was
>> the Yugo.
>>
>> I have however worked with folks from overseas that were reasonably
>> skilled, listened well, and had a decent grasp of English. However in
>> every single one of those cases, those folks tended to leave their home
>> countries and come to the U.S. (or were already here). The offshore
>> talent that deserved better than being offshore talent eventually became
>> on-shore talent, which is generally what I would expect (assuming that
>> is what they wanted to do). If you're good, someone will offer you a
>> position, wherever that might be.
>>
>>
> Back when I was at Digital,we had a division in Bangalore. One of the
> engineers came over here to train, but left shortly after he returned
> because he was able to find a job over here. However we did have quite a few
> other people there. Digital moved the Unix Tools group to India, and one
> thing they found out is that whenever you manage people, you need to
> understand their culture. One problem was that when someone would file a
> problem report, the engineer would treat the problem report as gospel, and
> apply the fix. But, in many cases, the solution may have fixed the perceived
> bug, but broken the tool (or violated standards), or that the perceived bug
> was not really a bug. Remember, especially in the commercial Unix
> environment, most tools must behave according to the relevant standards, and
> in our case both Unux9x as well as SVID and POSIX. One thing they ended up
> doing was to have someone prescreen the problem reports. My personal
> dealings with the engineers in Bangalore was pretty good, and at the time I
> thought it was a step up from the people we had in New Jersey. As I alluded,
> the issue is not only language but also culture. This would be true
> anywhere, not just India.
>
> --
> Jerry Feldman <gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org>
> Boston Linux and Unix
> PGP key id: 537C5846
> PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB  CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846
>

I think the one thing that many people misunderstand is that if you expect
to save a ton of money by outsourcing that is just plain wrong.  I think
it's possible to save some money in some cases, but there are lots of times
when you maybe should not outsource.  And you should definitely get
references and give the outsource company a trial before blindly shipping
all your work to them.


-- 
-matt