
"I'm getting really freaking tired of experiencing this level of incompetence" - rockstar9
http://www.knowing.net/PermaLink,guid,1d765e54-5007-487b-a689-882d62ae9fd4.aspx
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mlinsey
The biggest problem with hiring foreign contractors is not that they're
foreign, but that the mindset required to hire them cannot attract good
hackers. More specifically, the kind of people who decide to save money on
development by hiring offshore contractors are usually the kind of people who
think programmers are interchangeable parts and can't tell the difference
between a good and bad developer.

But even if you are a hacker yourself and a good judge of programming talent,
it's very hard for you to find good people when you are in a different
continent. Think about how difficult it is to attract good talent right here
in America. Even if you're in an area with a comparatively high concentration
of talented programmers (let's say Silicon Valley), you will probably not find
the best people by waiting for them to come to you. You have to get into the
right circles, or get referrals from people you trust, or go to meetups like
Startup School that attract the kind of people you want, etc. etc. Now what if
you were thousands of miles away? Would you be able to do any of that? Maybe
via websites like this or by collaborating on open source projects, but I
doubt that those are the avenues by which companies are hiring foreign
contractors.

I know of a few companies with solid offshore development operations that are
staffed with very good people. In every single case, there was someone from
the company on the ground in that country, finding and hiring people in the
same way that the company would do in the states.

~~~
plinkplonk
"The biggest problem with hiring foreign contractors is not that they're
foreign, but that the mindset required to hire them cannot attract good
hackers. More specifically, the kind of people who decide to save money on
development by hiring offshore contractors are usually the kind of people who
think programmers are interchangeable parts and can't tell the difference
between a good and bad developer."

As someone who lives and works in Bangalore, India, I can confirm this. Great
programmers in Ruby (or any other language) are just as rare here as anywhere
else.

They have a distinct aversion to these "we have done the core work now you
clean up / tweak the code at 20$/hr" offers. Someone who is really good at
programming can work at google/yahoo/amazon or found a startup. Why should she
work at 20 $ / hr for clowns like the author of this post?

"But even if you are a hacker yourself and a good judge of programming talent,
it's very hard for you to find good people when you are in a different
continent. Think about how difficult it is to attract good talent right here
in America. Even if you're in an area with a comparatively high concentration
of talented programmers (let's say Silicon Valley), you will probably not find
the best people by waiting for them to come to you. You have to get into the
right circles, or get referrals from people you trust, or go to meetups like
Startup School that attract the kind of people you want, etc. etc. Now what if
you were thousands of miles away?"

This is exactly true. The _only_ way to find good hackers in India (or
Argentina for that matter) is to know good people on the ground _before_ you
start your search. And how many people in the United States are in a position
to do that?

Here is a hint for people who insist on hiring offshore resources "blind". Ask
for evidence of open source projects or contributions. This immediately
eliminates the riffraff who swarm during a boom (and the software industry is
booming in Bangalore). _Every_ decent programmer I know in Bangalore has or
contributes to an open source project.

Ask to see a blog so you can judge written communication skills. Every good
programmer I know has a blog.

Once you've done all this, make sure you have interesting work to offer. When
you outsource garbage work you get roaches. Why are you surprised at this?

My 2 rupees.

~~~
Tichy
I've heard that India is not really low cost anymore. Also, IT industry has
been booming for years in India. I wonder if there is a "next cheap" country
coming up that will catch the next outsourcing wave.

A few years ago I worked with developers from eastern Europe, and they were
very capable for 1/3 or 1/4 of the price.

~~~
plinkplonk
"I've heard that India is not really low cost anymore."

This is not completely true. If you are trying to outsource to _companies_ ,
sure it is getting more expensive all the time. They have to pay legions of
useless managers / "process control" (think ISO 9000) people from the money
the programmers earn.

 _If you have interesting work_ , you can get good programmers at 25-50 $/hr.
You could get work done on a fixed fee basis as well (which is what I would
reccomend). 10 - 20 k$ would get you a _lot_ of code (assuming you found good
people in the first place).

A lot of people would like to work from home on decent projects vs being at
the mercy of the outsourcing companies where you have little control over what
technology/projects you work on. The sheer size of the country's outsourcing
industry obscures the fact that there are a lot of good programmers who would
want to work on more flexible terms, _especially_ for startups. In that sense,
India is still very much unexplored territory.

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jrockway
I think there are plenty of programmers in America that are this incompetent.

Also, he writes " _all things being equal, a guy with a CS degree, C++
experience, and a year with Ruby on Rails who's asking $20 an hour is going to
be more appealing than a guy with the same background asking $60 an hour._ "

$20/hour for someone who claims to know Rails and C++? This has to be too good
to be true, because anyone with a clue would want about 10x that.

All in all, I see where the author is coming from... but I don't think his
unqualified assertions are correct.

~~~
Hexstream
Anyone with a clue who claims to know Rails and C++ would want about
200$/hour?...

On an unrelated note, I find it funny how the french equivalent of "I see
where the author is coming from" is "Je vois où l'auteur veut en venir" ("I
see where the author wants to go"). Come from, go to...

~~~
demallien
Actually, no. 'Venir' in French is 'to come' in English, not 'to go' - hence
we see words like 'devenir' (='to become') and 'bienvenue' (='welcome')

~~~
Hexstream
?!... french is actually my first language. I understand what you're saying,
but I seriously always pictured "en venir à" as going to somewhere from the
perspective of the person that's moving, never as someone coming from
somewhere from the perspective of the... goal? This is confusing...

edit: I think I understand why I picture them as opposite idioms: "I see where
you're coming from" seems to refer to the past, like for example if you ask
someone from where he's (litterally) coming from (ex: what country?), you're
asking where he was before. Whereas "je vois où tu veux en venir" seems to
refer to the future, you're talking about where he wants to be... See what I'm
saying?

~~~
demallien
Bien sûr. Je suis australienne moi-même, mais j'habite à paris depuis 5 ans...
Je viens de "Googler" 'en venir à', et pour chaque résultat sur la première
page, il y a une phrase en anglais qui correspond utilisant 'come'.

Si je traduisait ton expression 'je vois où tu veux en venir', je le
traduirais par 'I see where you are going', ce qui n'est pas du tout pareil à
'I see where you are coming from'. En fait, pour moi, la bonne traduction de
'I see where you are coming from' est plutôt 'je vois ce que tu veux dire', où
un truc du genre...

Mais bravo quand même. Dans mon premier post j'avais oublié l'expression 'en
venir' (sans le 'à'), où effectivement la traduction de 'venir' est 'to go'.

Anyways, hope that cleared things up a little...

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mtts
What's missing from this rant is evidence. The author comes accross one
incompetent programmer from Argentina and then goes off to state that Asians
and Argentin[i?]ans have the wrong mindset to be a developer?

It may be true that $20 an hour programmers from Argentina can afford to be
sloppy since they are, after all, dirt cheap, but I would've liked to see some
more examples.

~~~
jcromartie
In my personal experience, I haven't come across a non-US trained programmer
who lives up to my expectations.

One thing that I see frequently and deeply disturbs me is a trait I've seen
among nearly _all_ of the SE Asian and Indian developers I've met: they won't
think for themselves.

I don't mean that they can't solve problems. No, they can eventually produce
something that fits the bill most of the time. Rather, there is a deep-rooted
cultural mindset that is dead-set against exploratory learning. It's a respect
thing. Knowledge is considered something that is passed down to you from
someone who is elder/wiser.

Americans, on the other hand, are very much geared towards asking questions
and exploring them on their own. For example: an American student might not
think twice about questioning what a teacher in school is saying. For an
Indian student that is absolutely out of the question.

Maybe? Dunno? Just a thought.

P.S. This also explains "plz send me the codes" syndrome, where people flood a
message board or blog with a similar plea and their email address.

~~~
comatose_kid
What sample size of non-US trained programmers have you worked with?

I've worked with many from all parts of the world, including many SE
Asian/Indian devs. And I can't think of one who I would qualify as 'not
thinking for themselves'.

Of course, I wouldn't generalize this to all s/w devs from these countries,
but I'd be willing to bet that the proportions are similar to devs from other
countries.

Disclosure: I'm a 'non-US trained' programmer, having graduated from a
Canadian university.

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bluelu
You get what you pay for. If he would probably be paying market rate and not
1/3 of the market rate, he would probably have better applications. Good
people simply won't apply at a lousy 20$ a hour.

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edw519
Brings to mind another advantage of the startup world over the corporate
world: your work speaks so loudly that no one cares what your resume says.

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brent
Speaking of incompetent programmers... I'm clicking on the comments link on
his page and nothing is happening (unless I hit refresh of course :)).

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anupamkapoor
this can be safely described as an instance of "pay less, pray more" syndrome,
which seems to afflict a lot of folks from time to time.

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wallflower
You can't outsource passion..

