Hiring off shore

[David Schwartz]

The issue isn’t who you hire, it’s what kind of results you get for your money.

I’ve tried hiring a half dozen off-shore people from a couple of sites, and the results were horrible. This was just for me, not clients.

I published an article on Medium last week from which I’ll write some follow-up articles that address this a bit.

https://u2206659.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=3cK2FVJjyu2N-2Bxco034fZmj4gyB1R1JR8JEI3RAtiMO0SLqkTN3l6o-2FQLIaTE2wxELoPgHAU7Hr1qBl-2FKRQZgrAPvzQemiZFfCsZUQtbaFM-3D_6lpMB7VLnN-2Fj9-2FEErg8-2F-2BMBpb5QxlByTgv2M3fbWD9ebvC-2BWrN3h7jImK8EVWYBe9zWTMXeEc0cWtHUKkxssDEJHSj3EMXiNijBSzcrrBTdemDWc16u-2FKLefW2F4Qxx-2FR2k4ByqJYISl-2BoSal6w5m0S-2BMA38IfVjaY6JhGajKJ1hwq0GrSSQKlQuYqw8BkDK4oK8A91Xm4JA1qywreDM3Y7OqRwJim5WvH-2BQoJCZP5w-3D <https://u2206659.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=3cK2FVJjyu2N-2Bxco034fZmj4gyB1R1JR8JEI3RAtiMO0SLqkTN3l6o-2FQLIaTE2wxELoPgHAU7Hr1qBl-2FKRQZgrAPvzQemiZFfCsZUQtbaFM-3D_6lpMB7VLnN-2Fj9-2FEErg8-2F-2BMBpb5QxlByTgv2M3fbWD9ebvC-2BWrN3h7jImK8EVWYBe9zWTMXeEc0cWtHUKkxssDORn52drbdGM1dMWLGBhKX9QpEUrPTuYTfS8y0ufhW2qyBuDHyEF6eI5F-2BP9HKWUQ98AHpKh5XNGeC9-2BKni1li-2ByMoTURhJAuQCqbU5qY1B5KsXhO5eipnDJeKHXyXVPWFjRefxFc-2BjSzTGFZWndu00-3D>

Here’s a summary of something I discovered recently from a dance with a couple of local prospects:

Somebody has an idea, and they want to see it implemented in software.

This process is a lot like getting a patent — you cannot patent an idea, you can only patent an invention.

I had some prospective clients want to pay me a fixed fee to write some software based on their idea. They did not offer me an invention, just an idea; nor did they want to pay me to invent a solution. However, their offer was probably fair to take a detailed description of an invention and implement it in software. (I’ve run into this many, many times in the past.)

In software terms, an “invention” is represented by either a functional prototype or a detailed spec. Most of the time, people have little more than chicken scratch on a napkin or back of an envelope as their “spec”. It’s really not much more than an idea at that stage.

You cannot hand this to anybody and expect to get a satisfying result most of the time, especially if it’s something nontrivial. It’s ok if you want to use it to build a prototype, tho.

This is particularly problematic if you try employing foreigners from several countries known for their cheap software labor, like India, Korea, and the Philippines. 

These people do not ask questions. You can hand them a flowchart or detailed spec, and they’ll implement it in software. The problem is, they assume that whatever you’ve given them is sufficient; worse, they also assume that anything missing is not important to you, and they’ll fill in the blanks themselves. You won’t know until you review the code (the UX perspective) and can’t figure out why so much stuff they’re showing you looks totally random — that’s because it is.

(There was an analysis about a Korean Air Lines jet that flew into a mountain many years ago. The copilot knew something was amiss, but their culture has a rule that says you never question a superior. He made some statements to the pilot that he hoped would indicate there might be a navigtaional issue, but the pilot didn’t interpret them as expected. The same issues exist in various forms among many Asian cultures.)

Anyway, trying to practice arbitrage by leveraging labor costs is fine — just make sure that the cultural values are similar enough that the people you hire think and act the way you expect. Otherwise, these guys will be saying odd things as a way of suggesting the project is on a collision course for the side of a mountain, mainly because the specs were inadequate and/or insufficient.  (And who pays for specs to be written these days?)

-David Schwartz



> On Nov 8, 2016, at 1:19 PM, Keith Smith <techlists at phpcoderusa.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I am a PHP programmer and I have a knack for Internet marketing.
> 
> Say I decide to build a lead site or cultivate leads from the greater phoenix area.  Projects you may qualify for.  Then I hire an off shore developer.  I pay this off shore developer $12 - $15 an hour while charging my client $100 or more an hour.  I line my pockets with $85 plus and hour.
> 
> Does this course of action help my community?
> 
> What if my choice was to pay you a fair wage (or consulting fee) to work the project or hire that off shore developer for 25% of what your willing to work for?  I would make much less as well.
> 
> I'd like you to tell me what to do.  Hire you or someone off shore.  Please tell me what to do.
> 
> Keith
> 

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