Re: Hiring off shore

    On 11/08/2016 04:37 PM, Todd Millecam wrote:
                You aren't doing any real work, you aren't making
                anything new.   I'd assert that in this scenario you are
                not helping your community, you're taking advantage of
                them in nearly every case.
    So are most "recruiting firms" like Teksystems, and frankly even my
    current org to some extent, still I think much as you often do
    here.  I have found people contact me/us, because we have good
    reputation, and they expect we can find other suitable candidates
    are are most *like* us.  I find them someone, screen them for cruft,
    pass them along a suitable candidate, and did this for free for
    people for years, before realizing the really crappy ones even get
    15-30% of their salary in exchange barely parasitic effort vs. my
    actually vetting them both personally and professionally.  Most are
    usually happy to even pay, as they both trust our judgment and saved
    them a hassle of having to sort through hundreds or thousands of
    resumes.
    The flip side, I get calls, emails, linkedin notices for jobs
    constantly from "recruiting firms" that send me random things like
    ".Net developer needed" or "Call Center Agents starting at $9.60/hr"
    because apparently they don't know the difference between me
    building call centers to working in one.  I think most can attest to
    my love of microsoft anything that the former is likewise not
    appropriate, but since most are coming from Indian names, I usually
    can presume there is a call center full of these folks doing nothing
    more than scamming to make a buck, the Wipros and InfoSys's just
    developed a better pimp hand in the same scheme at a higher level. 
    I can only imagine the guys jumping on these "wonderful
    opportunities" there trying to get over here, enough to fake an
    equally clueless acting recruiter there.
            and you're most likely going to generate a subpar UX at
            best.  You're burning your relationship with your clients by
            delivering crap.  You are probably helping the offshore
            dev's community the most.
    I've found most of these "engagements" to be traps, really.  You
    almost never get a real, finished, quality product (pick 2! maybe 1,
    sometimes none), and as you said, subpar at best.  It seems the
    promise is often more with 3-10 offshore engineers provided for any
    one american engineer, and you're bound to get *some* better value. 
    Not imho, but I know plenty of american dirtbags that still get
    around in the industry somehow too making far more still too.
          what value are you?  If they take the time and do a direct
          hire, then they cut out the middle man (your costs) and get to
          devote more money to building a better product and a healthy
          business relationship.  More money to the final product
          absolutely helps the community.
    Local resources, in the office, and actually becoming part of their
    team is necessary.  Any time I've worked for, been to, or been
    around mega-corps that do H1B, it almost becomes a perpetual cycle
    of fail.  The ones most often cheering for more H1B's like Oracle,
    Microsoft, Google, and lots of local sweatshops even also
    coincidentally often have heavy penetration of Indian management
    too.  Bringin' back something for da hood - theirs.
    I saw this at one corp I'll decline to name to protect the stupid,
    talked about how big of a prior failure a crm rewrite was, how many
    millions were lost on it ~(50m I think was a number tossed), and
    everyone from csr's to management hated, and was practically a 4
    letter word.  Promises would be made that the 2.0 version would be
    better, they learned from their lessons, reviled the company that
    did it (one of the mega Indian outsource firms, again protecting the
    stupid), and said it would be better.  They ended up giving it back
    to the same company, at triple the bid to "try again", went forward
    with the 2.0 project.  SMH, wha?
    After working with the engineers for a week after kickoff, it was
    quite apparently their people had no clue how to run the servers,
    build the apps, and simply hired a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears grad
    students pooped out of whatever they consider
    education/certification there, and while not stupid, had no
    experience, and in most cases, much common sense.  It_was_painful to
    watch unfolding if not rather comedic if considered as bofh-ish or
    dilbertonian at how it should likely end.
    I'm presuming there had to be some monumental credit/cash earned
    somewhere in doing this, either way stunk as bad as the garbage
    dump.  This was also not the first or last time seeing the same
    since, cycle of pain repeats at most larger orgs as they outgrow
    their skins almost habitually and follow bad example in ousourcing
    as an alternative.
    It was one of the proverbial straws that made me move on in my
    choice to do so.  Years later, I've heard recounts how miserable a
    failure that was too from acquaintances come/gone/staying, so ad
    nauseum, some ~$200m absorbed somewhere, for some awful reasons as I
    saw it coldly.
        that you are adding that value to the product then you're
        lubricant in the wheels of business and needed to prevent
        gridlock.  In any case, if I could use the analogy of a chemical
        reaction, you play either the role of an impurity or a
        catalyst--but in no situation are you a significant part of the
        solution so your take should be reflective of that.
    What I find suspect is really that these things like said example
    above seem to have absolutely no rational sense when you look at
    them from the surface, that you wonder just how it could be done at
    all, let alone the fact I was internal to the engineering that
    showed nothing good was ever going to come of the clueless bastards
    they were unleashing.  I've seen empirical data both first hand and
    third party that says it simply does not work, not just the above,
    but many times within the past 15 years, in many different orgs and
    even state/local to lesser extents.
    Cisco is a good example of this, that you could plot a line in
    customer satisfaction and product quality on a distinct decline with
    the amount of outsourcing they began during the end of the 90's.  It
    really made nothing better, it just gave them better on-paper bottom
    lines as they were plumping like a fat hog with rotten guts, but you
    also began to see more and more Indian management.  In networking
    they're still the 3000lb hog that still succeeds like bad
    government, but their quality (read, stability) itself is often
    merely a shell of what it once was as a real leader.  Simply too big
    to fail now either way, so why not do it dirty.
    I often find the reasons suspect in outsourcing decisions too. 
    Again in my experience, is once one outsourced person rises high
    enough, it's like the mob - they hire more out of gratuity or
    responsibility to their people, despite how frigging terrible the
    people are.  Suddenly justifications are much easier and glossed
    over when the manager is the same, wants to bring their cousins over
    to pimp^H^H^H^Hmake a better life.  Corporate and national nepotism
    at its finest.
    It has become a warning sign to me for a company how bad it will be
    when there are certain percentages or samplings of "those folks" at
    a place.  I remember walking around another large financial org here
    on an interview ages ago, entering the building felt like I just
    stepped off a bus in Bangalore, and was pretty much instantly
    disinterested in ever working there.  Now I just figure out before
    ever stepping foot near a place.
    YMMV
    -mb
          Cope 
          wrote:
              (which is then invested either through loans or invested
              in the market, same thing) or spend (which does affect the
              community)?
                can find someone willing to work for less, then it
                sounds fine to me. 
                    PM, Keith Smith 
                    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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          Millecam

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