Off-shore (or cheap on-shore) software developers
Discussion
Greetings all
I have a requirement for a software package with a little bit of electronics to be specced and delivered.
Anybody used any off-shore companies they can recommend, or people in the UK that won't charge me house prices and provide a good service?
If anyone out there does this sort of thing (and is happy to sign NDAs, and for the IP of the software to be handed over at project completion for the agreed fees etc) give me a shout - thanks!
G
I have a requirement for a software package with a little bit of electronics to be specced and delivered.
Anybody used any off-shore companies they can recommend, or people in the UK that won't charge me house prices and provide a good service?
If anyone out there does this sort of thing (and is happy to sign NDAs, and for the IP of the software to be handed over at project completion for the agreed fees etc) give me a shout - thanks!
G
We will charge you house prices.
However we do employ British programmers that you can phone up and yell at if it doesn't work for any reason because we are in the same time zone, we have accents you can understand, and are culturally similar (despite me being Welsh). We understand "working" and "not working" and people can get in the car and come see you if a telephone conversation isn't good enough.
Chances are we aren't the people to employ as we primarily do web development rather low-level stuff although you only mention "electronics" but you should be trying to find someone like us.
Software to which you retain the IP will cost more, of course, as there is no re-use benefit.
Best of luck finding someone.
However we do employ British programmers that you can phone up and yell at if it doesn't work for any reason because we are in the same time zone, we have accents you can understand, and are culturally similar (despite me being Welsh). We understand "working" and "not working" and people can get in the car and come see you if a telephone conversation isn't good enough.
Chances are we aren't the people to employ as we primarily do web development rather low-level stuff although you only mention "electronics" but you should be trying to find someone like us.
Software to which you retain the IP will cost more, of course, as there is no re-use benefit.
Best of luck finding someone.
Presumably this is some sort of continental anti ballistic missile defence system, with a twenty year support contract, complete within a week, and all for the princely sum of five British pounds.
Good luck!
P.S. If you want it done right, do it yourself..... It's cheaper in the long run, and you're not profiting on someone elses empty dinner plate!
Good luck!
P.S. If you want it done right, do it yourself..... It's cheaper in the long run, and you're not profiting on someone elses empty dinner plate!
Ha ha, thanks for the mixed replies - I have a budget in mind (nearer the cost of a car then house) - although there are electronics involved it is mainly off the shelf components, and it is something our company would support moving forward (would like to write in options to "buy" enhancements and upgrades).
What I am not prepared to do is pay someone £100 per hour for something that is not overly complex and to have my pants pulled down over the price - I have had some good responses via e-mail so will follow up - thanks again.
What I am not prepared to do is pay someone £100 per hour for something that is not overly complex and to have my pants pulled down over the price - I have had some good responses via e-mail so will follow up - thanks again.
_daveR said:
Any work that is sent 'off-shore' needs to be done with the understanding that you will end up getting it re-developed 'on shore' once they cock it up and don't deliver anything of any use.
Everyone tries out-sourcing off shore once
Depends which company you use... I've used such a company to develop bespoke software for 4-5 years. Sure, you need to monitor the work closely (but I would do that with a lazy-arsed UK developer who wants £50/hour and gets paid to surf for porn on Friday afternoons Everyone tries out-sourcing off shore once
). Best bit about Indian companies is that they work their 9am to our 5.30pm if necessary. (Actually, I do recall wanting to meet a deadline once and they worked their 9am to our 7pm!)Edited by shadowninja on Tuesday 11th December 11:19
shadowninja said:
Best bit about Indian companies is that they work their 9am to our 5.30pm if necessary. (Actually, I do recall wanting to meet a deadline once and they worked their 9am to our 7pm!)
If you need to work long hours its becausea) The project management and estimation wasn't so great
b) No one actually understood or communicated properly what it was supposed to do so the poor buggers at the sharp end keep having to do it over wasting loads of time.
c) You aren't smart enough
Its (b) that's the killer, usually. Almost never (c) (but sometimes) and often a bit of (a).
Don said:
b) No one actually understood or communicated properly what it was supposed to do so the poor buggers at the sharp end keep having to do it over wasting loads of time.
And just to add to that point, I've worked with companies where they thought they had....but obviously haven't. The good old meaning of 'Yes'.Yes we understand means :-
1) I have understood, and can prove it.
2) I don't understand, but we will when we read the spec again.
3) I don't understand, but know we should so we'll say yes and save face.
4) I've no idea what you said at all and yes is our noise word to fill the void.
In my experience of complex software out sourcing in the Indian region the percentages are about 1) 20% 2) 40% 3) 30% 4) 10%.
I'm currently working with someone who's outsourced the coding side of the development of his web based app, he is currently a year behind schedule on what was supposed to be a 6 month development.
The main problem is the developers in India just do not understand what the application is supposed to do, all they have is a requirement's document and will code to that. So they make what they think is a fix to get a bit working, but in fact makes it worse as the change doesn't make any sense in the context of the app. Also, if they don't understand they will not ask for clarification, they just make a guess, it's horrific!
The only time I would use offshore development is where you have a very tight and clear specification document (with no chance for interpretation) which is written by someone local and has sat down with you and who understands what it is you are trying to do, and who can communicate regularly and clearly with the offshore developers.
The main problem is the developers in India just do not understand what the application is supposed to do, all they have is a requirement's document and will code to that. So they make what they think is a fix to get a bit working, but in fact makes it worse as the change doesn't make any sense in the context of the app. Also, if they don't understand they will not ask for clarification, they just make a guess, it's horrific!
The only time I would use offshore development is where you have a very tight and clear specification document (with no chance for interpretation) which is written by someone local and has sat down with you and who understands what it is you are trying to do, and who can communicate regularly and clearly with the offshore developers.
silent k said:
The main problem is the developers in India just do not understand what the application is supposed to do, all they have is a requirement's document and will code to that. So they make what they think is a fix to get a bit working, but in fact makes it worse as the change doesn't make any sense in the context of the app. Also, if they don't understand they will not ask for clarification, they just make a guess, it's horrific!
Thats pretty much my experience to a tee. I had to manage the QA on a huge PHP to Java conversion that was outsourced to India. I had to hammer them over and over again to even get test results and reports out of them.
When I finally did I wanted to do a very quick validation their work, so picked out 10 tests from the suite of thousands that we gave them (with instructions to not run anything that did not fit with the product to cover out of date tests etc)
From that 10 they were passing tests that failed, failing tests that passed and worst of all passing tests that were not even valid due to changes in design!
If you can provide 100% perfect and static (as if!) requirements, designs and deliverable targets then it CAN work. But as we all know, it just doesnt work like that.
Oh another thought... DO NOT let any outsource team create messages or text that will be end user facing. The English will be awful.
PM me with a general spec and I'll have it priced from two different suppliers known to me.
Donny
www.wizemobile..co.uk
Donny
www.wizemobile..co.uk
Glad to hear I'm not the only one who feels the pain. I'm currently technical leading an SAP BI implementation where some upper echelon of management decided we should use off shore developers. We're three weeks past the deadline and I spent the last weekend writing a perl script to offload the majority of the data processing so that it works and completes processing 1 days worth of data in less than 1 day. Oh what fun.
I've come to the conclusion that in every decent sized company, someone will realise: "We can save lots of money paying off shore developers rather than on shore". They then have a vested interest in proving to their peers/bosses that they were right so will always ensure that the project "appears" successful, whether that involves bringing some of the work back on shore, throwing more money off shore or massaging timeines/specs. They then make lots of noise about how the offshore developers are costing the same per day as onshore cost per hour, ignoring the details. Unfortunately because they make it look good, it happens again and again and is left to the grunts (like me
) to try to rescue the project as my bonus is tied to the project succeeding by hook or by crook. 
I've come to the conclusion that in every decent sized company, someone will realise: "We can save lots of money paying off shore developers rather than on shore". They then have a vested interest in proving to their peers/bosses that they were right so will always ensure that the project "appears" successful, whether that involves bringing some of the work back on shore, throwing more money off shore or massaging timeines/specs. They then make lots of noise about how the offshore developers are costing the same per day as onshore cost per hour, ignoring the details. Unfortunately because they make it look good, it happens again and again and is left to the grunts (like me
) to try to rescue the project as my bonus is tied to the project succeeding by hook or by crook. LexSport said:
They then make lots of noise about how the offshore developers are costing the same per day as onshore cost per hour, ignoring the details.
I've worked on a few SAP implementations recently where some work has been outsourced to Malaysia. All I can say is that I have been very, very impressed at the quality of the work, the initiative and diligence from the Malaysian resources. This is on a number of different projects using different outsourcers.p.s. I've probably got a good BI7 security bod coming available soon if you need one
bga said:
LexSport said:
They then make lots of noise about how the offshore developers are costing the same per day as onshore cost per hour, ignoring the details.
I've worked on a few SAP implementations recently where some work has been outsourced to Malaysia. All I can say is that I have been very, very impressed at the quality of the work, the initiative and diligence from the Malaysian resources. This is on a number of different projects using different outsourcers.p.s. I've probably got a good BI7 security bod coming available soon if you need one
Edited by dilbert on Thursday 13th December 14:27
dilbert said:
The thing is though that there is a difference between Malaysia, and India. Malaysia is pretty much leading the world in technological development, and India is providing IT services to non savvy British companies, who want to do things on the cheap.
Non savvy is the perfect description for them. From a cost perspective, the resource costs I've used for budgeting have been within about 10% of each other for IN & MY bods. Comparing that difference against the saving against an onshore resource it makes MY look very good value, and it's this "value" that goes out the window when you get muppets setting the budgets.While I much prefer to have an onshore team where possible, I'm comfortable offshoring can work in my situation if done properly. That seems to preclude many India based operations.
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