Anyone used offshore development teams?
Discussion
I'm considering having some code written to power a device I'm thinking of taking to market.
Does anyone have experience of these sites where you send a spec and the work gets bid on and then fulfilled offshore?
Obviously I would want to retain all rights etc.
The alternative I suppose would be to find a handy student and bung them a few quid.
Thoughts?
Does anyone have experience of these sites where you send a spec and the work gets bid on and then fulfilled offshore?
Obviously I would want to retain all rights etc.
The alternative I suppose would be to find a handy student and bung them a few quid.
Thoughts?
We've used offshore developers (past tense).
The good news - the day rates are cheaper then the UK, the quality of work was good, the turnaround was fast, we got what we specced-up.
The bad news - we got what we specced-up. Nothing less, but nothing more.
In the end, we found that we could not make any assumptions and hope that the developer would 'join the dots'. We had to spell absolutely everything out in full. And immediately, this meant what might have been a 5 day specification excercise to pass to an in-house developer would suddenly take 15 days to get to the required level - ergo any savings in developer rates looked lass attractive.
Also, when we're using in-house developers, its easy to keep involved and start pointing out little ways to do things better, better ways of presenting and laying things out etc., and that's not really possible in the offshore model. You're paying to get the spec developed once. If you then want to tweak it and make some changes once you actually start to use it you'll pay more.
Obviously, if you don't have your 'own' resource it has some attractions, but you have to be real tight on your specification and in the end we just didn't see any cost savings when we factored in the extra planning/consultancy time - and we systems delivered that we still ended up developing further.
PS is will of course depend where to get your development done too. I am aware of folks who have been pretty unhappy with stuff done in the [former] Eastern block. Sure some work was well done, but they're not (in my limited experience) half as organised or professional as India. In fact we were so impressed by the level of skills in India we now have 2 Indian guys working for us! Depending what application/language you're after, you might be better off getting a UK-based individual to do the work. Not all 'contractors' are looking for top rates; some are just trying to establish a good CV. Try trawling the forums for your language/application and see who's in there fishing for work.
The good news - the day rates are cheaper then the UK, the quality of work was good, the turnaround was fast, we got what we specced-up.
The bad news - we got what we specced-up. Nothing less, but nothing more.
In the end, we found that we could not make any assumptions and hope that the developer would 'join the dots'. We had to spell absolutely everything out in full. And immediately, this meant what might have been a 5 day specification excercise to pass to an in-house developer would suddenly take 15 days to get to the required level - ergo any savings in developer rates looked lass attractive.
Also, when we're using in-house developers, its easy to keep involved and start pointing out little ways to do things better, better ways of presenting and laying things out etc., and that's not really possible in the offshore model. You're paying to get the spec developed once. If you then want to tweak it and make some changes once you actually start to use it you'll pay more.
Obviously, if you don't have your 'own' resource it has some attractions, but you have to be real tight on your specification and in the end we just didn't see any cost savings when we factored in the extra planning/consultancy time - and we systems delivered that we still ended up developing further.
PS is will of course depend where to get your development done too. I am aware of folks who have been pretty unhappy with stuff done in the [former] Eastern block. Sure some work was well done, but they're not (in my limited experience) half as organised or professional as India. In fact we were so impressed by the level of skills in India we now have 2 Indian guys working for us! Depending what application/language you're after, you might be better off getting a UK-based individual to do the work. Not all 'contractors' are looking for top rates; some are just trying to establish a good CV. Try trawling the forums for your language/application and see who's in there fishing for work.
tvrolet said:
We've used offshore developers (past tense).
Good for you. Absolutely everyone I talk to who has done this expresses dismay at the way communication difficulties (both cultural and technical) contribute to costs. Unless you are taking a SUBSTANTIAL development offshore when the economies of scale may kick in I reckon its a bad idea.
I fully admit I am partisan to an extent in that I am in the industry and do all our development in-house with good old fashioned UK based programmers one can talk to and yell at whenever required. So take my opinion with a pinch of salt - but, hey, I wouldn't offshore the development we do in-house which I am paying for...no way.
I work with teams in Mumbai and Kiev most days. The most important thing is getting to know the guys and opening up communication channels so you can chat as you'd chat to someone sitting next to you. If you don't do this, as you'd expect with a language and cultural difference, the results will be disappointing.
Skype has been a godsend for us, and don't underestimate the benefit of getting on a plane either.
However, I suspect this is a very different experience to that you'd have with a rent-a-coder style operation. No experience with this i'm afraid.
Skype has been a godsend for us, and don't underestimate the benefit of getting on a plane either.
However, I suspect this is a very different experience to that you'd have with a rent-a-coder style operation. No experience with this i'm afraid.
Gassing Station | Business | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff