Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Changing Face of Offshore Programming

Posted by michael on from the giant-sucking-noise dept.

teambpsi writes "BusinesWeek Online has an opt-ed piece on the trend in offshore programming pricing going up, with domestic rates going down. As a contractor, I've seen the downward pressure on contract gigs now to rates lower than what I was charging over five years ago. Dell Computers recently announced that it was bringing its customer service back on-shore, I wonder if this might be the start of some bigger trend -- maybe 'buy american' could be our new battle cry ;)"

2 of 670 comments (clear)

  1. Economics, not dogma by jmorris42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't expect any success with simply screaming "Buy American". Offer a better value proposition.

    You are closer to the customer, not thousands of miles away.

    You understand their problem better than some Indian programmer who doesn't truly grok the underlying American business practices being codified into software.

    You are operating in their time zone.

    etc.

    That will win business a lot better than trying to shame a potential customer into paying more just because you are an American.

    --
    Democrat delenda est
  2. I am not afraid. by Apoptosis66 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I work for a major company which is now trying to outsource my J2EE programming position to Brazil.

    Its almost too funny watching it go so wrong.

    Our group has for years fought with the business group over software requirement specs. What we end up building almost always diverges from what they had in there minds. Yes we create software requirement specs with mock up and all that. Yet most of these are in business speak, and can be interpreted in many different ways.

    Now they are attempting to outsource to a CMM level 3 development group. The thing is the Brazilians require the software requirement specs to be in precise use cases covering every function that can possibly take place. In fact they will not even start working on a project until this document has been created and signed off on by everyone and their mother.

    What has instead happened is the business has no idea how to create software engineering specs. They can't effectively communicate this through the middle management hell that is spread out over 3 countries. The Brazilians effectively sat on their asses for 3 months, and documented the fact that they did. Once they finally wrote something it didn't integrate correctly with all the systems that we have in place in the USA, because there was nothing spelling out the fact in the specs. Now the project is late and everyone is pissed.

    Somehow this is better than paying me extra to know the systems, to interpret what business really wants (and sometimes get it wrong), and get things out on time.

    In short I am not afraid, in fact I am looking forward to the time the come back to me needing help and I ask for a big fat raise!