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Ask Slashdot: Moving From Contract Developers To Hiring One In-House?
An anonymous reader writes "I run a small software consulting company who outsources most of its work to contractors. I market myself as being able to handle any technical project, but only really take the fun ones, then shop it around to developers who are interested. I write excellent product specs, provide bug tracking & source control and in general am a programming project manager with empathy for developers. I don't ask them to work weekends and I provide detailed, reproducible bug reports and I pay on time. The only 'rule' (if you can call it that) is: I do not pay for bugs. Developers can make more work for themselves by causing bugs, and with the specifications I write there is no excuse for not testing their code. Developers are always fine with it until we get toward the end of a project and the customer is complaining about bugs. Then all of a sudden I am asking my contractors to work for 'free' and they can make more money elsewhere. Ugh. Every project ends up being a battle, so, I think the solution is to finally hire someone full-time and pay for everything (bugs or not) and just keep them busy. But how can I make that transition? The guy I'd need to hire would have to know a lot of languages and be proficient in all of them. Plus, I can't afford to pay someone $100k/year right now. Ideas?"
Hold back 10-15% of the total cost as a completion bonus. Pay the completion bonus when the project reaches a completion milestone of no critical bug reports for three weeks or version 1.1 coding begins.
This gives the programmers an incentive to finish the bug testing and getting to a stable release status so they receive their bonus.
Many contractors have a bonus waiting at the end of a project and know that any mistakes will come out of that bonus. If a new contractor is needed to fix something the original contractor is unwilling to do, then the bonus should be just large enough to pay for the new contractors work.
you can never trust someone to work for under market pricing - that's the problem he was having, moving risk of customers changing things and being under budgeted for the task to the contracted developer. that's why he spent essentially a paragraph praising himself.
Do you know this man, and do you know this to be true? As far as I'm concerned, I'll take him at his word that he is indeed talking about "bugs" in the sense of programming errors. The whole point of contracting is to shift risk, and if you're paid to write software that fits a spec and you don't, you've not fulfilled your contract. It's the contractor's responsibility to quote what he requires to get the job done to spec, and if his coding style results in an x% bug rate, that should be factored into his estimate.
This man's view of bugs is the right one, and it's a shame the industry (and the courts) don't have the same view. I'm sick of buying buggy software and being told it's "good enough" when it doesn't do what it promises.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Well, a little rude, but not totally wrong.
1. I've been told I write "excellent" specs before; notably on one project where the devs then went 3x over budget, (estimated AFTER they had read the specs). Even before this experience, I never believed such a thing as an "excellent" spec existed. A little humility, guy...I'm sure you're good, but is everything you do "excellent", everywhere and every day? Anyway, spec has very little to do with the ability of the team to translate into code. I've known plenty of people capable of turning a bad spec into good product, and vice versa.
2. As the OP said, add a realistic budget into your contracts for testing & bug-fixes. That will help you build loyalty into your core team of contract devs. You're better off sticking with a regular team who you can trust, especially as you're asking for a very wide competency base.
3. Don't hire fixed costs; they'll kill you, and it sounds like your hiring criteria are totally unrealistic anyway. Also, your logic is flawed; why would you be prepared to pay a salaried employee to fix (his/her) bugs, but not a contractor?
As a contractor when I submit code, I leave a certain amount of time for the customer to test that code and supply me a list of bugs. I fix that list. Once my contract time elapses, I expect sign-off and payment. I've fulfilled my end of the contract. I expect my customer to fulfill his end. If he doesn't pay, then I'll send my bill to a collection agency.
My code is not guaranteed indefinitely. Any bugs which appear after the contract is expired can be fixed under another contract if I agree to fix them. I am certainly under no obligation to do that later work at all and especially not for free.
I have had the pleasure of being the project manager on several fairly large software projects during my career. These projects were finished on time and to spec. Everything the customer asked for in the agreed-upon scope worked. Everyone was happy...
However, as a precaution, I ALWAYS insist on putting a post-release support agreement in place at the start of the project. This lets the customer know that if problems arise, they will be addressed and fixed if at all possible, and it gets the developer in the mindset of providing continuing support after release. This has worked amazingly well for everyone involved. The customer feels secure and the developer does not have to work for free.
Bazinga.