Ask Slashdot: Why Are American Tech Workers Paid So Well? - Slashdot

Ask Slashdot: Why Are American Tech Workers Paid So Well? - Slashdot:



"Former Director of Software Development Here (Score:5, Interesting)

by localman ( 111171 ) on Monday November 07, 2016 @12:08AM (#53226883) Homepage



For my dollars, I'd much rather work directly with people who are a committed part of a team. It's tough enough to achieve that with direct hires; I don't think you can do it with outsourcing.

I think part of this relates to the nature of software. People always talk about writing software - but that's the easy part. The hard part is *expanding* and *maintaining* software. And generally speaking people who have a history with the code are going to do a better job of it: faster, and more precise. You can also have a much tighter development loop between developers, testers, and users if you have them all in-house. I used to have my developers spend some time using the tools they built with the people who actually used them for the job (I did this myself as well). You learn practical details that are hard to communicate any other way. And speaking of communication: I had a few outsourced workers (forced on me by upper management) and communication was always inferior.

I'm not saying that there's no use for outsourcing, or that it's always the wrong choice. But my experience is that proximity matters. And history matters. And personal familiarity matters. So one needs to factor all that in when making the choice. And yeah, I think I got about 4x the quality and productivity out of my in-house people as my outsourced people."