Tag Archives: development

Outsourcing overseas

I find this is a question that comes up very quickly to business owners looking to hire a developer/freelancer. Why would you hire a developer from North America when you can outsource to someone in India or China? I briefly touched upon this in a previous post about things you should know about freelancing, and I will explain this a bit more in detail based on my experiences.

Time differences

For starters, let’s say you’re in San Francisco and your work hours are 9~5. There is a 12.5 hour difference between you and your developer if you were to outsource. This is ignoring the fact that many freelance workers can work obscure hours, including myself. However, more often than not, you will find that nearly all of your communication with an outsourced developer will be via asynchronous communication, which can be extremely problematic when tackling projects of higher complexity. It also means that any urgent issues will take at least 24 hours to resolve (if you’re asleep and your SaaS comes back online, it’s not completely the same as you seeing it come online and getting a chance to make sure everything is in order).

Cultural differences

Before I continue, I’d like to point out that I have worked with freelancers in India and China both directly (hired by myself), and indirectly (hired by my clients). Not everyone is aware that there are significant cultural differences between North America and India. One of the most notable ones I like to use as an example is that developers in India tend to be “yes (wo)men”.

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Giving feedback

Working as a consultant, I’m used to providing suggestions and identifying bottlenecks in businesses. It’s part of the job. I command the rates I do because these clients have seen the results I’ve delivered, understand I very much care about their business, and want them to be as successful as possible.

They have problems or goals for their business and they want me to use my skills and experience to tackle those problems. Since they are paying for my time and trust that I will help make them successful, my opinions and suggestions are taken seriously. They may not always agree with these suggestions, but that’s good because it moves us forward and allows us to further test and analyze these ideas, quantitatively.

However, being used to this kind of process makes things very different in other areas of my life. I regularly visit developer communities online to see what’s going on and seek out interesting questions people have. And after all this time, I’ve found most of the people who go online looking for “suggestions/advice” really aren’t looking for suggestions.

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A culture of beer and overtime

I quit my my last job after a little more than 2 months. Why? Did I jump into a position I was not excited about? No. In fact, I faced major struggles trying to persuade myself NOT to take that offer (and ultimately, failed). I had been looking for a job after my second contract at SAP was about to come to an end in May. By the second week of April, I had 3 offers lined up, 2 of which I was giving some serious thought to.

One would mean I would be moving to Palo Alto, California, where I would be joining a well-known, highly successful, technology company. The pay was great, and working there would make any future job hunts virtually non-existent. The only possible downside to it was having to move. A few weeks prior, I had just completed the final steps of becoming a homeowner, and moving to Palo Alto would mean having to put my place back on the market within a few short weeks. Nevertheless, I was not too concerned. Having lived for extended periods of time in Taiwan, Australia, and Canada, I’m very open to moving and even embrace the thought of living in a different country, with major differences in culture.

The other offer would mean staying in familiar old Vancouver, in a company that had one claim to fame (a relatively impressive one at that), and noticeably lower pay. If that were it, I would have moved to Palo Alto in a heartbeat. But that wasn’t all. The product that I was offered to work on was something that I was extremely excited, and passionate about. In fact, it was something that I had been giving a lot of thought prior to hearing about, and not only was I excited to hear about its existence, I was even more excited to be one of the two developers working on it.

After weighing my options and deciding that I didn’t really want to pass up the chance to build something I was so passionate about, I happily took the lower pay (and prestige) to join the team. I was not too concerned about money because it was something I had been dreaming to build. I certainly did not think about much else at that time, I just couldn’t wait.

The team consisted of 5 people. The PM, copywriter, UI/UX designer, myself, and the other developer. Everyone else in the company was working on other products. In terms of the executives, they were very much detached from the operations of the team.

And so began my short 9 weeks at the company. Within days, a big red flag was placed in front of me, but I was still so oblivious and excited that I shrugged it off and pushed it aside. Continue reading