[Datkiri]

I think I have an opposite PoV .

1. The goal for every outsourcing is to make your product great because only in that case they can upsell you and make more money.

2. Outsourcing company can and do create the detailed specifications, but usually founders don’t want to pay for that, thinking that they can formulate everything theirselves, that in most cases they cannot do because their vision changes rapidly. That’s why having a partner gives you a better flexibility.

Outsourcing works great when you have a clear vision or goal to achieve in that case you can benefit from the fast access to the competencies that you don’t have inside your team.

And of course costs matters, if you’re founder from the region where engineer salary is 3 times less the in SV it’s better to hire the core team then outsourcing it. But for US, Germany, Sweden, etc - outsourcing is more flexible and cost efficient solution.

P.S. find great partner is hard, find great outsourcing partner is also hard

[dennisbalon]

Bthw, you mention this - "The goal for every outsourcing is to make your product great because only in that case they can upsell you and make more money."

And would you please allow me to disagree here. In the esence you are more than right. The core of the business model for an outsourcing company is exactly that - increase the incoming flow of returning clients.

But again from my experience. The best oursourcing client is the one that does not very clearly knows what he/she wants and also is early paying for rather unhumble estimates and hour reports.

With all my experience I am a "bad" oursourcing client. Why? I know exactly what I want, I can be a true technical partner to any dev team and as a result I can challenge their decisions and critisize in case to much time is spent.

As I said, I am far from a perfect oursourcing client. So by end of the day in my experience outsourcing teams just tried to dinifsh the work no matter how spaghetti code they produce and "get rid of me".

Again, there are always exceptions but please hear me out and see that I am talking from my experience.

Also, I have checked out datrics.io and I can say if your personally were in outsourcing for many years - chances are you were that rare exception.

Have a great day :)

[dennisbalon]

Thanks for detailed PoV.

Let me share an example with you. I have been in software dev for nearly 18 years by now. I am pretty good at creating detailed, structured and well thought through docs for developers.

Now, last year we have experienced a need to outsource two moderate size projects. With great attention to documentation and general dev flow.

Bottom line, despite we did get more or less working results at the end of the day I was not satisfied with the quality of the work done.

The best guys we could interview and get to work with us still showed less confidence, less of engineering thinkin, less of everything than guys who worked in my teams. Ever.

Like litterally less professionalism! And I believe that is ok but it is what it is.

Professionalism and true caring about the product is not core compentenct that is needed if you are part of the outsourcing company. Why? Just because that is not what earns money at the end of the day.

Speaking about US, Germnay, Sweden etc. - guess I would agree that while living in those countries it makes more sense to find good outsourcing Partner which wont happen from the first try anyway.

[Datkiri]

Note: I speak about the outsourcing for startups, for enterprises it’s completely different.

Regarding professionalism:

there is no difference for developer if he works in outsourcing company or in the product company because in the end of the day he wants to be proud of his work. (If he is a great talent)

Thus, for the fair comparison of outsourcing vs employees you have to put both in the same conditions: the same communication, the same management and the same hiring process.

Being in outsourcing business for 10 years I have a lot of examples when founders thought that outsourcing company can build their product for them and I saw success cases only when they treat an outsourcing company as a partner and the project team as their internal team. In opposite case there is a big gap between business and engineering that you don’t have with your core team

I hope that you got your bad experience because of the unsuccessful choice.

[dennisbalon]

I agree that my experience is result of my choices only.

Great point about feeling proud. I think we are we are talking about same thing here here - like from my experience most of the guys working in startups and doing their own projects were concerned about being proud of the work done much more then other guys just doing another set of tasks for someone they`ll never know.

Again, I am talking about the "avg temperature across the hospital". Like there are so many details here but all in all I see more caring people in startups than anywhere else.

[sbacic]

> he wants to be proud of his work.

This. A thousand times this. A sense of professional pride is absolutely critical in becoming good at your craft, regardless of what that craft might be.

[dennisbalon]

Right! Exactly! But would you agree that when you are working in an oursourcing company and projects change sometimes a few times per month - you are less motivated to think about being proud compared to just submitting the hours in time?

[sbacic]

I think I understand your issue now. And yes, in that case I totally agree - all else being equal, an employee of the outsourcing company will care less about your success than your own employee.

But now you're comparing employees, not employees and contractors.

[meiraleal]

Young software engineers are easy to brainwash and convince to work long extra hours for free in startups. Contractors usually are the experienced startup employees of the past. They care less about the company's success because they know the company cares nothing about their success.