[spamizbad]

As a developer who's been on all sides of this equation (developer, contractor, and someone who has outsourced dev work), I have to say I agree with the poster above who said "Most outsourcing projects don't go nearly that well."

Here's my advice to any prospective outsourcer:

-You still need to do your job as a both a product manager AND a project manager. Failure at either one of these duties on your end cannot be rescued by developer skill.

-You need to be able to identify whether or not a contractor or firm is actually capable of doing the work you're asking them to perform. Have they completed similar projects in similar time frames? Do they have repeat customers? How experienced are their developers? Do they have experience in the platform you're developing in? Are they full stack or are they just building the mobile portion?

-Always understand that contracted labor will be less opinionated, and will be far more likely to take a "Garbage in, garbage out" approach to any requirements you feed them. A salaried engineer may provide some push-back on features that will cause the project costs or timing to slip, contractors (foreign or native) have a tendency to happily plug along and let time and budget slip and then just apologize after the fact. Remember: Every mistake YOU make will likely result in more billable hours for them, so they have a financial interest in not telling you when you've stepped in it.

-Requirements should be very detailed. If you hand them a PowerPoint slide deck with some notes your project is doomed.