[lifestyleguru]

> Being self employed, but only for a single customer, is false self-employment

This is exactly what happens in Poland and everyone involved feels very smart for cheating the system. That's also why software from Poland is such a tacky crap despite so many "talents". The software professionals have no leverage to push back, they only can walk away. The irresistibile benefit is that one can write off buying a car into operating costs, so the dream of PREMIUM GERMAN CAR prevails over doing anything creative.

[jokethrowaway]

Anecdotal, but developers from Poland (and Russia too) have been among the best contractors I've seen. Even the digital tracking / documents system from the government, which is usually a pile of crap in most countries, is pretty well done.

I've had terrible experiences with Hungary, Latvia, etc. and (judging from conversations to the owners of the outsourcing agencies) Hungary has very high taxes and not many smart ways of avoiding them.

[mkaszkowiak]

How is tax optimization related to the quality of developed software?

[lifestyleguru]

If you have to breach rules which are a standard in developed countries, means exactly that you are uncompetitive with your skills. Funny that social and salary dumping where exactly the populist argument that the British voters picked up most eagerly in referendum on Brexit. That's post-Communist mentality to feel satisfaction from "screwing someone over", it's devastating the social trust, on macro scale it doesn't pay well.

[badpun]

You don't have to breach any rules. Every job offer I've ever had in Poland had an option for regular contract of employment ("umowa o pracę"). If you want to be taxed more, that option is always on the table.

[mkaszkowiak]

I still don't see how developing high quality software is related to one's personal viewpoint on taxes.

[lifestyleguru]

That's very smart.

[V-2]

> That's also why software from Poland is such a tacky crap despite so many "talents"

[citation needed]

How do you recognize "software from Poland" anyway?

[lifestyleguru]

> How do you recognize "software from Poland" anyway?

Whatever is created in all these nearshoring and outsourcing centers in Warsaw, Kraków, and Wrocław. Currently mostly Azure, SAP, business Java and Angular.

[badpun]

In my experience, the software can be crap because the companies tend to only hire technical people over here in Poland, while business guys remain in the HQ. The highest business person you'll see in Poland is typically a PO, while a PM and people above him are in the headquaters. This has the effect of not keeping the Polish team tightly in the loop, which translates into worse software.

The second problem is that the companies tend to hire a lot of people at the same time when they open their offshore/nearshore center in Poland - often going from zero to hundreds, or even thousands over the span of just a couple of years. Having such large organization of effectively people with no previous institutional history is akin to a herd of only young elephants, who don't have any elders and don't know what and how they should be doing exactly. The "elders" are in the HQ obviously, but building company culture exclusively over Zoom, especially on the scale of hundreds/thousands new hires, is a bad idea.

[lifestyleguru]

This isn't a mistake or overlook. They treat the office like a sweatshop. No you are not exceptionally skillful. Within weeks they're able to move to a cheaper location and they will once their Excel will say so. It's so funny seeing devs on B2B in Poland thinking they are some entrepreneurs while for HQ they are in the same league as another office in Pajarumbad.

[badpun]

They don’t move to cheaper locations though, because the work quality would suffer. So far, I’ve only seen one group of people laid off in Poland and their jobs moved to India - DB admins. The company deemed the job simple enough to risk moving it to an outsourced Indian sweatshop. The results were terrible BTW.

Also, your experience is very different than mine, I’ve never meet anyone working in Poland doing coding for a company abroad thinking they’re some kind of entrepreneur. They’re not delusional, they know that they’re just doing a job, selling themselves to a highest bidder like everybody else.

[V-2]

Yeah, but how do you know which application was and which wasn't? Apart from some big customers, it usually isn't public knowledge. Eg. my previous project was a banking app for a rich Middle Eastern country. There's no "acknowledgements" section in the app.

My original question still stands - by what metrics do you regard "software from Poland" as "tacky crap"? I'm not being belligerent about it, but somewhat curious, sure.

[lifestyleguru]

Ain't gonna fight. Good luck.

[V-2]

I'm not fighting, I was just curious what you're basing your claim on. I disregarded your unnecessarily incendiary phrasing ("software from Poland is such a tacky crap") completely.

[SomeoneFromCA]

Software from all of Eastern Europe and ex-USSR is lower quality than American and Western European. Source: live in ex-USSR. We all hired to deliver shitty code for low cost. Not as shitty as Indian, but you get what you pay for.

[dappermanneke]

some of the best eu engineers I’ve worked with were polish freelancers

[KptMarchewa]

Azure and SAP are crap everywhere.

[KptMarchewa]

You're dealing with some low end companies if german car is somehow a status symbol.

[lifestyleguru]

This doesn't even offend me. Good luck with your sweatshop.