[wilfra]

Looks ridiculous at first glance but that's actually not unreasonable.

The value in Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo is first and foremost their users. Next is the technical infrastructure to support all of those users. The front-end website and basic functionality of sending and receiving emails isn't that hard of a technical problem.

Given the level of intelligence this guy appears to have, an Indian PHP dev on elance who charges $10 an hour could probably build something in 50-100 hours that would support far more users than this guy would ever be able to attract and they would both be happy with the transaction.

[aviraldg]

> an indian PHP dev on elance who charges $10 an hour

Stereotyping much?

[ssharp]

If I post a job to one of these sites, it's pretty much guaranteed to get 20+ responses from devs in India. Most are pre-written responses that don't really show that the project was read in any sort of detail.

I'd actually be curious to find out how these operations actually work. Are they solo devs just casting a massive net ? Solo devs actually outsourcing responding to gigs? Agencies applying for as many jobs as possible and subcontracting them out or having employees on staff to do the work?

[damoncali]

I think they're just cheap and aggressive companies. I had one calling me daily trying to "partner". I had to yell at him to get him to stop.

What I don't get is why some of these guys don't approach business like their US counterparts and charge US rates. They could live like kings in some areas of the world. Maybe that's easier said than done. But even the good ones seem to compete on price.

[wilfra]

Ya I don't get that either. It's a race to the bottom. I mean I love finding diamonds in the rough that don't know what they're worth. I have a guy who does Rails jobs for me, used to work for Microsoft, went to a top Indian technical college, speaks perfect english and is really, really good - and he charges me $25 an hour. He could easily be charging $100+/hr if he just marketed himself to different clients (i.e. not on elance).

I guess it's the opposite of what's going on in San Francisco where anybody with a CS degree or equivalent experience expects six figures. There they all expect very little and are happy to get a bit more than the guys hustling hard for $10/hour.

[cpursley]

Yeah, I posted a job for some rails help. I specifically said Russian developers only. I must have 40 Indian applicants and several who called me. Not a clue how they got my number. It's not publicly listed anywhere.

[wut42]

He's not wrong. There is already a proposal, from a indian dev. But in ASP.

[raverbashing]

ASP? As in 'not ASP.net'?

That's like trying to build a full sized bridge with raw pasta and hot glue.

[upnorthkid]

I could do it, but I am going to need lots of hot glue.

[wilfra]

Have you used elance? I've been posting multiple jobs per month for years and 90% of proposals I receive are PHP devs from India that charge ~$10/hour.

That's not a bad thing. Many of those guys are highly skilled and I hire them often.

[analog]

I heard a story from a friend who works in the oil industry. The Indian dev team had updated the software that controlled the oil flow from a field, but they'd introduced a bug that was losing $5000 (or barrels, memory fails me) a day somehow.

They couldn't roll back to the previous version because they weren't using version control for the software.

I've seen some balls ups from UK teams too fwiw, but nothing that approaches that level of wtf.

[neya]

You're pointing to a highly specific example about a particular instance, about a tiny sample from an entire lot, about something that shouldn't have been outsourced in the first place and then trying to conclude in general that "therefore X group of developers sucks". I would rather label this argument with 'wtf' instead of your (pointless) example.

[analog]

I'm not saying "they suck" at all. Just providing a piece of anecdata. So most of us on here work on the web and it would be standard for us to work with source control.

Software controlling an oil field is a step above the bog standard CRUD app that powers most of the web. I'm very surprised that such a mess up could happen, and so was my friend who was in charge of the project.

[bdcravens]

I'm as quick as anyone to bash low price outsourcers, but there's nothing about that situation specific to being Indians. I've worked on many projects here in the states with active codebases that had no source control, and all of their "talent" was home grown.

[analog]

But what kind of software? Controlling an oil field is a little more critical than a CMS.

[bdcravens]

You're diverting. Bad software teams are bad. The fact that they were Indians is irrelevant - using home grown talent doesn't guarantee a level of quality.

[vidarh]

The issue is experience and whether or not the company doing the outsourcing knows how to follow up the projects to verify that they are getting sufficiently experienced developers.

The problem is that markets like India is seeing such a crazy growth that the market is full of inexperienced developers being passed off by outsourcing companies as far more experienced than they are.

Actually identify sufficiently experienced developers, and you don't have bigger problems with Indian dev teams than UK team teams.

You see exactly the same in the UK, but I suspect on a much smaller scale simply because we don't have the same growth and so the supply of inexperienced newbies makes up a substantially smaller part of the overall pool of developers available.

[FraaJad]

If you think that all developers of $NATIONALITY use version control, I have a bridge to sell you.

[raverbashing]

Or worse, they use Clearcase

And before you ask me what's the big deal, I will teach you, for the price of the CC license

[mrgoldenbrown]

Check out thedailywtf.com if you want to see example upon example of major WTF perpetrated by non Indian dev teams.

[cpursley]

What moron outsourced mission critical software like this? I'm not sure I'm buying this story.

[analog]

It's fairly standard for big corps to outsource software development. They see software as a cost centre, and in some ways it is. Even at a loss of $5000 per day they may have still come out on top in the long run.

Edit: source, my brother has a senior position at one of the big four accountancy firms, they outsource a lot of dev work to India.