I don't like how this article makes offshore development equal to hiring developers that make spaghetti code full of technical debt, like having someone in-house magically stops that from happening.
Also, if you hire cheapest programmers you can find, they will be crappy no matter what country they're working from.
- If the product is a success, I'm going to get some money/benefit?
- Do I need to maintain the software?
- I got a good salary?
Usually offshore developers don't have stock in the company, don't have to maintain it and they are poorly paid. So their incentive is to finish the product as fast as they can and just get the money.
If you work in-house you are more aligned with the interest of the company. You'll have to deal with this software every day(nobody wants to maintain spaguetti code) and problably you have some stock, also if the company does well you can get a raise.
It's about incentives, people optimize for its own hapinness.
I had the same reaction. It's mostly good, but there seems to be an unstated assumption that offshore programmers will create more technical debt. Maybe it's even true. I work with what I'm sure is one of the better teams in Bangalore, and while their code is fine in most regards (no more "spaghetti" than I would expect of US programmers working in the same domain), there has been a bit of a learning curve regarding issues like readability and technical debt. I'm sure the situation is worse for other teams. Nonetheless, I wish the author had addressed the issue up front instead of just making assumptions.
this article makes offshore development equal to hiring developers that make spaghetti code full of technical debt
It's not, but most of the non-techs who are interested in outsourcing are interested in optimizing for cheapness, so the result is what you'd expect.
I'd say that the real arbitrage is to work with extremely talented people (who'd go for $250/h here) at $30-40/hour (plus investment in their career, assistance with immigration if they want it, flights to conferences, and profit sharing... it's still a huge arbitrage after throwing that in) but the sorts of sleazy non-techs who "just need a programmer" and have heard there's cheap labor in the third world are not going to play that way (and they can't assess that upper level of talent anyway). They tend to work with El Sleazo outsourcing shops that charge $20-30/h and pay $4-6/h to the workers. Some of those workers, even at low wages, are quite intelligent and talented... but they're not going to care about long-term issues (e.g. tech debt) if they're just being used for temporary, low-end commodity work, with no managerial interest in their advancement.
In fact, if you're looking for clueless people ("I just need a programmer to do all the work for almost zero upside") your best bet is in Silicon Valley. There are plenty of 22-year-olds who buy into the VC mythology and will work 90 hours per week despite a lack of upper-management interest in their own careers. In the developing world, that cluelessness is rare because frank poverty, corruption and outright stealing (by well-positioned officials and common thieves alike) are more common and having that trait would mean that you starve. Working 90-hour weeks because "maybe after two years, he'll introduce me to his VC buddies" is a clueless young white boy's game.
Also, if you hire cheapest programmers you can find, they will be crappy no matter what country they're working from.