[LRUG] Outsourcing

[Riccardo Tacconi]

Hi Rob,

I had a customer last year in the US who preferred me instead of India
developers because of their English, but I am sure there are good
professionals there with good English too.

I am working mainly for a company called Enspiral.com, based in New
Zealand, which is composed by more than 30 developers, designers... but
rates are similar to the UK since the quality of the work is usually high.
The company is structured as a charity and the main aim is to make life of
freelancers easier and to collaborate with other ventures to bring a
positive change (environment, poverty...).

I think we are still in the era of the corporate mentality, where the
employee has to commute to the work place, be controlled if he is working
or wasting time, has to follow many restrictive rules, an trust is always
optional. I think if a developer does not his job could be verified by the
results, if the developer can work in his house has usually a quieter
environment, commuting time does not exists and a happier person works
better. That's what I think and that's my experience. In the end code
should be commit using SVN or Git, a PM software should be used so if two
developers are near each other of few hundreds of miles does not change
much. The main problem is the time zone: I had to attend meetings at
midnight, so I think outsourcing is viable when people are in the same, say
continent or the time zone difference is no more than five hours.

Another things that makes me sad is that job posts are always a list of
constraints... must relocate, do this do that, no older than no younger
than...

On 5 January 2012 10:51, Rob Anderson <
rob.anderson at paymentcardsolutions.co.uk> wrote:

> Hello LRUG
>
> We've been trying to recruit for a permanent Rails position for a while
> now, and it isn't going well.  Judging from the number of job posts on this
> board, we're not alone in this.
>
> So, very reluctantly, I'm considering outsourcing the role, probably to
> India.  Does anyone have any experience with this / advice to offer?
>
> Our constraints:
>
> - we're a financial services company, so trust is a big issue
> - we have a large and expanding code base, so there is an upfront
> investment in time before anyone can really contribute properly.  So we're
> looking for a long term relationship.
>
> I'll be at the LRUG meeting on Monday - look forward to seeing you all
> there.
>
> Rob
>
> PS We've taken a long hard look at the recruitment agency route, and it's
> not for us.  So please, don't contact me if you are recruiter.  Thanks!
>
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>



-- 
Riccardo Tacconi
Ruby on Rails and PHP development - System Administration
VIRTUELOGIC LIMITED

http://github.com/rtacconi
http://riccardotacconi.blogspot.com
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