HELP: About to hire team of developers from India

Hey guys, the title says it all.

HOWEVER,

I am looking for some advice when hiring a team of developers from India.
I'm looking to develop a selling dashboard for eCommerce stores to be manageable all in one place - with some features nobody has.

I have heard some horror stories about people working with overseas developers and them not being capable of finishing most projects.
They claim they have the skills and knowledge to do so just to get the project, however, are unable to deliver.

Most of the ones that bid on my project on Freelancer & Upwork don't have great reviews but come off as super legit companies that know what they are talking about.

Also, we got quoted 950 hours for a project @ $15/hour for 2 PHP developers and 1 UX/UI developer @ $12/hour.

Is this fairly the standard for these types of companies?

Does anyone have & tips or suggestions when working on this type of project?

-D

$10-$15 ph were the rates prevaling in 2013-14, these are attractive rates though. I would highly recommend a 'technical' video call with the actual developer that would be working on the project to be satisfied about the capabilities and communication skills

Also i wouldnt recommend a lumpsum payment upfront

if the project is complex, i would be extremely careful in outsourcing it.

Indian worker get your quotes he be dancing around the table floor from India lol.

the average wage for a programmer only $5/hr and that huge money.(( Indian money))

the average worker on $35 /m(( phone shop example))

you can do deals don't be conned sounds like someone getting a huge pull from your quotes mate .....

you should be doing the job as a whole and let them worry about the hourly rate.

tell them what you need and your budget and see what they can do.

always get a written contract and only pay as see progress and development to the project , don't be subject to thift.

good luck

ps. one to one Skype chat brillant idea but always get a contract , try to use proper business and not back allay service's

my suggestion .
goto a uni first.

give out some cards directly to the programming level 2 classes ...

don't underestimate uni programmers that need the cash to live , you might find some really top of the class uni student willing to help you for cash .

you always get a person in a class that crush/master the subject and can talk the language like water and prove it flashly ....

Yup, many in Upwork overpromise and do not honor deadline. Promise to be done tomorrow but turns out it is delivered 4 days later

Wisiu said:

I'm looking to develop a selling dashboard for eCommerce stores to be manageable all in one place - with some features nobody has.

Click to expand...

For the project you're describing, I wouldn't redevlop it from scratch. I'd just use Magento or WooCommerce and write addons/extensions for the features that don't exist. Why reprogram all of this from scratch when it's been done a million times before? Also you'll probably end up with more customers who already have an online store and want your features, but aren't going to redo their entire store on a new platform.

Of course that's not what you asked about. Just my two cents.

Wisiu said:

I have heard some horror stories about people working with overseas developers and them not being capable of finishing most projects.
They claim they have the skills and knowledge to do so just to get the project, however, are unable to deliver.-D

Click to expand...

I've only heard this story a million times. Not only projects not being complete, but being done half-assed. If you're not a developer, hire a developer you know well and trust to chat with the overseas devs. Since it's just a small conversation, it will be cheap, even if the dev is local. Do it as if you're interviewing them; give them loaded questions and see if they actually have the programming knowledge to answer properly, or if they're just noobs.

Wisiu said:

Also, we got quoted 950 hours for a project @ $15/hour for 2 PHP developers and 1 UX/UI developer @ $12/hour.

Is this fairly the standard for these types of companies?

Does anyone have & tips or suggestions when working on this type of project?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't pay them per hour. Put together a scope document: everything that has to be done, every single thing, including "ability to register accounts", "email verification of new accounts", "forgot password feature", "2 security questions", etc. Get them to provide a quote for exactly that. Also include how you're paying them. Split payments up at milestones, depending on the size/price of the project, with a fair deposit up front. That way if they're going too slow or if you're not satisfied, you haven't wasted a lot of time and money for nothing.

This scope document becomes very key; if a month down the line they don't have a feature you expected, review the document. If it's in the document, remind them it needs to be done. If not, it's your fault for forgetting it.

The nice thing about this method is that everything is agreed upon up front, and it's clear who is at fault if something isn't done. So you don't fall into the whole "I expected this feature", "Our quote doesn't include this feature", "I shouldn't pay extra for this", "Yes you should" conversation.


Final note:
If it's your first time using a developer, start by hiring them for something small. This will give you a good idea of how they work and what to expect from them. Some devs have a lot of delays, some a lot of bugs, some are impossible to get a hold of, etc, no one is perfect. A small unimportant project is a good way to learn these things about your dev. Once you find out their strengths and weaknesses, you can decide if they're right for a bigger project.

If you go through several devs before finding the one you like, you're doing it right.

redarrow said:

Indian worker get your quotes he be dancing around the table floor from India lol.

the average wage for a programmer only $5/hr and that huge money.(( Indian money))

Click to expand...

Hey, $5 is nothing for us, you can ask anyone who lives in INDIA, $5 is just INR 300 approx (a Medium PIZZA without cheese)
Common, grow up dude, the avg wage for a medium programmer here in INDIA is around $12-$15 depending upon the work/client.

i own a software agency, and interview dozens of outsource developers.

Its hard. You need to have your own technical guy who is great at programming to look at their code. Never believe in how many X years of experience. I lead a team of developer and know that its crap. Also never believe in so-called senior developer appointed by another company. Senior is just another term for them to use for noob vs staff even more noob.

Depends on the project, for long term project which need to be changed continuously, pay for ppl more reliable.
Everyone can code, but in programming, more time is spent on fixing issues ! Go google software project delayed and failing rate, then you would understand.

For short term easy project, that's okay, right is lower.
But end of the day, you need people who can review their code. For my side it works, because I know the standards of the outsource people very good and I got internal team who can help finalize their thing, so I assign task based on complexity and their capabilities,

A few good indicator of a good programmer
i) Ask them what programming book they can introduce to you. Go google, there are a few bible for programming that will teach you how to write good code (regardless of programming language), most of the ppl i know that never read these books, they sucks.

ii) Do they contribute to open source?

iii) How do they keep update to their programming language changes?' What blog do they follow?

Good luck

I agree with vsching for the most part. Couple things I disagree on:

vsching said:

i) Ask them what programming book they can introduce to you.

Click to expand...

Books don't matter. Programming is more about understanding. A good programmer can pick up a new language (syntactically similar to one they already know) in a few days by just reading documentation. For example, an experienced PHP programmer can pick up Perl in a couple days.

vsching said:

ii) Do they contribute to open source?

Click to expand...

Interesting to know (plus it gives you the chance to review their code). But this is a bad indicator, especially in Internet Marketing industry. Most open-source projects are volunteer (not paid). In the IM industry, everyone is out to make money, not code for free. Not contributing to open source projects does not indicate that the programmer is bad.

But if they say "no", that's a good excuse to request some code they worked on for you to review.

vsching said:

iii) How do they keep update to their programming language changes?' What blog do they follow?

Click to expand...

Depends on the language. Your stuff is all web based, so I'd try to ensure they're familiar with PHP 7.0 (most servers are still running 5.3 or 5.6). There's no real way to know though. It takes a few seconds to Google the differences between PHP 5 and 7. If they're already lying to get your business, they can easily answer this question on the fly.

Programming languages try to be backwards compatible. An up-to-date programmer doesn't necessarily mean a better programmer.




For me, this has been the golden ticket in hiring devs: Loaded questions.

bigot said:

chat with the overseas devs [...] Do it as if you're interviewing them; give them loaded questions and see if they actually have the programming knowledge to answer properly, or if they're just noobs.

Click to expand...

Do it over the phone if you can, and trust your instincts. You can tell the difference between them not understanding due to language barriers, and not understanding due to lack of technical expertise.

yeahhub said:

Hey, $5 is nothing for us, you can ask anyone who lives in INDIA, $5 is just INR 300 approx (a Medium PIZZA without cheese)
Common, grow up dude, the avg wage for a medium programmer here in INDIA is around $12-$15 depending upon the work/client.

Click to expand...

He's not wrong, 5$ is way too less

have to try Freelancer dot com? but i think the payout is quite low

Hi,
It's true you can't trust in anyone for these types of work as I faced a lot and found one person. If you need reference then I can give you. He is good and work is perfect too.

Wisiu said:

Hey guys, the title says it all.

HOWEVER,

I am looking for some advice when hiring a team of developers from India.
I'm looking to develop a selling dashboard for eCommerce stores to be manageable all in one place - with some features nobody has.

I have heard some horror stories about people working with overseas developers and them not being capable of finishing most projects.
They claim they have the skills and knowledge to do so just to get the project, however, are unable to deliver.

Most of the ones that bid on my project on Freelancer & Upwork don't have great reviews but come off as super legit companies that know what they are talking about.

Also, we got quoted 950 hours for a project @ $15/hour for 2 PHP developers and 1 UX/UI developer @ $12/hour.

Is this fairly the standard for these types of companies?

Does anyone have & tips or suggestions when working on this type of project?

-D

Click to expand...

Books matter, by programming books , I am not talking about books about programming language.

There are a few book about having the right programming basics, ethnics and habits.

All the question I asked is for a simple reason, if they are good programmers, they would have the work ethnic to keep improving themselves. These people are real gold, the rest probably can work on the project, but the level would most probably be beginner to intermediate. Yes, they can code, but you might probably bang your head if you want to edit the code or ask others to help fix it.

And a short note, yeah , a good programmer can learn new language within days and will be comfortable working with new language a lot faster. But that depends on whether they have a very good basic understanding of programming.

A lot of new programmers, they read online , code but they never understanding how it actually works. A lot more of this people then you can think. Before I open my own software agency, I am CTO of a few startups , so I deal with lots of programmers before.

And don't think people who cost more is always better. Once , my client outsourced to a UK company before hiring me, it costs me 3 months to fix the bugs and issues from his code. A new project of the same complexity would just take me around 3-4 months. So you can imagine how pissed off the client is.

So if it is your first time outsourcing, be careful, but i won't worry too much if just normal wordpress/woocommerce edit, just don't pay in lump sum and find some local friend to help go through their code once would be good enough

bigot said:

I agree with vsching for the most part. Couple things I disagree on:


Books don't matter. Programming is more about understanding. A good programmer can pick up a new language (syntactically similar to one they already know) in a few days by just reading documentation. For example, an experienced PHP programmer can pick up Perl in a couple days.


Interesting to know (plus it gives you the chance to review their code). But this is a bad indicator, especially in Internet Marketing industry. Most open-source projects are volunteer (not paid). In the IM industry, everyone is out to make money, not code for free. Not contributing to open source projects does not indicate that the programmer is bad.

But if they say "no", that's a good excuse to request some code they worked on for you to review.


Depends on the language. Your stuff is all web based, so I'd try to ensure they're familiar with PHP 7.0 (most servers are still running 5.3 or 5.6). There's no real way to know though. It takes a few seconds to Google the differences between PHP 5 and 7. If they're already lying to get your business, they can easily answer this question on the fly.

Programming languages try to be backwards compatible. An up-to-date programmer doesn't necessarily mean a better programmer.




For me, this has been the golden ticket in hiring devs: Loaded questions.


Do it over the phone if you can, and trust your instincts. You can tell the difference between them not understanding due to language barriers, and not understanding due to lack of technical expertise.

Click to expand...

Great to know that a team is charging you almost $40k (as per my understanding) for developing 80% existing code and 20% original code. Trust me, whatever your scope is if you said e-commerce - most of the time, a developer with pick an existing solution and build on top of it (not magento, etc. but think Spree)

You really do need to hire a technical manager that is not working with this team to overview this team. Better would be to pay someone from India to talk to this team (over a lengthy phone call or face to face) and decipher how they are charging, how they would be working, any deadlines, project scopes, etc. Let this guy tell you whether or not, he thinks the team will deliver to what they promised.

Thing is, things work differently here in India. I have settled down in this country an year ago (for business purposes), and figured out that the way interactions work in this country are vastly different than others. They will say one thing to a foreign client, and almost a different thing to an Indian client - reason? The Indian client knows the ground reality of how things work in India.

So, make sure you can hire a good technical guy who can talk to them in native language, can pretend to be the actual client, and who can manage things on your behalf. Things would work way more smoothly this way. If you have trouble finding such a developer who can be trusted with this thing, shoot me a PM and I can arrange someone for you locally.

Agree with this, ask them what open source they can use to make their life easier and charge you lesser? There are damn lots of opensource options out there.
Yes, there will be limitations, but a little compromise and it will save you lots of money.

Launch your business first, then slowly improve and add more capabilities to your website

seres said:

Great to know that a team is charging you almost $40k (as per my understanding) for developing 80% existing code and 20% original code. Trust me, whatever your scope is if you said e-commerce - most of the time, a developer with pick an existing solution and build on top of it (not magento, etc. but think Spree)

You really do need to hire a technical manager that is not working with this team to overview this team. Better would be to pay someone from India to talk to this team (over a lengthy phone call or face to face) and decipher how they are charging, how they would be working, any deadlines, project scopes, etc. Let this guy tell you whether or not, he thinks the team will deliver to what they promised.

Thing is, things work differently here in India. I have settled down in this country an year ago (for business purposes), and figured out that the way interactions work in this country are vastly different than others. They will say one thing to a foreign client, and almost a different thing to an Indian client - reason? The Indian client knows the ground reality of how things work in India.

So, make sure you can hire a good technical guy who can talk to them in native language, can pretend to be the actual client, and who can manage things on your behalf. Things would work way more smoothly this way. If you have trouble finding such a developer who can be trusted with this thing, shoot me a PM and I can arrange someone for you locally.

Click to expand...

Yes exactly, you need a good technical manager who can manage your overall project along with the development team because in INDIA, you'll find all types of programmers who are skilled and good but they just need good direction...

Go for a video call and ask them some questions. Technical questions will do good, this will tell you if they know what they're talking about.

Secondly, always have options. Tell them what you need and when you need, make them sign some agreements. I'm not sure about hourly rate, one time payment will be better.

Thirdly, $5 is shit for us in India. At Rs 300 I can't even get an extreme front seat in cinema hall or I can't even buy the shittiest underwear.

Avg. Income is higher than that, i donno where you got your stats from, don't Google everything, research about it.

Wisiu said:

Hey guys, the title says it all.

HOWEVER,

I am looking for some advice when hiring a team of developers from India.
I'm looking to develop a selling dashboard for eCommerce stores to be manageable all in one place - with some features nobody has.

I have heard some horror stories about people working with overseas developers and them not being capable of finishing most projects.
They claim they have the skills and knowledge to do so just to get the project, however, are unable to deliver.

Most of the ones that bid on my project on Freelancer & Upwork don't have great reviews but come off as super legit companies that know what they are talking about.

Also, we got quoted 950 hours for a project @ $15/hour for 2 PHP developers and 1 UX/UI developer @ $12/hour.

Is this fairly the standard for these types of companies?

Does anyone have & tips or suggestions when working on this type of project?

-D

Click to expand...

Everytime I have ever employed someone as a freelancer, something bad has gone wrong. Either they “can’t complete” or some other bs...stay away from employing people from overseas...specially when looking to have something developed.

--- NOTE ---

Thread was opened almost 45 days ago. And, the OP hasn't replied since. Guess, we can leave the thread be, unless OP wants more info? Sorry, for not having looked that up myself.