indian devs deadlines and issues

I hired a team of developers form india that called themselves professionals.

They developerd an app on android and ios.

But they went past the deadline by a few weeks.

the end product though was ok.

they have developed all the backend and front end.

The problem is they ALWAYS miss their own set deadlines by weeks if not months.

The last major (ish) update started Jan 2022. They told us it would take 5 weeks to complete and publish. Based on experience I said iL give them 8 weeks.

6 months later they still had not completed the work. (thats 6 months not weeks!). I then had to really push them and take some action and then they delivered the android version promising to complete the iphone version asap.

Now 7 months later the ios version still hasnt been delivered. Which was promised this weekend gone.

So im kinda fed up with this. If someone said it will take 1 day to build a wall in your garden and it took 6 months, i would be seriously upset and most likely would have got rid of them before that.

But with developers its a bit different.

If I 'sacked' these devs and hired new ones, will new devs want to touch the code. Will it work? I know from experience everyone codes diffferently and sometimes its hard to work with other ppls code even to make small changes.

What would you do in this situation?

therealrio said:

But they went past the deadline by a few weeks.

Click to expand...

At first when I read this I thought you were complaining about your devs going past the deadline by a few weeks.

That is normal in software dev. Most projects can easily get pushed by a few months. This is because it's hard to predict complexity and scope. A feature that was expected to be simple can actually be really too complex. A good team of Devs lets you know and gives appropriate projections however.

therealrio said:

6 months later they still had not completed the work.

Click to expand...

Now this is a serious problem. Either your devs have no clue how to give estimates or they are highly misorganized or they got stuck at some issue and weren't allowed/possible to proceed until that issue got solved.

Do know what caused this long? What did they tell you? Does your team have a project manager?

therealrio said:

will new devs want to touch the code. Will it work

Click to expand...

Well that depends on how maintainable the codebase is. How complex your app is and whether the Devs cared enough about writing documentation.

If you own the source code (which i am certain you probably are), get an agency/consultant to look into and ask them whether they can add features to it. Or how much it would take to rewrite the whole app.

Knowing from my previous experience tho, you might have to rewrite the entire app if you get a new team. Usually the effort/investment is worth it. An unmaintable codebase only makes things worse and locks you with a certain dev team.

therealrio said:

What would you do in this situation

Click to expand...

First I would find out what caused them to run off the deliverable so long.

Did the estimate not work out because of a technical difficulty? Did the project suffer from key person risk and someone important like a Senior dev leave which left the project stranded?

Or was it because incompetenence in project management? Devs were responsible for several projects and didn't prioritise your deadline?

Shit happens. And the devs/Teamlead is responsible for letting the client know incase of a major shitstorm like this.

And you as the client have the duty of assessing whether paying a team like this is worth it.

If the overrun didn't cost you a lot in opportunity loss/loss in user-trust, sacking and moving to a new team might be too expensive.

If it did cost you a lot tho, reasonably more than the amortized cost of you sacking them and getting a new, better team. Moving might as well be a good investment.

You know better than me about your business tho. So do your due diligence.

Ashk881 said:

At first when I read this I thought you were complaining about your devs going past the deadline by a few weeks.

That is normal in software dev. Most projects can easily get pushed by a few months. This is because it's hard to predict complexity and scope. A feature that was expected to be simple can actually be really too complex. A good team of Devs lets you know and gives appropriate projections however.



Now this is a serious problem. Either your devs have no clue how to give estimates or they are highly misorganized or they got stuck at some issue and weren't allowed/possible to proceed until that issue got solved.

Do know what caused this long? What did they tell you? Does your team have a project manager?

Well that depends on how maintainable the codebase is. How complex your app is and whether the Devs cared enough about writing documentation.

If you own the source code (which i am certain you probably are), get an agency/consultant to look into and ask them whether they can add features to it. Or how much it would take to rewrite the whole app.

Knowing from my previous experience tho, you might have to rewrite the entire app if you get a new team. Usually the effort/investment is worth it. An unmaintable codebase only makes things worse and locks you with a certain dev team.

Click to expand...

I do own the code yes. I am the project manager.

The dilemma is that I know from experience that working with devs from 'cheaper' countries carries a risk.

If they gave a valid excuse, if they made an effort to try to make me understand, it would be ok. But whats going on is that they wont reply for days now. Then reply with "yes we will send it asap" etc...
No reason was actually given except that one of the devs was ill but that was few months ago. And this is supposed ot be a team of devs id assume they would have someone who could undertake the project (be it at a slower pace)

Did you interview this team before hiring?
Something like a zoom call maybe?

MKSKS said:

Did you interview this team before hiring?
Something like a zoom call maybe?

Click to expand...

Was gonna ask the same question but then I thought, who cares?

non technical manager + noob team = disaster waiting to happen lol.

therealrio said:

If they gave a valid excuse, if they made an effort to try to make me understand, it would be ok. But whats going on is that they wont reply for days now. Then reply with "yes we will send it asap" etc...
No reason was actually given except that one

Click to expand...

If i were you I would have sacked them out by now. This is a serious red flag.

There's a huge communication gap between you, the manager/client and your devs. They are simply not communicating/denying to communicate with you at all. And you have no clue what's happening with your project.

In a better, more organized scenario; you would have much, much, more information. You would have changelogs/reports of what's been done at the end of every week. Or a roadmap, or just more communication. Something, something to measure and something to justify the delay.

Right now you have nothing.

It's one thing to 'have reasons", even if unjustified. That means someone has tried.
But to have no reasons at all, is completely another. It means they aren't taking it seriously, don't want to take responsibility, or simply don't care.

Your team probably doesn't care about your project at all, or they are too busy that they aren't prioritising yours, or they are just incompetent dolts who have no clue what they are doing.

One thing is for sure tho. They are taking you on a ride and you are prolly doing nothing about it.

You can actually contract another dev to be your eyes and ears with the initial team and look into what's causing the delays. From there you can decide on the future course of action.

The reason for those delays is that they are caught in multiple projects.

MKSKS said:

Did you interview this team before hiring?
Something like a zoom call maybe?

Click to expand...

i hired from a freelancer site, and really based it on the bid, initial pitch they made (as in their portfolio), ratings/reviews and also a short whatsapp video call to see they were who they claimed to be, spoke to their boss and main dev.

I think what ppl are saying is right in that they prob have multiple projects and those prob paying them more so they giving them priority

So, it can be one of two things.

- Either, they’re back up with projects and don’t manage their time/too backed up to even manage the time.

- Are learning programming/app dev on the fly and building your app as they learn.

Regardless, it’s very unprofessional.

It sounds like you've been through a lot with your development team. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for developers to miss deadlines or be unable to complete all the work they promise. it happens a lot in the software development industry.

Not gonna lie, I think there's a possibility that these "developers" actually know nothing about development and were trying to outsource it themselves, and that's why it took them so long.

Always had issues with deadlines being met when dealing with developers. I've dealt with freelancers and teams from India and such and deadlines are always hard to meet, unless I'm ordering through Fiverr.

Hire locally if you're really worried about quality or accountability. The more the web becomes accessible around the world, the more cowboys you're likely to encounter.