I agree.... Freelance site ussually have indian workers on it.. where can we find Russin coders or romanian outsorcers?
Indians vs Filipinos (software developers)
- Thread starter idanj
- Start date
I agree.... Freelance site ussually have indian workers on it.. where can we find Russin coders or romanian outsorcers?
How do you know how much to pay your programmer for a software if you have no idea about programming yourself? Just what you think it will be worth for you in the future? What are the average hourly salaries of eastern europe programmers?
Yeah I'm also interested to know more about the Eastern European coders. I've heard great things.
For now I'm using a combo of both Indians and Filipinos. I'd say that for the design work you can get some really decent stuff turned around quick (Indians) but on the coding side of things - well that's another story.
I've also used some local dev guys - and they were just as shitty. So I think it depends on the person more than anything. If it's a serious project spend some money on it, otherwise work within your budget and make sure you screen your outsourcing candidates really really well.
It'll depend mostly on your budget. What do you really want to spend on a project?
For now I'm using a combo of both Indians and Filipinos. I'd say that for the design work you can get some really decent stuff turned around quick (Indians) but on the coding side of things - well that's another story.
I've also used some local dev guys - and they were just as shitty. So I think it depends on the person more than anything. If it's a serious project spend some money on it, otherwise work within your budget and make sure you screen your outsourcing candidates really really well.
It'll depend mostly on your budget. What do you really want to spend on a project?
Actually I use phlipinos for writing. I dont use indians period. Bangladesh, has better education system than India and more stable than Pakistan. I have 3 Bangladeshi contractors and they rock! Pakistan is second choice. It's really hard to beat Bangladesh. In case anyone wants to know I'm British and Live in US
Just to give you a bit of background about myself. I'm an American and I have personally been to India and the Philippines and seen the outsourcing offices I've dealt with first hand from several different companies. I've also hired from both India and the Philippines. Here is what I've learned to hopefully save you the hassle of making many of the same mistakes.
- Costs for a programmer in both countries are relatively the same. Meaning a $1000 a month expert programmer in India will be a $1000 a month expert programmer in the Philippines.
- Every outsourcing company differs in the way they hire staff for you. Most commonly an outsourcing company will have an HR staff that will look at applications and then have you interview people, while others already have programmers on call ready to go at any time. If you want a long-term solution ONLY go with companies that are willing to reach out into the job market and find someone specific to your needs. I've never had a good experience in using someone that was already on staff ready to go. Secondly, make sure it's easy to hire and fire somebody. Nothing is worse than having a contract for 6 months with someone you can't use.
- Payment structure. Make sure the outsourcing company you deal with is OPEN with you about payment structure. Some companies will charge you $2000 for an expert programmer which they are only paying $500 for. All good outsourcing companies will generally have a payment structure where you pay a flat fee on top of the person you outsourced's salary. This structure gives you the ability to give your staff raises and bonuses without the outsourcing company taking a part of the bonus or raise since the flat fee always remains the same. This can have it's ups and downs. For instance a $500 content writer will cost you $1100.
- The Philippines has something called a 13th month bonus (it's like a Christmas bonus). Not all outsourcing companies will require it, but it's a custom you should be prepared for. Again talk w/ the outsourcing company you work with to see what sort of expectations you may be asked to fulfill. Things like holidays/time-off and 13th month payments can eat away at your budget if you aren't expecting them.
Now the differences between staff in the Philippines and India that I've noticed.
- You can find equivalently skilled staff in both Philippines and India in any area. From designers to programmers. The biggest problem you'll run into is going to be understanding western ideas and culture. Although this stereotyping isn't true for all Indians or Filipinos, this is the majority of what I've seen from both. Sorry if you consider it offensive.
The one major thing that finally swayed me to let all my Indian staff go and only work with Filipinos was this. In this ad industry cultural differences can be a huge killer. Basically if someone doesn't understand your product or idea, how can you expect them to create software or ads for your target market. You can't.
If you've been to India, or even looked at a picture, it's vastly different from America. Many animals are sacred, cows lay in the roads and people just drive around them, advertising is completely different, the movie scene is completely different, clothing is completely different, and drinking alcohol is still somewhat taboo. It's a very conservative culture and almost nothing like western culture.
Now, look at a picture of modern day Manila. Although it's still not like being in the states it's not that far off. You see billboards that are similar to American ones, people wear similar clothes, drinking alcohol is definitely not a taboo, and English is an official language. Hell I've been to the rural areas like the Batad Rice Terraces in Northern Philippines and Dumaguete further south and still didn't have any problems finding English speakers.
What I'm trying to say is, Philippine culture is not that far off from American culture. I've had much more success explaining my ideas to Filipinos than Indians because they are more familiar with the ideas.
Now this doesn't mean their is never an exception. I've had great experiences with a 20 year old Indian designer who was amazing and understood my ideas extremely well.
My mistakes:
- My first time hiring I ran out of stuff for my employee to do. Make sure you're ready to bring on a full-time employee, don't just do it because you're making $30k a month right now and it's fun to tell someone what to do. You'll regret it when that $30k+ a month goes away
.
- When my employee would run out of work the company I hired the person through, would do other company projects behind my back. Essentially the company was having the person do other projects during the downtime where they had nothing to do. I'd tell the company so and so can go home early today (it was a friday) to which they replied they can't do that. What a joke (Indus Net Technologies btw). I've visited their offices and spoke to their CEO personally. They are overpriced and shit, and no one understood my ideas. I'm never using them again.
My recommendations:
- Remotestaff.com.au is a company I used to work with. CEO was a super nice guy (can't remember name). It's a Philippine outsourcing company but people work from home. I caught my guy cheating the system they have setup though and eventually let him go. It's a great concept and you can save on expenses but I found if you don't have the time to monitor your employees activities you can be throwing money away.
- Microsourcing.com is the only company I work with now. Absolutely best company I've dealt with. I've met the CEO and toured their Quezon/Manila offices, beautiful place in a great safe tech complex even the most nervous of nervous travellers wouldn't be afraid to stay in. When I showed up their must have been 15 people waiting in the lobby to be interviewed. Every employee gets a LCD monitor, 24 inches I think. Something you don't see in any of those makeshift Indian outsourcing operations. They charge $575 flat fee for their employees + whatever the employee's salary is (they may have raised or lowered prices recently, not sure). Their fee includes the obvious things like a computer, place to work, etc. but also includes healthcare so you don't have to feel like too much like a slavedriver. They have a great HR and BOT (build-operate-transfer) program too if your company grows and you want to move team away from microsourcing. If you message me I can put you directly in contact w/ their CEO.
- Costs for a programmer in both countries are relatively the same. Meaning a $1000 a month expert programmer in India will be a $1000 a month expert programmer in the Philippines.
- Every outsourcing company differs in the way they hire staff for you. Most commonly an outsourcing company will have an HR staff that will look at applications and then have you interview people, while others already have programmers on call ready to go at any time. If you want a long-term solution ONLY go with companies that are willing to reach out into the job market and find someone specific to your needs. I've never had a good experience in using someone that was already on staff ready to go. Secondly, make sure it's easy to hire and fire somebody. Nothing is worse than having a contract for 6 months with someone you can't use.
- Payment structure. Make sure the outsourcing company you deal with is OPEN with you about payment structure. Some companies will charge you $2000 for an expert programmer which they are only paying $500 for. All good outsourcing companies will generally have a payment structure where you pay a flat fee on top of the person you outsourced's salary. This structure gives you the ability to give your staff raises and bonuses without the outsourcing company taking a part of the bonus or raise since the flat fee always remains the same. This can have it's ups and downs. For instance a $500 content writer will cost you $1100.
- The Philippines has something called a 13th month bonus (it's like a Christmas bonus). Not all outsourcing companies will require it, but it's a custom you should be prepared for. Again talk w/ the outsourcing company you work with to see what sort of expectations you may be asked to fulfill. Things like holidays/time-off and 13th month payments can eat away at your budget if you aren't expecting them.
Now the differences between staff in the Philippines and India that I've noticed.
- You can find equivalently skilled staff in both Philippines and India in any area. From designers to programmers. The biggest problem you'll run into is going to be understanding western ideas and culture. Although this stereotyping isn't true for all Indians or Filipinos, this is the majority of what I've seen from both. Sorry if you consider it offensive.
The one major thing that finally swayed me to let all my Indian staff go and only work with Filipinos was this. In this ad industry cultural differences can be a huge killer. Basically if someone doesn't understand your product or idea, how can you expect them to create software or ads for your target market. You can't.
If you've been to India, or even looked at a picture, it's vastly different from America. Many animals are sacred, cows lay in the roads and people just drive around them, advertising is completely different, the movie scene is completely different, clothing is completely different, and drinking alcohol is still somewhat taboo. It's a very conservative culture and almost nothing like western culture.
Now, look at a picture of modern day Manila. Although it's still not like being in the states it's not that far off. You see billboards that are similar to American ones, people wear similar clothes, drinking alcohol is definitely not a taboo, and English is an official language. Hell I've been to the rural areas like the Batad Rice Terraces in Northern Philippines and Dumaguete further south and still didn't have any problems finding English speakers.
What I'm trying to say is, Philippine culture is not that far off from American culture. I've had much more success explaining my ideas to Filipinos than Indians because they are more familiar with the ideas.
Now this doesn't mean their is never an exception. I've had great experiences with a 20 year old Indian designer who was amazing and understood my ideas extremely well.
My mistakes:
- My first time hiring I ran out of stuff for my employee to do. Make sure you're ready to bring on a full-time employee, don't just do it because you're making $30k a month right now and it's fun to tell someone what to do. You'll regret it when that $30k+ a month goes away
. - When my employee would run out of work the company I hired the person through, would do other company projects behind my back. Essentially the company was having the person do other projects during the downtime where they had nothing to do. I'd tell the company so and so can go home early today (it was a friday) to which they replied they can't do that. What a joke (Indus Net Technologies btw). I've visited their offices and spoke to their CEO personally. They are overpriced and shit, and no one understood my ideas. I'm never using them again.
My recommendations:
- Remotestaff.com.au is a company I used to work with. CEO was a super nice guy (can't remember name). It's a Philippine outsourcing company but people work from home. I caught my guy cheating the system they have setup though and eventually let him go. It's a great concept and you can save on expenses but I found if you don't have the time to monitor your employees activities you can be throwing money away.
- Microsourcing.com is the only company I work with now. Absolutely best company I've dealt with. I've met the CEO and toured their Quezon/Manila offices, beautiful place in a great safe tech complex even the most nervous of nervous travellers wouldn't be afraid to stay in. When I showed up their must have been 15 people waiting in the lobby to be interviewed. Every employee gets a LCD monitor, 24 inches I think. Something you don't see in any of those makeshift Indian outsourcing operations. They charge $575 flat fee for their employees + whatever the employee's salary is (they may have raised or lowered prices recently, not sure). Their fee includes the obvious things like a computer, place to work, etc. but also includes healthcare so you don't have to feel like too much like a slavedriver. They have a great HR and BOT (build-operate-transfer) program too if your company grows and you want to move team away from microsourcing. If you message me I can put you directly in contact w/ their CEO.
This is sort of an example I was going to explain in my above post but refrained since I figured it wasn't too common but this post clearly states it is. Although not all Filipinos are this way, statements like these were fairly common throughout my travels in the Philippines. I spoke to an American resort owner in the Philippines who had a bunch of employees. He basically gave me the advice that all Filipinos will try to get over on you in one way or another. For instance when he was having his resort built and was giving his foreman money to buy lumber, the foreman was getting the lumber at a cheaper price than what he was telling the resort owner and pocketing the difference. The resort owner figured it out and prevented the foreman from being able to do that again. He however didn't fire the foreman. The resort owner basically said, it's not his fault, it's just the way it is here. Everyone is out for themselves it's apart of the culture.
Anyway, this can be prevented by avoiding hiring remote staff. By making someone work from an office with management it forces them to be accountable.
The only legitimate point here is about English speakers. Why would you want alcoholic workers?
As for cows:
The only legitimate point here is about English speakers. Why would you want alcoholic workers?
As for cows:
Superb........I ROFL'ed. +REP
So far, I've hired 11 individual Indians (Not U.S/CA based) and 9 of them have fucked me over some way or somehow. I don't hire Indian workers for big projects anymore, because they always end up fucking up.
They always start kind and shit and do their work diligently for a day or two, but once you send payment, excuses start rolling in.
"im very sorry sir, a cow trampled my bike today and I couldn't get to my house."
It's always some unrealistic excuse. Then when you file for a chargeback they act like it's YOUR FAULT. I don't hire Indians anymore because 9 times out of 11, they fuck you over.
Nowadays when I put up a WTB ad on sites like elance, I ask "Where do you currently live and where are you from?", and if they say India I instantly say "Fuck no."
How hard is it to do your job correctly? Apparently it's too much of a damn hassle to manually comment on blogs, or develop a simple SEO analysis script when you say that you can fucking do that.
I only hire Americans, Canadians, and Europeans for jobs now. You'll be 1000x more satisfied.
They always start kind and shit and do their work diligently for a day or two, but once you send payment, excuses start rolling in.
"im very sorry sir, a cow trampled my bike today and I couldn't get to my house."
It's always some unrealistic excuse. Then when you file for a chargeback they act like it's YOUR FAULT. I don't hire Indians anymore because 9 times out of 11, they fuck you over.
Nowadays when I put up a WTB ad on sites like elance, I ask "Where do you currently live and where are you from?", and if they say India I instantly say "Fuck no."
How hard is it to do your job correctly? Apparently it's too much of a damn hassle to manually comment on blogs, or develop a simple SEO analysis script when you say that you can fucking do that.
I only hire Americans, Canadians, and Europeans for jobs now. You'll be 1000x more satisfied.
The only legitimate point here is about English speakers. Why would you want alcoholic workers?
As for cows:
Haha, ok it's not about alcoholic employees, obviously that sucks. Indians are very reliable, they take their job seriously. Filipinos are much more laid back about work. I more of said that as a point that Philippine culture is more liberal and closer to western culture than Indian culture is. So for anything advertising related you're going to get a much better product because the thought process is different.
Truthfully, had nothing but bad experiences with indians. They tell you what you want to hear to get the job. Once they've sold you, the truth of their numerous lies are revealed. They're slow as hell and make more excuses as to why they couldn't complete a task rather than do what is needed. This may not be a reflection of all Indians but most of the ones I dealt with. I now suffer from "Indian Phobia" when it comes to outsourcing work. On the positive side, I do have very few who do a great job, not sure about the culture thing though.
The Filipinos:
Are more honest and committed but do have their flaws as well.
Although most will tell you if they can complete a task or not some will get nervous with the job and not tell you shit. While your waiting on the assigned task to be complete, time is passing by the Filipinos runs away and hide. Now, that is an experience from the minority of them.
My votes is for the Filipinos:
the good ones are dedicated to working hard and deliver quality content.
The Filipinos:
Are more honest and committed but do have their flaws as well.
Although most will tell you if they can complete a task or not some will get nervous with the job and not tell you shit. While your waiting on the assigned task to be complete, time is passing by the Filipinos runs away and hide. Now, that is an experience from the minority of them.
My votes is for the Filipinos:
the good ones are dedicated to working hard and deliver quality content.
FYI: I had a bunch of indian programmers make me something in java once, because I wanted it to be cross platform. I provided them will all the code in ruby, in hopes they could convert it, but they made a seriously half ass program. Just a little warning, results may vary!
India vs Philippines
I have 45 staff in 9 different countries and I absolutely agree with this. Never had a good experience in India. The Philippines is much better, and in Russia and former soviet union is even better (but a bit more expensive than the Philippines).
There are awesome Indian programmers but it's really hard to find them and hire them over the Internet. They are working for Infosys and IBM and other top companies, they are not likely to work for some random person on the Internet.
The culture is much better in the former soviet union countries. They tell you the truth, they don't constantly bullshit.
I'm developing software which improves the whole process and make sure that you know what your team is doing. It's in free beta mode at the moment and welcome any feedback Time Doctor - (Time Management Software)
I have 45 staff in 9 different countries and I absolutely agree with this. Never had a good experience in India. The Philippines is much better, and in Russia and former soviet union is even better (but a bit more expensive than the Philippines).
There are awesome Indian programmers but it's really hard to find them and hire them over the Internet. They are working for Infosys and IBM and other top companies, they are not likely to work for some random person on the Internet.
The culture is much better in the former soviet union countries. They tell you the truth, they don't constantly bullshit.
I'm developing software which improves the whole process and make sure that you know what your team is doing. It's in free beta mode at the moment and welcome any feedback Time Doctor - (Time Management Software)
Stereotyping here. I have used Indian, Filipino and Eastern European programmers for a probably 20 projects over the years. I have had the best results with Russian / Polish (yes Romanian too) outfits. Go for smaller companies as well -avoid the larger shops. Worst experiences have been with the indian companies. Answer to any question is always "yes" they always blow deadlines & never give a heads-up. They hate giving bad news rather ignore you when things are taking longer than they expect. Frustrating because their code can be pretty good.