I monitor craigslist's jobs postings section from time to time, particularly the "software/QA/DBA/etc jobs" and "web/HTML/info design jobs" groups.
It's interesting to see how many ads recently offer $10/hr-$14/hr for software development. I think there's the perception that software developers can be hired cheaply in India and so it should also be possible to hire them cheaply here in the US. What I don't know is how much success the posters of these advertisements have in attracting suitable talent.
I do think that much software development has become cheaper. Web development technologies such as simple javascript and html are very mainstream now, to the point where many web sites can be constructed by a graphic designer alone, without the need for specialized software development.
More specialized applications have often been commoditized. Do you, as a retailer with an on-line presence, really need to construct your own shopping cart/catalog software? Or can you customize one of the hundreds of commerical shopping cart packages? This commodization lowers demand for developers of average skill in the US. Software companies are better positioned to hire highly skilled developers in the US and outsource medium-skill jobs such as maintenance and support.
However, fitting your organization around boilerplate software has its costs. Business software is a modeling of a process. For example, shopping cart software might model this process: You 1) select your products, 2) choose to check out, 3) provide your address and choose the method of shipment, and finally 4) specify the form of payment. The software might provide options for customizing the look and feel of each of the pages involved in this transaction and might even have support for some additional features such as one-click purchase.
What happens if your business model varies from this standard model? Let's say that you sell customized furniture. Based on a standard model customers can request many custom variations and need to be provided with an estimated time of delivery based on those requests before the order can be completed. You could try to change your business model to fit commonly available software, or you could hire a software developer and roll your own.
This is where the craiglist posters often go wrong. While it is true that there is less demand for US-based software developers in our globalized economy, developing specialized software requires skill and presence. Someone who is intelligent, creative and disciplined enough to successfully develop a specialized shopping cart software is unlikely to be working in the US for $10-$14/hour.
It might be possible to find someone overseas who will do the work, but much is lost in translation. Remember, business software is fundamentally a model of a business process and to properly implement it one must have an adequate understanding of the process being modeled. Large companies can successfully outsource as they employ armies of business analysts to understand and document processes which can be provided to overseas coders. Developers that work with smaller companies usually wear both hats: They must be able to both understand the business process and code it up as software, and understanding the process is much easier and accurate face-to-face.
It's interesting to see how many ads recently offer $10/hr-$14/hr for software development. I think there's the perception that software developers can be hired cheaply in India and so it should also be possible to hire them cheaply here in the US. What I don't know is how much success the posters of these advertisements have in attracting suitable talent.
I do think that much software development has become cheaper. Web development technologies such as simple javascript and html are very mainstream now, to the point where many web sites can be constructed by a graphic designer alone, without the need for specialized software development.
More specialized applications have often been commoditized. Do you, as a retailer with an on-line presence, really need to construct your own shopping cart/catalog software? Or can you customize one of the hundreds of commerical shopping cart packages? This commodization lowers demand for developers of average skill in the US. Software companies are better positioned to hire highly skilled developers in the US and outsource medium-skill jobs such as maintenance and support.
However, fitting your organization around boilerplate software has its costs. Business software is a modeling of a process. For example, shopping cart software might model this process: You 1) select your products, 2) choose to check out, 3) provide your address and choose the method of shipment, and finally 4) specify the form of payment. The software might provide options for customizing the look and feel of each of the pages involved in this transaction and might even have support for some additional features such as one-click purchase.
What happens if your business model varies from this standard model? Let's say that you sell customized furniture. Based on a standard model customers can request many custom variations and need to be provided with an estimated time of delivery based on those requests before the order can be completed. You could try to change your business model to fit commonly available software, or you could hire a software developer and roll your own.
This is where the craiglist posters often go wrong. While it is true that there is less demand for US-based software developers in our globalized economy, developing specialized software requires skill and presence. Someone who is intelligent, creative and disciplined enough to successfully develop a specialized shopping cart software is unlikely to be working in the US for $10-$14/hour.
It might be possible to find someone overseas who will do the work, but much is lost in translation. Remember, business software is fundamentally a model of a business process and to properly implement it one must have an adequate understanding of the process being modeled. Large companies can successfully outsource as they employ armies of business analysts to understand and document processes which can be provided to overseas coders. Developers that work with smaller companies usually wear both hats: They must be able to both understand the business process and code it up as software, and understanding the process is much easier and accurate face-to-face.
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