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since: 27 May 2005

Visiting an offshore training camp for programmers

« H E Yakov Fain :: email
posted Saturday, 9 December 2006
I wrote  this while sitting in a training camp Genghis Khan, a school for the rookie offshore programmers. The camp is located in the remote mountains of northern Mongolia. Many wannabe offshore developers come here for training. Since  I am a popular personality among Mongol Java crowd, they let me sit in the class where Srini, the guru of offshoring was delivering the presentation called “Dealing with Overseas Employers 101”.   These are my notes from this class.

1.    America is rich, we are poor. It’s not fair, they have to share.
2.    In the beginning, their manager will try to scare you by promising that he’ll check up on the status of your assignments daily. Do not be afraid – a status report is just a formality, and they’ll take whatever you write.
3.    One of your major problems will be "what to write in status reports". Never write “I could not do it ” there. Americans like positive statements. For example, let’s say you’ve got an assignment to create a reusable component that will identify the number of failed database requests.  You do not even have a clue what are they asking for.
The first week you spend on Google in hopeless attempts to find such component. The status report for the first week should read “Comparing various approaches of creating reusable db-failures component to find the most efficient and effective way for its development”.  During the second week invent something  similar. Hopefully, on the third week something more urgent will come up and you’ll get another assignment.
4.    Be prepared to spend the first couple of weeks waiting for the logon id and password to your employer’s network. After obtaining these credentials, you’ll find out that you still don’t have access to a dozen of servers, which require Unix logon. Your remote manager will promise you to resolve it as soon as possible, but because of  the service level agreements (aka SLA) with the Unix support team , you won’t get access for another week or so. Typically, it’ll take about a month just to get you connected.
5.     Never say “I do not know”. Accept all assignments – one of two things will happen – either  you’ll figure out how to complete the assignment, or  it’ll get cancelled.
6.    In conversations with your overseas teammates, always require detailed written specifications for each small program modification. Ignore their statements “I’d fix it myself faster than writing detailed specs for you”.  They have no choice and must work with you to show that your team is useful.
7.    Use time difference to your advantage. For example, if you want to send an email asking for some clarifications, do not send it in the moring, because you may get an immediate answer. Do it in the evening (your time zone), before leaving the office – you’ll get the answer only next day.
8.    If you have a choice, avoid fixed price projects. Hourly-based pay will allow to put a couple of extra hours here and there, and having a couple of extra rupees or rubles never hurts.
9.    Experienced offshore programmers never try to obtain US working visa and to work onsite. If you do this, you’ll work a lot harder –  not  worth the trip.
10.    Always be polite – it’ll get you far. Insert “Excuse me”, “Thank you”, “Yes sir” in every other sentence. Always smile - even during phone conversation. The he showed  this movie about an offshore tech support.
11.    Change your local employer every three months. You are gaining experience daily, and even if the new job offers just one percent of salary increase, go there. It’s a golden IT offshoring era – use it while it lasts! Or as they say, it's time to make a quick buck!

For some time I was speechless after hearing all these advices. Srini spent at least half an hour after the class answering specific questions from  students. I also asked him, if he really believed in his teachings.  He smiled to me and said, “Welcome to the real world, ma man!”

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comments (5)


1. debedb left...
Tuesday, 26 December 2006 12:37 am

And most of it is different than normal cubicle-drone's modus operandi how, exactly? :)


2. Peter Lawrey left...
Wednesday, 27 December 2006 6:15 am

I have heard similar, rather cynical, advice given to support staff at an outsourcing company where the customers were in the same building. The objective is much the same, to reduce costs. It was described as "managing customer expectations". Advice like, don't even look at a request until the day it should be completed, otherwise if you do it sooner you may set an expectation you might not be able to meet later.

I worked at this company as on a development contract as a third party vendor and saw how their IT worked first hand.

Two experiences worth mentioning.

1) We had to use the hardware provided by the IT outsourcer. We ask for memory upgrades for 11 machines so we could run our application which was memory hungry. (512 MB :) They charged over three times retail prices and said it would take about four weeks to install. After five weeks some memory arrive however, no approved engineer came. After a couple more weeks, one of our engineers in frustration tried to install the memory. Unfortunately, they had sent the wrong memory modules and they weren't going to fit. The company we worked for didn't want to send the memory back because ordering memory took so long, so they found machines to put the memory in. :) We ordered some more memory and instructions that some one had to come to install them. Someone did come with one module for one of the machines. He couldn't find that particular machine and so he went away without talking to anyone. So after three months we eventually got the memory we wanted for an inflated price. All in the interests of good service at a low price. :)

2) At this company's data centers they had a "lights out" policy. i.e. they had no operators. This meant that if you did need access it was no ones actual job to help you. Despite being a telco, they didn't have a network infrastructure which allowed us to deploy software over their network. So we had to send a CD via courier (out sourced) to soemone we had to arrange to accept the CD and give to a contractor qualified to put the CD in the drive of one of the machines (operations also outsourced). He had to be let in by someone from LAN support (outsourced again). For data centers outside major capitals this outsourcing was sub contracted... The first time we attempted to send 8 CDs across the same city, none arrive. The next time one was installed correctly, one installed upside down, three were given to cleaners (as they were the only ones in a building of 700 staff who would accept them) and never seen again, the last two lost. This process cost hundreds of man hours at inflated outsourcing rates to do something that should have been possible to use FTP to do.... I am sure that someone responsible for infrastructure was able to reduce the cost of their budget but this just externalizes their cost to every other department. I would have said this is the opposite of what infrastructure should be doing... :)


3. Yakov Fain left...
Wednesday, 27 December 2006 6:43 am

Ten years ago I was working as a consultant for a large company that have outsourced the hardware purchases to some USA third-party company. Their hardware prices were double the street prices, but we had to order only through this firm. I guess, in many cases outsourcing is born as a result of some some super deal between a small number of individual, with kickbacks involved. This equally applies to local and offshore outsourcing. And then, the public is being brainwashed that it does your body good. The only positive experience with outsourcing I had so far was when we (a small firm) were working with bright individuals from overseas and closely managed them.


4. anjan bacchu left...
Monday, 8 January 2007 9:13 pm

hi there,

  • Sad to hear about this. I'm sure there are some unscrupulous elements over there.

  • I've heard similar about a Fortune 50 company in the US where its consultants are given almost similar advise. I'm sure there are greedy people everywhere -- we only have to look at Enron and WorldCom for other examples closer here.

  • What I notice in many US companies though : People don't notice what happens to the source code repository. In the 1st 3 months of any developer joining a group, one should compulsorily require a DAILY update on their source code checkins and checkouts. As long as each developer gets their own private stream(using clearcase lingo here) on the SCM, monitoring checkins should be fairly easy to assess someone's progress. You could even automate the whole process so that you get a daily report of the activity -- This process should work as long as you have less than 20 direct engineers reporting to you.

  • That said, there was a time when I was on the other side of the fence. I was told NOT to be too optimistic since they wanted to be safe with the clients. specifically, they did NOT want to disappoint the client

with a missed schedule. But I did NOT come across such crass behavior (as you mentioned) anytime I was there.

  • It surely helps to have someone you can trust sit with these developers. I forsee in the near future that there will be availability(on demand) of professionals who you can trust that can babysit such lazy folks. These professionals will use automation tools and then prepare an (manual) independent report for the US manager.

disclosure : I am not affiliated with a bodyshopper or any other company.

BR, ~A


5. D Rosko left...
Wednesday, 10 January 2007 6:14 pm

Hello,

I write coming from a humanities perspective with a focus on writing and communications. Some thoughts that may relate:

- Some things that may look good on paper don't actually work well in real life. This is because the human element can be minimized to the value of saving a buck. I wonder if this principle is at work in the minds of managers and execs who feel it a worthwhile endeavor to outsource.

- People are committed to something they feel involved with. From an outsourcing agency's perspective, they're not really involved in the success of any US business. In some ways I wonder that they operate similarily to temporary personnel services here at home: it's not a job, just a space to fill for an easy and quick buck for the time being until something better comes along.

- Human value and interpersonal connections are an asset to every business. Contrast that ideal to the "it's not a person, just a body to fill a space" mentality of outsourcing. Perhaps my pastor said it best when he said, "You know people you spend time with, and you care about people you know." I wonder that the more successful businesses are those that view their infrastructure not as budget reports, but as people working for a common goal.

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man." -Mark Twain

Thanks for reading, DR, Wash.