[ale] New website for H1B [Slightly OT]

[Steven M. Jasmin]

I am not a troll, i am friends with several people on the list and generally
do not feel like i have a lot to contribute since i have taken linux past
the level of hobby.

After reading the entire thread from start to finish. I can see both sides
to the argument.  Dan feels that he does not need to spend lots of money on
programmers while Grant believes that he is worth more.  I can tell you one
thing, Grant has been programming for several clients over the past month,
so someone feels that he is worth the extra money, whether it is the fact
that he is actually worth it, or they are not aware enough that they can
find offshore services cheaper, is unknown.

A question still raises itself, how much time have you spent negotiating off
shore contracts?  How much money have you spent on calling your programmers
and talking to them? Have you encountered any language walls? Have the time
zone differences caused issues in response time? How is the customer
support? You say "he would do Q&A for 3 months" but you are changing the
program yourself?  Why hire someone to write the programs in the first place
if you are just going to edit the code and rewrite it yourself? How much do
you bill out at? Have you considered that it is much harder to enforce an
NDA across the Atlantic? Have you also considered what is stopping that 10
dollar an hour programmer from selling that same program to your competitor?

I am sure you have considered some of these questions, but each single
question in and of itself is a _valid_ reason to spend more money on an
American coder.  Just as you can justify that it is more cost efficient to
hire an offshore programmer I can justify that my project requires a strict
NDA and rapid response times because we are under a tight deadline.

I think the major difference between the two differing viewpoints is that
Grant runs the entire project from coding to implementation.  When you are
doing half the work it does not make sense for you to pay the coder like he
is implementing it as well. So what I would suggest doing is calculate what
you bill out at and add it to what you spend on programmming then i think
you will get a number that more closesly resembles grants rate.

Steak and Meatloaf? Thats whats for dinner.

Steven

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-admin at ale.org [mailto:ale-admin at ale.org]On Behalf Of
To: ale at ale.org
ChangingLINKS.com
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 11:07 PM
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: Re: [ale] New website for H1B [Slightly OT]


> Aw... No reply to my message? I'm disappointed.... I guess I got skipped
> over... That's a bummer... I had some outstanding questions that haven't
> been answered...

No. I wanted to handle the light-work first. Eventually, I will have to "get
some work done" and stop posting so much - maybe I can double up and finish
my work too. But, I would like to see the justification of higher cost (via
Grant) as related to programming so that I can confirm whether or not I
should pay higher costs.

Surely, if it is not justified on *this* list - it can't be justfied to
companies.
OOOOOR, if it can be justified here, then expensive programmers can stop
using
that tired "Buy American or you will wreck the World" argument. Once US
programmers have a "list of features" that make them more marketable, they
will be able to solicit more "consumers."

Drew
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