Outsourcing of programming work to countries with lower cost-of-living expenses

[Andre Garzia]

Well, Jonathan,

I am the one that sometimes receives this outsourcing projects. Since I 
live in Brazil, I can charge lower than americans and till today my 
clients are happy, there are some delayied projects but that's because 
I'll never ship something that I do not fully trust (I am a debuggin 
freak, I must be sure my code never blows).

As for the timezone problem, well, I wake up at 14:00 PM and go to 
sleep about 6:00 AM, yes, changing day for the night, but that way its 
easier to keep contact with overseas contracts and also I am accostumed 
to be up late for I used to work on the very-late-shift of our county 
television.

The biggest trick is for me is to be known that I am available to be 
outsourced and that my work is good. People often thinks that because 
we live in a 3rd world country we will deliver crap software, well, 
thats not true, some will of course, but I am one that need to look 
back with pride. I was wondering about passing sometime in the US or 
London, my english is not very bad and I could keep working on my 
projects, just couple months, if I ever do that, will hiring me still 
be labeled outsourcing? :D

I do think most of the outsourcing projects are going towards india, 
don't know how well this projects are doing, there are many cultural 
differences between india and the US, you all should outsource more to 
Brazil, we have similar cultures and are near. (Yes, Free Publicity)

Since we're in this topic, sometimes "smart" contractors appear and 
they try to pay you very badly, they think that since you're in Brazil, 
you're worth nothing. Once a guy tried to hire me to create simple 
inventory management software for his business (a company that 
distribute beverages, don't know how you call those things), he wanted 
to pay me 750 Reals, this is our money, this amount to more or less 250 
USD... for two weeks work!!!! If I sell sandwiches at the beach I'd 
earn more than that, and he kept saying that it was a fair price...

So if there's someone here on the list that's like me and sometimes 
work for overseas companies, beware not to be fooled, this happens all 
the time (like let me see your code, then I pay you...)

cheers
andre

PS: There's no cultural shock in hiring me, I like guinness, the 
liverpool, hamburgers, know at least 12 types of cheese and can speak 
up to four consectuvie consonants (that should please americans, 
english, irish, germans and french people on the list)


On Jan 27, 2005, at 3:59 PM, Lynch, Jonathan wrote:

>
> I just read a few articles on this...
>
> How do you guys who make your living as freelance programmers deal with
> this problem? If a company in a third world country can charge a sixth
> of the price that a company in a developed country can charge - then 
> how
> do you guys ever manage to find clients?
>
> I can see how it would work if the required programming also requires
> on-site work - but I cannot see how it would work outside of that.
>
> Just wondering,
>
> Jonathan
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>
>
-- 
Andre Alves Garzia ð 2004
Soap Dog Studios - BRAZIL
http://studio.soapdog.org