During our worldwide search for quality custom .net software developers and PHP developers, we encountered many interesting people in Eastern Europe. We were disappointed that the number of hours they wanted to do a relatively simple task was roughly double, triple or quadruple what our local provider (who had 20 years of experience) thought was necessary. Hour padding seems to be an unfortunate fact of life in Eastern Europe, and especially with programmers in Russia. What we learned is that some companies only cheat you a little bit while others cheat to an extreme. So, when doing business with the East (outsourcing to Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Poland, etc.), be very wary of how long they want to complete tasks that you are familiar with, so that you have an idea of how much you are being ripped off.
Also beware of their pitiful excuses for hour padding. “We are just being cautious.” How does a 40 hour job become 200 hours, I asked? I was then asked where I came up with a figure of 40 hours, and told that it was not a 40 hour job. Whenever you base how long a job should take, you have to base that on some standard that is somewhat fixed. A new programmer could use a very unpredictable amount of hours to do a relatively simple task. But, a programmer with five or more years of experience should be able to complete standard tasks in a somewhat standard amount of time. If Mark can complete a certain task in five hours, I say, “It takes 5 Mark hours to do this”. So, if you need 20 hours for the same task, your hour is worth 15 Mark minutes! Very inefficient.
Basically, you need a trusted and competent programmer to bid on a task to see how long it really should take. Then, you take that number of hours and compare it to a few bids from other providers who you are less sure about. The competent programmer might not have time to do the job, but they might have time to give an estimate. The competent programmer might charge 5x per hour as well, which is why you might think about offshoring the project.
Hour padding seems to very an integral part of Russian and Ukrainian culture. In our experience, 100% of companies in Eastern Europe do hour padding. Indians are actually much better in this respect. Roughly 20% of Indian software companies can deliver efficient results with another 20% giving results that are not that inefficient, leaving 60% who you should avoid due to hour padding or incompetence. In Eastern Europe, 0% were efficient, with 10% who were barely acceptable in terms of time efficiency and 90% who you should not even consider.
But, before you write off Eastern Europe, they are reputed to have a higher quality of accuracy for software work than other countries. I think that a few companies in that region deserve a fair chance. Even if they charge you for too many hours, their rates are very low and maybe their quality is better than you would expect!
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Steve Jobs watched his programmers carefully — so should you!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/10/10/steve-jobs-watched-his-programmers-carefully-so-should-you/
How good are you at estimating jobs?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/10/09/how-good-are-you-at-estimating-jobs/