From their geographic location, I can assume that they are likely to charge significantly less than me.
From the quality of just plain not being me, I can assume they aren't as good as me. I have yet to have experience prove this assumption wrong.
I've worked on projects with other developers in San Diego, Chicago, Miami, Iran, India, Croatia, and many other places. They've all been pretty crappy developers whom I can only imagine lied about their credentials, because I just can't imagine how it is possible they make any software for anyone. The client has eventually fired them all because they realized what a bad deal they were. The only difference between them was the hourly rate they charged, meaning there were often more from India than San Diego.
Developer from Croatia here :)
Yes we do charge less because of our geographic location, but I wouldn't say significantly less, or maybe not at rates you are talking about ($100/hr really isn't that much).
That said, I spent 2 months in San Francisco this summer and was able to find a job for higher rate just because I was there. I guess it comes with territory. :)
Location has heavy influence on prices.. look at other professional services even inside US.
Doctors / counselors / lawyers etc.. everyone's prices depends on location.
On the other hand you cant say about quality. Ya India has lots of crappy developers, but that is just because there are way to many developers. Good ones dont need to market themselves too much and hence most people would have never heard about them outside their circle of clients.
This assumption is just plain wrong. Those clients just jump on seeing such low rates without checking work first. If one's hiring process is not good then bad hires are bound to happen no matter if the hire is Indian or American.
No, I said that most developers, regardless of price, are bad, and most overseas developers, regardless of quality, are cheap. Thus, the intersection of the two makes for a large volume of low-price, low-quality developers.
From their geographic location, I can assume that they are likely to charge significantly less than me.
From the quality of just plain not being me, I can assume they aren't as good as me. I have yet to have experience prove this assumption wrong.
I've worked on projects with other developers in San Diego, Chicago, Miami, Iran, India, Croatia, and many other places. They've all been pretty crappy developers whom I can only imagine lied about their credentials, because I just can't imagine how it is possible they make any software for anyone. The client has eventually fired them all because they realized what a bad deal they were. The only difference between them was the hourly rate they charged, meaning there were often more from India than San Diego.