That being said, cultures on the asian subcontinent seem to have a certain way of avoiding the word "no".
So while they will charge the $20 per hour, they will assure you that their work will be completely up to par with the $200 per hour work of experienced developers.
Usually there will also be a problem with quality/time estimation. I've seen a few "will this be done in two weeks?" questions result in a "Yes, certainly answer" although no engineer I knew would have said this was possible.
At least that was my experience in a few larger projects that had to outsource some of the programming.
I know that agencies in the US/EU tend to market themselves pretty aggressively too, but not QUITE as aggressively :)
Yeah, I've been on the other side of this, working in the trenches. Granted, I wasn't a developer but the situation wasn't any different. The problem is no one asks us how much time it will take.
As an (exaggerated) example, the conversation usually goes like this:
Project Manager: Guys, we just landed a huge project from Acme Inc. Guess what, you guys are gonna be paid a bonus this month!! YAY!
Developer: Great!
PM: There's a tiny caveat though: The bonus was promised only if we had delivered it yesterday.
D: FML.
PM: But don't worry, we still have a week to finish it!
D: WTF? But this will take at least three weeks!
PM: Ah, don't worry. I know you can do it in one week. In fact, I am so sure, I promised them you would! Isn't that great?
D: Well, what if I can't?
PM: Oh well, we won't get paid and it will certainly reflect in your appraisal and you won't get that promotion that you have been due for the last three years. But I'm sure you won't let that happen, amirite?
IMHO, if someone is aware of the quality of $200 per hour work, they would deliver the same quality. After all the prices might be different but the hours are same. In my experience most programmers don't even know how bad they are. And when they do become aware of that the quality improves.
Oddly enough, I've worked with an Indian programmer who asked for less than $20/hour (he was making $10/hour after fees from the outsourcing site) who was very competent and who got the job done well. There may have been some funny business with billing a few extra hours, but the total cost for the project was still extremely low.
I've also worked with an outsourced programmer from another region who asked for $45/hour (closer to a $150/hour equivalent in local cost of living) who was completely incompetent. (He didn't last a week; it was obvious that quickly.)
$10/hour isn't bad at all as far as living in India goes[1]. I worked as a salaried employee for about 3 years with a reputable software consultancy in India and made about $4/hour writing good quality ruby code. Let's say I lived a comfortable life with a decent apartment and a new car.
[1] It equates to about 80,000 INR per month. Compare to salaries ranging from 30,000 INR to 60,000 INR for a programmer with 3-5 years of experience.
No, you don't. It's like that bottle of two-buck chuck from TJ's that can be better than the $20 bottle of Napa's finest…
Cost is not a complete indicator of quality unless you're willing to look at it probabilistically. Low cost means you're more likely to get mediocre talent.
Ultimately though, even a good programmer can only do so much without a good client/driver. Some of the folks hiring the best out of India and still getting bad results need to look at their process and see if it's adapted to the outsourced model. It could be the process is poor or the onshore team members are poorly adapted to the offshoring model.
Outsourcing itself isn't easy. It takes skill to be able to make projects work, even with great resources.
We can't completely blame the customer. The competition is quite high and it is easy for anyone not familiar with programming (most of the clients) to get attracted towards cheapest option.
Not to forget that such companies/people often market themselves as jack of all trades and it is hard for customer to see any real difference developers asking for $200/hour and $20/hour when $20 guy is promising everything!
> And you expect the quality of $200 per hour experienced developer.
> Stop having crazy expectations.
Enough said.