Ask HN: How do SMBs afford such expensive software engineers in the US?

Re:Ask HN: How do SMBs afford such expensive software engine... by analog31 on Sunday July 04, 2021 @10:10AM (#27729747)

Many SMBs are wary of the cost of software development, and avoid it. The "magic of software," that you can just write a program and have it start printing money [0] for you, is in most cases a pipe dream. Instead, software is usually just like any other business activity, in that it could be a net asset or liability, often depending on how it affects other parts of the business. In addition, if you don't understand software development, you can't manage it, and it can eat you alive.

[0] either through sales or increased productivity if it's software for internal use

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Re:Ask HN: How do SMBs afford such expensive software engine... by denton-scratch on Monday July 05, 2021 @10:01AM (#27738092)

> it can eat you alive

Software development projects are incredibly risky. Estimating development costs is an unsolved problem. I've worked for major software company that cancelled a 5-year development project, employing >200 coders.

Government projects seem to be particularly prone to huge cost overruns; I suppose it's because there usually isn't any single stakeholder, because the specification was written by a committee, because the funding is provided by taxpayers who can't choose to withdraw funding, and because "events, dear boy" result in changes to the goals of the project.

I'm really talking about major projects; small projects can usually be cancelled with little harm.

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