News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlan... by bilekas on Saturday July 02, 2022 @05:11PM (#31962469)
This might get a bad rep but I've had this experience too. It's not a blanket statement though. Outsourcing is fine but you definitely have need to do your homework. That's why you see a few of the outsourcing companies being bought over by their employers, because they're good.

Out of curiosity and related to another HN topic, have you ever hired freelancers directly?

Re:The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlan... by breadloaf on Saturday July 02, 2022 @06:40PM (#31963131)
I tried to on the Upwork. But it is really hit or miss there.

1. I got hardware electric engineer to help me with a design of PCB. Guy was worth every cent.

2. Got embedded developer on separate project. Guy pretended that he can do a lot. I tried to explain to him, that I need a USB CDC device driver in MCU which has USB PHY and I want Windows to recognize and use usbser.sys (generic COM driver) or something similar. He told me that he understand what he is doing, I sent him the dev kit and then he ghosted me and I have ended up doing it myself with TinyUSB.

So as I said, really hit and miss on Upwork. Some people are writing lofty skillset so they can get more per hour and then failing miserably.

Re:The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlan... by ido on Sunday July 03, 2022 @01:33AM (#31965360)
You have to know people personally or have contacts to people who do to reliably get the good ones, I would never rely on outsourcing websites like Upwork for exactly the reason you stated.
Re:The trimodal nature of software salaries in the Netherlan... by Aeolun on Sunday July 03, 2022 @08:45AM (#31967285)
In that case, I’d like to chime in and say that I have the opposite (or at least better) experience. Our contractors in India are fairly decent. We sometimes hire them directly from the company that sources them to us.