Quantity. Alas, one infamous person said, “Quantity has a quality of its own.” At face value, with so many software developers available with very low average wages, why not outsource everything to India? The answer resides in the averages themselves reflecting a much wider variance – in wages and technical skill than most other countries. You can find exceptional software developers in India though most of them will charge rates closer to their Western counterparts.
There’s also a pronounced tendency for Indian software development agencies to accept jobs even if they don’t have all of the required skills. However, outsourcing with Indian developers is still viable when managed according to the tips below.
- Potentially best value with the right management team.
- Largest pool of developers outside of China.
- Most popular languages include Python, Java, JavaScript, PHP, C++/C#.
- Wide variability in technical skill levels and quality of coding.
- Significantly higher turnover compared to industry average (25+% vs 12.3%).
The key to working with Indian teams focuses on having a software engineering manager with very strong communication skills. Tasks for developers must be explicit, leaving little room for ambiguity. Keep up to speed with the health of your team and project with software development analytics – to help optimize tasks and pairings for code reviews, mentoring, etc.
These points apply to all software development teams but you will need to vet your team more carefully and take more care in assigning tasks by complexity. Leastwise, India’s pace of development will see the country having more software developers than the United States by 2025.