Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

I've worked with foreign contractors through two different situations.

The first was the send of the specs and then be able to use what they sent back out of the box. Total disaster. We couldn't use anything that they sent back. If there were *any* questions/opening in the spec, they made their own decisions and never once requested clarification. I believe that both parties were at fault, both the US manager and the off-shore development, but in the end it was the US company that got screwed. It ended up costing 80% of the man-hours of the project to just interface and get the off-shore solution barely functional (It was later scrapped altogether.)

The second was an off-shore contractor company that brought over its people to work in your office. This time I was more involved with the details as I was the one overseeing the contractors. I can honestly say that with the language barriers, the severely overhyped resumes of the contractors and the general unconcerned attitude of the contractors, I will probably fight tooth and nail should any manager I work for suggest this. It simply didn't work out and I ended up doing the work anyway.

That said, I hear more and more of this kind of talk. Even after getting burned the way they did, the company in question is *still* considering going off-shore. It's just that much cheaper, and they are that short sighted. With the stock market as the driving force on business decisions, the thing that scares me is that it will be a while before the whole market realizes that "hey, maybe a sweatshop ain't the best way to develop a usable application."

Until that realization hits, I'm a little more concerned than you appear to be. I know what I can do. It's getting potential employers to let me in the door to show them what I can do that's the hard part.