Is anyone outsourcing backend development efficiently?
Hi guys,
I have been dabbling with outsourcing on sites like Upwork and wonder how I might better leverage it for backend development work. I'm fully comfortable using these sites for things like design and frontend development, as this work constitutes relatively low exposure in regards to IP theft.
I have successfully used a contractor to work on some backend systems in the past by basically creating a clone repository of my codebase with all of the algorithms/secret sauce stripped out. It worked, but it felt monstrously inefficient because I then had to spend time transplanting their work into the original codebase, eliminating much of the time savings of outsourcing the work.
Has anyone else encountered this challenge? If so, how might one leverage the cost/time savings associated with outsourcing without either giving away the keys to the kingdom or subjecting everyone involved to a brutally inefficient pattern of double work?
Thanks
The complete website of my side project https://www.linuxjobs.fr was built by a developer in Indonesia and I'm located in Paris.
This developer had already developed a rough job board engine and open sourced it. I found it, tested it and thought it was a great start to build on. I contacted him and he agreed to build the missing features. The project started 3 years ago.
Which site did you find the developer on? I've tried a handful on Upwork without any luck.
None. The developer had written a job board engine and open sourced it. And I was looking for a open source job board engine, so i found the job board engine, gave it a try, found features were missing and I asked the developer to add theml.
I found the work of the developer before finding the developer himself ;) This way I knew his work was a match for me.
Love it!
Indeed, choosing a reliable technical provider of back-end development services is not easy. Therefore, I recommend paying attention to outsourcing companies from Eastern Europe https://www.cleveroad.com/services/web-development/back-end-development/
How about getting a simple NDA contract signed beforehand ? Most countries where you might outsource your work to - like India etc have strong enforceable contract laws.
Second option is to work with developers who have good trust score in the market ( some legit side project, an active blog and strong social profile, complete linkedin profile etc). So you would know that this guy is trustworthy and wouldn't simply run away with your trade secrets.
Thanks for the feedback - my reticence to allow a developer access to existing features and algorithms is not that I couldn't get them to sign an NDA but whether it's really enforceable in a country on the other side of the planet with weak institutions.
But I agree with your point regarding a trust score. I suppose I'll find a way to evaluate contractors for their perceived trustworthiness.
If you are using separate repositories for the secret sauce vs. the scaffolding application and a package manager to combine the two it should become easier to maintain. Depending on the way your backend is built this might be hard to achieve tho.