Programmers, good or evil?

[jleemc44]

To hire that is. I’m starting to wonder if my company would profit by hiring a programmer full time. Mostly for work in C++, visual basic and web programming. My few concerns are:

a. Cost: Judging by the expense of outsourcing when we needed custom programming in the past I’m scared to see what type of pay a full time programmer would need.

b. Effectiveness: I’m sure when outsourcing other projects the programmers worked as a team to complete the task. In an employee situation only one person would be allowed to complete the task.

c. Knowledge: When programmers work in a team each one brings something to the table. If we work with just one they may not versed in every language we need.

What are your thoughts?

[ComplexNumber]

typical programmers earn between £10,000 and £40,000. i don't really think anyone can answer you unless you give some detail about what your company does and what is requird by the potential programmer.

[KoRnholio]

Good programmers are well-paid, it depends on how much you spend a year currently in contracting programming jobs.

[jleemc44]

typical programmers earn between £10,000 and £40,000. i don't really think anyone can answer you unless you give some detail about what your company does and what is requird by the potential programmer.

Not looking for an answer as I know it takes a lot more than what I provided to make a decision.

Just looking for others thoughts on hire vs outsourcing when it comes to programming.

[Tomosaur]

Hiring 'one-off' programmers is generally more expensive if your need a lot of custom written software. The programmer will charge more because he/she doesn't know when his/her next job will come along. A full time programmer will be dedicated to you, and the job stability means he/her will cost less, but as you say, he/she may need extra training if presented with an unkown language or whatever.

If you need LOTS of custom written software, then you may well be better off hiring an in-house programmer (or programming team), but if you only need custom software every so often, then it may not be worth it. You basically just need to work out how much you're currently spending.

[JeffS]

If you hire a programmer, that person will learn and understand your business processes much better than an outsourced contractor would. That adds value - lot's of people can code, but the real work in custom business software is in understanding business processes, and then designing to those processes. After that, the code, if the programmer is well versed in the language being used, practically writes itself (well, sort of).

There's been a big backlash against outsourcing to, for instance, Indian contracting firms, where the labor is much much cheaper. Companies doing that found that, while the Indian coders were of very good quality, they had absolutely zero understanding of the companies business processes. Then their is the cultural, language, and time zone barriers.

IMHO, if there is steady work for software projects, hiring a programmer, or several programmers, is well worth it.