Re:Poor quality.... (Score 1)

I am a professional software developer (about 15 years in the industry). About 3 years ago I came over to China to with an outsourcing company as the programming manager, helping them develop their internal and external service offering.

I can say from experience that there are many talented and motivated developers in China, they have the potential to do great work if they are given suitable direction. The biggest problem is their lack of good English skills, all the developers with good English skills are too expensive for outsourcing companies to hire. Also as the IT industry in China is not much more than 10 years old getting experienced people is very difficult/expensive. There also seems to be an inability to work through the creative process themselves, they need to be lead.

The upshot of this is, if you want to outsource to China you need to have a good project manager keeping track of the project. Any self-management options will only lead to delays. However with the ability to get two developers for the proce of 1 US developer if managed well, this can be a valuable resource.