Productive Use of Offshore Development Resources
I have experience at two companies that relied heavily, in some cases exclusively, on offshore development resources. In both cases, the companies neglected to consider and adequately accomodate the challenges presented by an offshore partner, including language differences, lack of domain knowledge in the offshore centers, time and geography differences, high attrition levels overseas, lack of experience, poor infrastructure, and other issues. Here is the background of both situations: In April 2008, Jack Xu, VP of Engineering and Research, and eBay Fellow, announced his retirement from eBay. Jack started at eBay in 2002. In 2004, Jack was responsible for opening eBay's first overseas development center in Shanghai. Jack played an instrumental part in growing the China Development Center to over 400 R&D staff. Three years later, Jack partnered closely with PayPal to establish the Marketplaces India Development Center, staffed with over 100 R&D professionals in Chennai by t