Offshore to Onshore software development experience:

More than half of my professional career so far as a software developer involved implementing bespoke systems for various industries.  I spent my early days in offshore software development house writing small to fairly medium size windows based applications mainly for customers based in US.  Some of the smaller contracts were delivered within a week engaging a single developer whereas larger ones took us many months (8-15) with 4-5 developers working in a team practicing SCRUM principles. It was a fun. Real fun! Looking back it feels so good. I am grateful to my back then employer (HimalayanTechies).  I was given “licence to learn” freedom to play with state of art technologies. They were very supportive throughout my time with them. The best part was you are the one to decide which development tools and platforms to choose for you next project.

Moving on from Offshore to Onshore software development experience, it has been quite nice to be honest. I am not quite sure whether the term “onshore development” is the correct one to refer to someone developing software for customers with whom they are within easily commutable distance -more importantly in the same time zone. New culture, new lifestyle and far away from your friends you have grown-up with. So on and so forth. Everything is new. Once you get used to with the new environment you start to feel comfortable. Better news is that you are not new to your s/w development methodologies, principles and the best practices. It’s the same. It might have been slightly amended to fit each organisation’s working practices and interpretations. That’s alright. It shouldn’t scare anyone.  Leaving the financial side to smart people, working Onshore is quite exciting for a developer.  Working in the same time zone, understanding the culture and current market trends obviously helps you as developer to perceive of customer’s requirements quickly. It is easier to make decisions like choosing UI layout, colour themes and work flow of the business process. In addition, you get the chance to use out of the shelf third party stable commercial components to make your development experience nice and easy (RAD) allowing you to focus on business requirements thus you are in a better position to delivery product in time and within budget and hopefully less buggy systems :) assuming you came from an Offshore development team where affordability of purchasing commercial product is remote.