Outsourcing software development can provide several significant benefits. Unfortunately, it offers just as many ways to get burned. Is there a better model?
At its best, development outsourcing helps companies save money, complete projects faster, manage large one-off projects more effectively, and get access to hard-to-find talent.
But only 61% of companies say they are “absolutely” or even “somewhat” satisfied with their outsourcing initiatives. And up to 15% of IT projects fail outright.
Why? The software outsourcing business model is designed to generate profit for stakeholders for each engineering resource or project fulfilled by engineering resources.
In order to stay competitive and provide a lower rate than typical engineers in the U.S., offshore outsourcing vendor engineering salaries are kept low so as to 
maximize profit.
But this “humans as a commodity” business model generates uncertainty for low-paid software engineers. It causes high turnover rates and low-quality work (often swapping a senior-level resource for a junior one who has no idea of object-oriented programming or good code structure) and lack of project commitment. Feeling underpaid doesn’t motivate anyone to do a great job.