When your boss asks you and the senior dev, “how do we get the overseas contractors to stop writing lazy code and feel like they’re part of the team?” And you both respond with “we don’t, they won’t stop and don’t care. This is just a contract. Stop expecting them to love the project”. And then the boss agrees that he gets what he pays for.

...and then promptly says, “but HOW do we change their attitude about this?”

The senior told me he keeps a resignation letter in his drafts folder. He sometimes opens it and updates it with the latest gripes. He’s over 70 years old. The approach of DGAF is ever closer for him.

He's still working at 70?! Damn.

That’s a brilliant idea with the resignation letter 😂

Sounds like the man wants to improve things at least, kudos to him for that

I bet paying them like team members would do wonders to their attitude.

In Europe freelancers get paid more than employees :) sadly I'm employed...

@hareland I'm doing freelancing for German client and sadly he pays me in 1digit (in euro) per hour.

"how do we change their attitude about this?"

Make them full-time employees and give them some ownership. When you treat them like cattle, they will be cattle. We have an offshore component as well, and there's just no way around this. They react to situations the way you've scripted them to do so. They will not take independent action, or apply passion to their work, because they are contracted by a company on the other side of the world, and they can easily just find a different job.

Ok no worries, I have solved it myself!
https://geometrydash.io/

@fast-nop and @bahua we actually tried adopting an approach where each dev takes “ownership” of core features to foster the idea that everyone is in this together. Technically every employee is contracted, even the US ones. It’s a small company. The only employees even working in the same city ARE the overseas employees. They attend the same meetings, on the same chat channels, etc.

And as far as pay and treatment, the owner prefers to treat them as “real” employees. The problem is they approach projects sometimes like an employee and sometimes like a contractor. Lots of good ideas, but then the execution is copy paste and error prone.

Promise them that you will transfer to your offices in 2 years. True promise, not false.

@aldoblack if we had offices...

I love the resignation letter idea

Like post, I will follow article