jacques van niekerk presentation on iwmc 2015

In Comparison

3rd Iran Web and Mobile Conference

International exhibition center of university of Shahid Beheshti

In Comparison

Why me ?

3rd Iran Web and Mobile Conference

In Compar

International exhibition center of university of Shahid Beheshti

Jacques van Niekerk

@ Rosewood Due Diligence

1985..!

What do THEY think ?

How would you describe developers in your

own country in 10 or fewer words ?

How do you think developers in your country

compare to the best in the world ?

Australia

Expensive, perfectionists, edge, snobs, scarce, arrogant (sometimes), leaving.

“Very good in the main. They stay focused on latest tech and love all the new

platforms that are emerging. Very scarce so hard to find at a decent price. We

tend to scale out of Australia for this reason.”

Poland

hardworking, innovative, courageous, enterprising, open-minded, communicative, team players, clever

early-adopters, good mathematical and physical background, particularly strong in algorithmics

“They are in TOP 5 countries in algorithms. Polish IT market is more than enough to satisfy needs of

best performers - 70% IT guys prefer to stay in Poland”

“As we can see in different competitions polish developers are world class. That's why there are a lot

of polish developers in companies such as Google, Apple or Facebook”

Switzerland

qualitative, expensive, organized, correct, long term thinking, low-maintenance-

code-writer, well engineered, high educated

“security/quality in multiple dimensions first, innovation and speed second.”

Passionate, hard working, and they love their careers.

Scarce, conscientious, one-language passion, corporate, career-oriented,

make it work.

“SA developers don't stand back when competing on the world stage. They are

open to opportunities and are keen to go and learn and come back.”

“Methodical but not always innovative. Like to learn, but often lacking an

academic background.”

South Africa

Brazil

creative, expensive, opinionated, team players, hard workers, conference

goers, trend followers

“Developers in Brazil are fast at adopting new standards, and passionate about

being cutting edge. They are more creative than average, and more expensive

too.”

India

Academic, usually good in algorithms/mathematical concepts, Innovative

(Incrementally) but also tailored to taking instructions, normally sticks to

timeline given, code quality not a high priority, system fundamentals not too

strong, normally seen lacking focus.

“ The difference is in approach to solve a problem. The best of programmers

dares to discard their academic training and takes total new untested and weird

routes..resulting in new concepts/innovations. This is lacking for most

programmers in India”

Singapore

need instructions, expensive, scarce, sincere and focused, strong in

fundamentals, academic

“Although there is a fair degree of innovative approaches..its mostly

incremental. Most stick to tried and tested approaches.”

Tags

#Cost

#Innovation

#Skills

#Team #Stay

#Scarce

#Scarce

means

● competition for skills

● money’s worth ?

● plenty of jobs

#Cost

means

● hard to retain

● overpriced

● valuable

#Innovation

means

● flexible

● out of the box

● build on what they were taught

● problem solving

#Skill

means

● what we were taught

● how we use what we were taught

● efficiency

● practical

#Stay

means

● benefits the country

● leave, but come back

● less scarcity

● build

#Team

means

● support

● efficiencies

● knowledge sharing

● sum ++

#thewheel

Not built here.

We can do it better.

Please don’t.

What can we compare ?

● Type of product

● People

● Technology

How objective can we be ?

What I look at

Tech Assessments

● People

● Technology

● Process

● Software Architecture

● Infrastructure

(Workshop this afternoon)

People

● Skill

● Communication

● Passion

● Teachability

● Real programmers

etc.

● Security

● Devops

● QA

Technology

● Fit for purpose

● Supports growth goals

● Attractive

● Proven

● Maintainable

Process

● Agile ?

● What kind of company is this ?

● Supporting tools

Software Architecture

● Scalable

● Economies of scope/scale

● Documented

● Suitable

Infrastructure

● Cost

● Resilience

● Scalability

● Maintenance

People

● Technically strong

● Technologically savvy

● Innovative

● Can do

● WANT to learn

● Passion - most definitely

(Topcoder.com - 9th, worldwide)

● Sometimes support growth goals

● Proven - yes

● Maintainable - mostly

● Attractive - judge for yourself

Technology

Sidebar: Web Languages

spectrum.IEEE.org

Sidebar: Mobile Languages

spectrum.IEEE.org

spectrum.IEEE.org

Process

● Agile and Kanban in startups.

● High awareness

● Mostly technology driven

● Supporting tools … sometimes

Infrastructure

IaaS

+

PaaS

+

SaaS

=

Easy

Software/Architecture

● Cost of Scaling ?

● Transportable ?

● Ready for the world ?

To your advantage

● Large potential market

● Roadmaps from established markets

● ‘Greenfields’

● Local knowledge (NB)

Iran - typical issues - 1

● Lack of documentation

● No hardware redundancy

● No QA process

● Planning to refactor

Iran - typical issues - 2

● Security

● Performance!

● Monitoring

● Actively think about architecture!

Comparative Notes

● Scarce - as everywhere else

● Leaving

● Little concern for security

● Architecture as it happens (but true for many startups)

● Little documentation

● Sometimes have to reinvent the wheel

● Acknowledge the worth of local knowledge

What does the future hold ?

IEEE - 2015 trends

● Hardware - wearables, IoT, 3D Printing

● Security

● SDx

● Augmented Reality

● Predictive Analytics

http://www.computer.org/web/pressroom/2015-tech-trends

How will you compare in

2020 ?

3rd Iran Web and Mobile Conference

International exhibition center of university of Shahid Beheshti

In Comparison

!سپاسگزارمThanks!

Jacques van NiekerkRosewood Due Diligence

Partner

Twitter: @gustibleLinkedIn:jacquesvn.comWeb: rosewoodd.com