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>Regarding payments, this has been coming up and we’ll need to pick your brain as we develop solutions. My contact information is in my profile. I'll forward t
by Jugurtha 6y ago
>Regarding payments, this has been coming up and we’ll need to pick your brain as we develop solutions.
My contact information is in my profile. I'll forward to some people I know who had several problems with that. The last one I talked with worked with a company in the U.K. with the restriction the "worker" had to have a bank account in their country of residence, not in any other country. Explanations on exchange rates below. They know more about this, and know more people in that situation.
>We’ve also been looking at https://pilot.co/ https://pilot.co/ https://www.boundlesshq.com/ https://www.boundlesshq.com/ and https://www.letsdeel.com/ https://www.letsdeel.com/. Are you familiar with those?
Unfortunately, no.
What I also meant by payment problems is the disparity between the conversion rates in banks and on the streets. The disparity can be huge, so if you wire X euros to someone's bank account, it is automatically converted to the local currency at rate X and they get Y, when they could get 1.6Y or 1.7Y (60% or 70%) more on the streets. A 70% delta is a lot.
Some networks have developed to enable people to get the full "street value" of their money.
>When we call it “the Middle East and North Africa,” we also get feedback that it’s inaccurate.
Well, as someone in Algeria, if I were looking for work and visited the site and it said: "You're in North Africa", that's a fact of geography. It said "Hire the best Arab software engineers", I'll think "I'll forward the link to Arab software engineers I know since they're specific".
There are a lot of competitions, hackathons, or events that use this terminology, and I know many very talented people who do not participate because it's not for them. They'd rather go to another continent, and they do, where their ethnicity is acknowledged than submit a form that contains an inaccuracy that perpetuates a denial they've been facing for a long time. You are trying to optimize for brevity and clarity and you have to put something on the page, and I get that. I'm just saying and I think that you have lived through enough exclusion and non representativity that you understand that a message on a landing page that excludes you defacto kind of stings.
>PS: My co-founder Iliana has spent lots of time in Morocco and some in Algeria… and can’t wait to go back! She speaks some darija… and picked up a few words of Berber. :)
Well, I don't need to tell you that you are welcome. Hit me up if you are around. You might find the students groups to be interesting. In the meantime, I'll float the site around.
EDIT0: I sent it to someone who has a group. They sent the following:
> Them: Too bad, I'm an infrastructure engineer.
They're specialized in "Microsoft, VMware, IT infrastructures, etc."
EDIT1: Sent it to the admin of a group of around 7.4K engineers and technicians (not just software). Some might be interested and share it to their networks.
- ilianam 6y agoHi, Iliana responding this time. I can’t emphasize how much we appreciate your feedback! You’re totally correct about the word “Arab” - we should’ve caught that and am glad you brought it to our attention. The situation with the exchange rate in Algeria is a real problem. Like you said, the banks’ exchange rate is much lower than it should be. When I was there I spent a day with a friend’s friend who runs a side business exchanging money, so I saw some of what this looks like on the ground. I’ll reach out now to pick your brain more on this topic. Thank you again for your feedback & for spreading the word! So grateful.
- Jugurtha 6y agoYou're welcome. I just sent the link to someone who can be very useful: he has experience working in freelance and probably can share many problems from the field. He also has lead a youth organization here and placed many people in internships and positions in companies all over the world, has been around, and has a deeper understanding of the several hurdles, from visas to payment problems.
- ilianam 6y agoSweet! Thank you
- filleduchaos 6y ago> What I also meant by payment problems is the disparity between the conversion rates in banks and on the streets. This is also a problem where I live (Nigeria). It's exhausting explaining black/parallel currency markets to clients/employers in countries with more stable currencies. Way too often I get the knee-jerk reaction that I'm doing something shady/illegal.
- Jugurtha 6y agofilleduchaos, that's a badass handle. >It's exhausting explaining black/parallel currency markets to clients/employers What's the delta like there between parallel/official rates?