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Language? I know a lot of people more fluent than a typical US dev. Besides that, how much language do you actually need, some basic vocabulary and grammar to c

by roguas 5y ago

Language? I know a lot of people more fluent than a typical US dev. Besides that, how much language do you actually need, some basic vocabulary and grammar to communicate. Time zone? US has 2 continents + you typically need a maximum of 3 hours overlap a day. This is possible even in Europe-EastCoast setup, I typically wake up 11. In US that's 6am sure, but I end my day at 7pm which at US is 2pm. Covid has knocked down a lot. The biggest wall to crush was the psychological ones. So its now, not only genius contractors who could negotiate reasonable flexibility. Also when 60% is WFH now, there is little point in fighting/readjusting. If this was 10% you could try and battle or continue to limit that.

ashtonkem 5y ago
Having led international teams, I can tell you that you’re completely wrong about all of this. You are drastically understating the difficulties of working with engineers abroad. Time zones matter, a lot. Crossing America’s time zones isn’t fun, but it has nothing on Eastern Europe or India. 8pm meetings to interact with your international workers will burn you out quickly. As will suddenly remembering that most of the world doesn’t do DST, so your 8pm meeting just became a 9pm. You also need to know a hell of a lot more than “some vocabulary” in order to communicate effectively with a boss (me, in this scenario) or a stakeholder. Some consultancies will have specialized personnel whose only job is to translate for engineering teams, but these people are extremely expensive for obvious reasons. You can overcome these problems, yes. But often a lot of the supposed cost savings of international workers disappears or shrinks massively by the time you’ve found an arrangement that’s as productive as local engineers. Typically the most sustainable approach here is to use one of the larger contracting companies like EPAM or Globant, but that eats up your savings and the attrition rate from those companies is very high. I’ve personally lost contractors because they were tired of the contracting company, not me or my company. I’ve worked with international teams, and I continue to work with international teams. But the idea that Covid has made replacing domestic teams with international teams does not hold water.

by roguas 5y ago

ashtonkem 5y ago

Having led international teams, I can tell you that you’re completely wrong about all of this. You are drastically understating the difficulties of working with engineers abroad. Time zones matter, a lot. Crossing America’s time zones isn’t fun, but it has nothing on Eastern Europe or India. 8pm meetings to interact with your international workers will burn you out quickly. As will suddenly remembering that most of the world doesn’t do DST, so your 8pm meeting just became a 9pm. You also need to know a hell of a lot more than “some vocabulary” in order to communicate effectively with a boss (me, in this scenario) or a stakeholder. Some consultancies will have specialized personnel whose only job is to translate for engineering teams, but these people are extremely expensive for obvious reasons. You can overcome these problems, yes. But often a lot of the supposed cost savings of international workers disappears or shrinks massively by the time you’ve found an arrangement that’s as productive as local engineers. Typically the most sustainable approach here is to use one of the larger contracting companies like EPAM or Globant, but that eats up your savings and the attrition rate from those companies is very high. I’ve personally lost contractors because they were tired of the contracting company, not me or my company. I’ve worked with international teams, and I continue to work with international teams. But the idea that Covid has made replacing domestic teams with international teams does not hold water.