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I worked for a company that did this. It was (and still is) a complete disaster. They've been around for 5 years and still haven't released a product. If you're
by ironmagma 5y ago
I worked for a company that did this. It was (and still is) a complete disaster. They've been around for 5 years and still haven't released a product. If you're going to do this, you'd better have an enormous pile of tasks that can be independently handled and programmatically verified. And just assume that communication between your US team and foreign teams will be nonexistent, it's best to set expectations low instead of trying to embed people into existing teams.
- vanusa 5y agoAnd I worked for a company where it worked beautifully; the remote folks (who were very carefully picked) meshed perfectly with the team (and better than many of the native folks). It's an eternal topic on HN of course. Whether it works or not seems to depend on multiple factors (not simply language issues, or remote versus local), in my view.
- ironmagma 5y agoYeah, several things my (former) company did that made it worse: - Not consult with existing employees before making this decision to see if we were on board. - Not hire individually, instead acquire an entire company. - Said company was struggling financially (which made it a "good deal").
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoI can hardly imagine that situation working out if the company you acquired were in the US.
- Daishiman 5y agoNewsflash: competent senior engineers in LatAm with 10+ years of experience are not dramatically cheaper than US engineers outside of NY/SF. A good engineer in Latam might work below market rate for a couple of years, then they realize their market value and stop working at a discount.
- oblio 5y agoThat's the case for any good dev, anywhere in the world. If they're not chained to their job for various non-work reasons, they <<will>> move on to competitive salaries.
- KptMarchewa 5y agoSo this is very, very different and incomparable situation than presented in the article or discussed in the comments. The same issues could present if you bought incompetent company in the US.
- ironmagma 5y agoThe language barrier was 80% of the problem. Everything else could have worked out if we had been on board and the management handled it correctly. The engineers were good enough.
- KptMarchewa 5y agoLanguage barrier would be something that you could filter on within 15 minutes of recruiter screen talking with the candidate.
- xunn0026 5y agoYou company basically did everything wrong. Remote teams that are selected well can be a pleasure to work with for everybody involved.
- ironmagma 5y agoThe point was not to say that hiring remotely is a fraught endeavor, it was a cautionary tale to any execs out there who might get it in their head that this is generally a good idea. It can go very very wrong.
- xunn0026 5y agoWell, a remote hire is generally super easy to fire. A local employee can go to court and really mess things up!
- wyclif 5y agoMaybe in Europe, but in the USA where the laws are "right to work", it's just as easy to fire an employee whether they are remote or on site.
- xunn0026 5y agoI know firing is easy in the US. But almost nobody from abroad will open a lawsuit against a company. While a local could be incentivised to do so or at least complain to various institutions or try small claims court. For eg. I've had a US customer not pay a pretty big invoice and it was too costly in terms of time and money to pursue. I had no recourse. So I just ate the loss.