7 ms·

Agreed. The skill isn't even an issue - you just hire them for the right roles. Having the same definition of "no" as Americans is huge. Indians have a really

Agreed. The skill isn't even an issue - you just hire them for the right roles. Having the same definition of "no" as Americans is huge. Indians have a really tough time saying something isn't going well, or that we shouldn't do a project, for cultural reasons. That's great! Culture is great. For work though, something closer to the culture of the outsourcer makes it a lot easier to deal with. Flights are also so much easier, everyone I know speaks at least SOME Spanish (unlike Hindi/Tamil/Tagalog for the other big destinations) and that helps rough out the edges a LOT. I'd bet on Mexico, hard, right now. Same with BA and Colombia.

ethbr0 3y ago
100%! I've worked with a ton of great Indian folks, but the "no" cultural translation is hard. Just yesterday I was working through an issue, came up with a clear plan that critically involved notifying the customer before making any changes, after they'd been burned by previous uncommunicated changes. Was in the middle of a busy day, so I didn't think and quickly asked if there were any problems or everyone was onboard with the plan: "Yes." 5 minutes later, as I'm typing an email to the customer, I get pinged: "The changes have been implemented. Kindly confirm with the customer they took effect as desired." FML. My fault... but really hard to keep yes/no mapping in my head constantly, at all times.
- peteradio 3y ago
  I don't understand what your alternative was? How was this your fault?
  - jghn 3y ago
    If you're aware of the situation you can change the questions you ask and how you probe in to account for the difference in "no" in order to get to the truth. I believe they're saying that due to them being busy they didn't think about it at the time even though they should've known better.
    - ethbr0 3y ago
      Having had similar things happen before, the optimal move on my part would have been to language-engineer a better confirmation question and/or ask for read-back of the plan. E.g. open-ended, no direct requirement to reply in a negative manner, etc.
- snapcaster 3y ago
  I don't really get this anecdote, this seems less like someone having a different definition of "no" and more like just ignoring you (which happens all the time, it's hard to listen to everything in a workplace slack)
  - causi 3y ago
    I'm surprised Slack doesn't have a functionality where you can tag something like a sentence or a phrase as "essential" and make everybody else tap a button acknowledging that they've read and understood it. Maybe also with a timer that stops you from tapping it before you can read it.
    - eschneider 3y ago
      Ah, but as soon as everything is tagged as "essential", nothing is. :/
    - InitialLastName 3y ago
      The true engineering fields have a praxis of using actual signatures on designs, documentation, and decisions for exactly this reason: people are more likely to take meaningful responsibility for understanding the subject matter when their signature is permanently engraved on the decision (and there is in fact more meaningful responsibility when you can trace signatures).
FredPret 3y ago
Could you explain more what you mean with Americans & Indians having different definitions of "no"?
- TonyTrapp 3y ago
  In Indian culture, it is considered rude to say "No", so you will never get a direct No from them. "Can you do this?" - "Yes, I'll do my best" most likely means that you won't get what you asked for.
  - local_crmdgeon 3y ago
    Correct -"I'll do my best" is "No." "I can do it/I will do the needful" is an _actual_ "yes"
mikeryan 3y ago
Mexico is going to need to change their labor laws if they want a big piece of this pie. I’ve had a nearshore team in Mexico for four years the people are great for all the reasons mentioned. The gap, however is costs. We’re used to “at-will” employment in the states are used to a “Hire slow, fire fast” paradigm. In MX the cost to fire a full time employee is 3 months severance (regardless of seniority) plus 20 days for each year worked (labor calculations in MX are done in day rates), plus all accrued vacation and pro-rated Christmas bonus (a requisite MX bonus). Firing someone with 3-4 years tenure can cost 3-6 months of salary. The labor “board” in MX is not a neutral arbiter. They represent the employee in the case of a labor claim. You can skirt this a bit with contractors but that only works for a limited time (contract to hire is common and advisable) Mexico has been a pain point for me. I’ve done everything aboveboard and legally but after having been down the rabbit hole a bit I feel there’s a lot of gray between what’s legal and what’s done in practice and I didn’t have anyone who could help me navigate those waters. There’s big shops opening up in Guadalajara and some other areas and larger companies can weather these issues better then I could with a small team of about 10. But if you’re a smaller startup or services provider I’d be very wary of getting in too deep in Mexico at this point. The one big loophole is to basically hire an agency in MX and pay a premium for devs but don’t take on any of the labor risk.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  Is that a loophole? That's what I would expect most people to want to do anyway.
- geewee 3y ago
  The hire-slow, fire-fast paradigm might be an employers dream, but it is _terrible_ for employees. In the worst-case situation you end up quitting your job and maybe even moving to be let go with little warning? That's rough. I think if the employer wants to fire someone, they _should_ be paying for severance.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    For good workers it is better, as it is easier to get hired and you won't have to pick up a bunch of slack for useless colleagues who are impossible to fire. And if you are fired it's easy to find a new job. Hard firing is only good for employees who don't deliver.
heyjamesknight 3y ago
We hire across LATAM. Mexico still lags behind Argentina and Uruguay in terms of skill level. Lots of low skill, boot-camp style grads. Few true engineers. Colombia is catching up but ARG and URU still reign supreme.
- SauciestGNU 3y ago
  My colleagues in Argentina (many of them are from elsewhere in latam and migrated to ARG) are from what I can tell equally skilled to my US-located peers. Maybe there's more noise to signal in the region, but the talent is there and available.
  - heyjamesknight 3y ago
    Yeah, I don't think we've had a bad hire yet from ARG. Most of our devs are absolutely world-class, but at a fraction of the cost of comparable US employees. And we pay them very well for the region; several have built homes not just for themselves but for family members since they started working with us.
moneywoes 3y ago
Are there any pertinent distinctions between Mexico and Columbia?
- rhacker 3y ago
  Colombia don't worry I made that mistake and one engineer was trying to get my address to send me "the shirt"
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  Colombia is cheaper, arguably better run, significantly safer, and (to the extent that it matters) speaks Spanish similar to "the King's English" instead of something more dialectal. Big fan of Colombia. They're in the middle of a real boom.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  Arguably the big one is the NAFTA TN Visa, which makes it easy to get Mexican help into the US. No H1B needed. Lotta business, esp. manufacturing, in Mexico as well; they've recently overtaken China and Canada as the US' number one trading partner.
roflyear 3y ago
Unfortunately I don't feel like south America has the legal system and lack of corruption to really take off.
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  No one starts with a perfect government. China still doesn't have a real legal system, and it's definitely taken off.
rayiner 3y ago
> Indians have a really tough time saying something isn't going well, or that we shouldn't do a project, for cultural reasons. That's great! Culture is great. For work though, something closer to the culture of the outsourcer makes it a lot easier to deal with. It sounds like it’s not great. Indians are apparently losing business over it. And I suspect they’d be more efficient if they changed that aspect of their culture, at least for business. I’m Bangladeshi and have the same inclination about bad news and saying “no.”[1] I’ve materially improved my career by channeling my west coast American wife in bluntly addressing bad news early, and saying “no” when something isn’t doable. (I still do the Indian “no” with my parents and it drives my wife nuts. “Why did you tell your mom you’d do that when you know you aren’t going to do that?”) [1] I think it’s a characteristic of hierarchical, face-saving cultures in general, including the American south.

ethbr0 3y ago

100%! I've worked with a ton of great Indian folks, but the "no" cultural translation is hard. Just yesterday I was working through an issue, came up with a clear plan that critically involved notifying the customer before making any changes, after they'd been burned by previous uncommunicated changes. Was in the middle of a busy day, so I didn't think and quickly asked if there were any problems or everyone was onboard with the plan: "Yes." 5 minutes later, as I'm typing an email to the customer, I get pinged: "The changes have been implemented. Kindly confirm with the customer they took effect as desired." FML. My fault... but really hard to keep yes/no mapping in my head constantly, at all times.

peteradio 3y ago
I don't understand what your alternative was? How was this your fault?
- jghn 3y ago
  If you're aware of the situation you can change the questions you ask and how you probe in to account for the difference in "no" in order to get to the truth. I believe they're saying that due to them being busy they didn't think about it at the time even though they should've known better.
  - ethbr0 3y ago
    Having had similar things happen before, the optimal move on my part would have been to language-engineer a better confirmation question and/or ask for read-back of the plan. E.g. open-ended, no direct requirement to reply in a negative manner, etc.
snapcaster 3y ago
I don't really get this anecdote, this seems less like someone having a different definition of "no" and more like just ignoring you (which happens all the time, it's hard to listen to everything in a workplace slack)
- causi 3y ago
  I'm surprised Slack doesn't have a functionality where you can tag something like a sentence or a phrase as "essential" and make everybody else tap a button acknowledging that they've read and understood it. Maybe also with a timer that stops you from tapping it before you can read it.
  - eschneider 3y ago
    Ah, but as soon as everything is tagged as "essential", nothing is. :/
  - InitialLastName 3y ago
    The true engineering fields have a praxis of using actual signatures on designs, documentation, and decisions for exactly this reason: people are more likely to take meaningful responsibility for understanding the subject matter when their signature is permanently engraved on the decision (and there is in fact more meaningful responsibility when you can trace signatures).

FredPret 3y ago

Could you explain more what you mean with Americans & Indians having different definitions of "no"?

TonyTrapp 3y ago
In Indian culture, it is considered rude to say "No", so you will never get a direct No from them. "Can you do this?" - "Yes, I'll do my best" most likely means that you won't get what you asked for.
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  Correct -"I'll do my best" is "No." "I can do it/I will do the needful" is an _actual_ "yes"

mikeryan 3y ago

Mexico is going to need to change their labor laws if they want a big piece of this pie. I’ve had a nearshore team in Mexico for four years the people are great for all the reasons mentioned. The gap, however is costs. We’re used to “at-will” employment in the states are used to a “Hire slow, fire fast” paradigm. In MX the cost to fire a full time employee is 3 months severance (regardless of seniority) plus 20 days for each year worked (labor calculations in MX are done in day rates), plus all accrued vacation and pro-rated Christmas bonus (a requisite MX bonus). Firing someone with 3-4 years tenure can cost 3-6 months of salary. The labor “board” in MX is not a neutral arbiter. They represent the employee in the case of a labor claim. You can skirt this a bit with contractors but that only works for a limited time (contract to hire is common and advisable) Mexico has been a pain point for me. I’ve done everything aboveboard and legally but after having been down the rabbit hole a bit I feel there’s a lot of gray between what’s legal and what’s done in practice and I didn’t have anyone who could help me navigate those waters. There’s big shops opening up in Guadalajara and some other areas and larger companies can weather these issues better then I could with a small team of about 10. But if you’re a smaller startup or services provider I’d be very wary of getting in too deep in Mexico at this point. The one big loophole is to basically hire an agency in MX and pay a premium for devs but don’t take on any of the labor risk.

emodendroket 3y ago
Is that a loophole? That's what I would expect most people to want to do anyway.
geewee 3y ago
The hire-slow, fire-fast paradigm might be an employers dream, but it is _terrible_ for employees. In the worst-case situation you end up quitting your job and maybe even moving to be let go with little warning? That's rough. I think if the employer wants to fire someone, they _should_ be paying for severance.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  For good workers it is better, as it is easier to get hired and you won't have to pick up a bunch of slack for useless colleagues who are impossible to fire. And if you are fired it's easy to find a new job. Hard firing is only good for employees who don't deliver.

heyjamesknight 3y ago

We hire across LATAM. Mexico still lags behind Argentina and Uruguay in terms of skill level. Lots of low skill, boot-camp style grads. Few true engineers. Colombia is catching up but ARG and URU still reign supreme.

SauciestGNU 3y ago
My colleagues in Argentina (many of them are from elsewhere in latam and migrated to ARG) are from what I can tell equally skilled to my US-located peers. Maybe there's more noise to signal in the region, but the talent is there and available.
- heyjamesknight 3y ago
  Yeah, I don't think we've had a bad hire yet from ARG. Most of our devs are absolutely world-class, but at a fraction of the cost of comparable US employees. And we pay them very well for the region; several have built homes not just for themselves but for family members since they started working with us.

moneywoes 3y ago

Are there any pertinent distinctions between Mexico and Columbia?

rhacker 3y ago
Colombia don't worry I made that mistake and one engineer was trying to get my address to send me "the shirt"
local_crmdgeon 3y ago
Colombia is cheaper, arguably better run, significantly safer, and (to the extent that it matters) speaks Spanish similar to "the King's English" instead of something more dialectal. Big fan of Colombia. They're in the middle of a real boom.
red-iron-pine 3y ago
Arguably the big one is the NAFTA TN Visa, which makes it easy to get Mexican help into the US. No H1B needed. Lotta business, esp. manufacturing, in Mexico as well; they've recently overtaken China and Canada as the US' number one trading partner.

roflyear 3y ago

Unfortunately I don't feel like south America has the legal system and lack of corruption to really take off.

local_crmdgeon 3y ago
No one starts with a perfect government. China still doesn't have a real legal system, and it's definitely taken off.

rayiner 3y ago

> Indians have a really tough time saying something isn't going well, or that we shouldn't do a project, for cultural reasons. That's great! Culture is great. For work though, something closer to the culture of the outsourcer makes it a lot easier to deal with. It sounds like it’s not great. Indians are apparently losing business over it. And I suspect they’d be more efficient if they changed that aspect of their culture, at least for business. I’m Bangladeshi and have the same inclination about bad news and saying “no.”[1] I’ve materially improved my career by channeling my west coast American wife in bluntly addressing bad news early, and saying “no” when something isn’t doable. (I still do the Indian “no” with my parents and it drives my wife nuts. “Why did you tell your mom you’d do that when you know you aren’t going to do that?”) [1] I think it’s a characteristic of hierarchical, face-saving cultures in general, including the American south.