4 ms·

No surprise here. I have two part-time Filipino VAs who are very competent and a pleasure to work with via oDesk. I'm not sure why companies are hiding this - i

No surprise here. I have two part-time Filipino VAs who are very competent and a pleasure to work with via oDesk. I'm not sure why companies are hiding this - it's a competitive advantage. Also, to take it further, I'm not sure why more tech startups aren't utilizing the large number of very skilled Eastern European developers to complement their home team. The world is flat.

dclusin 13y ago
A lot of startups don't use offshore workers because it's a logistical nightmare. My company (not a startup) has our QA office based out of Bangalore. As an engineer who delivers things to be verified by said team this is a real pain in the ass. Sunday through thursday my evenings are basically fucked. Every night at 9pm from Sunday to Thursday we have a synch-up call so I never get the chance to make any plans during the week. Over the years this gets really bothersome. It's usually the number one reason why people I've known at my job have found employment elsewhere. Every time I think about changing jobs, I think about the reasons why I would like to, and this is almost always the number one reason.
- pkhamre 13y ago
  Out of curiosity, why didn't you change job already?
  - dclusin 13y ago
    Because you're never going to find the "perfect" job and there will always be things you dislike or disagree with any employer. This is true of my friends who work at Google, Facebook, defense contractors, and the like. As long as there's more pluses then minuses I'll deal with it. When the minuses start outweighing the positives I will jump ship in a hurry.
- cpursley 13y ago
  I obviously can't speak for your company and it's unique situation, but I'm sure there's ways to mitigate and better manage this process.
  - dclusin 13y ago
    From an engineering standpoint you are correct. From a business standpoint none of these problems have quantifiable numbers attached to them (my lost enthusiasm per fort night?) so they basically don't exist. Ascertaining my opinion on how I believe management is running things will be left as an exercise to the reader :)
- csours 13y ago
  It is amazing to think how much progress mere inconvenience may have thwarted. This is not to downplay the effect this coordination has had on your life. Rather this sort of thing requires deliberate planning and cognizance on the part of management / leadership / founders, not minimizing someones claims of hardship.
Iftheshoefits 13y ago
Language and distance barriers are costs to outsourcing those folks. I don't care how skilled a developer is, or which direction the work is going (i.e. whether it's a US startup seeking to exploit, er, employ an Eastern European or vice versa). Unless you don't care about the quality of the code, those two factors matter a lot, and should be considered with much greater weight than they typically are (in my experience, at least), because the language and distance barriers will be additional factors in potential development that deviates from the requirements.
- cpursley 13y ago
  exploit You just exposed the lens through which you view the world.

dclusin 13y ago

A lot of startups don't use offshore workers because it's a logistical nightmare. My company (not a startup) has our QA office based out of Bangalore. As an engineer who delivers things to be verified by said team this is a real pain in the ass. Sunday through thursday my evenings are basically fucked. Every night at 9pm from Sunday to Thursday we have a synch-up call so I never get the chance to make any plans during the week. Over the years this gets really bothersome. It's usually the number one reason why people I've known at my job have found employment elsewhere. Every time I think about changing jobs, I think about the reasons why I would like to, and this is almost always the number one reason.

pkhamre 13y ago
Out of curiosity, why didn't you change job already?
- dclusin 13y ago
  Because you're never going to find the "perfect" job and there will always be things you dislike or disagree with any employer. This is true of my friends who work at Google, Facebook, defense contractors, and the like. As long as there's more pluses then minuses I'll deal with it. When the minuses start outweighing the positives I will jump ship in a hurry.
cpursley 13y ago
I obviously can't speak for your company and it's unique situation, but I'm sure there's ways to mitigate and better manage this process.
- dclusin 13y ago
  From an engineering standpoint you are correct. From a business standpoint none of these problems have quantifiable numbers attached to them (my lost enthusiasm per fort night?) so they basically don't exist. Ascertaining my opinion on how I believe management is running things will be left as an exercise to the reader :)
csours 13y ago
It is amazing to think how much progress mere inconvenience may have thwarted. This is not to downplay the effect this coordination has had on your life. Rather this sort of thing requires deliberate planning and cognizance on the part of management / leadership / founders, not minimizing someones claims of hardship.

Iftheshoefits 13y ago

Language and distance barriers are costs to outsourcing those folks. I don't care how skilled a developer is, or which direction the work is going (i.e. whether it's a US startup seeking to exploit, er, employ an Eastern European or vice versa). Unless you don't care about the quality of the code, those two factors matter a lot, and should be considered with much greater weight than they typically are (in my experience, at least), because the language and distance barriers will be additional factors in potential development that deviates from the requirements.

cpursley 13y ago
exploit You just exposed the lens through which you view the world.