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Comment by AYBABTME | Hacker News Reader

> DO seems to have gone with the "hire cheap overseas support that almost but doesn't quite understand English" strategy, whereas the tier 1 guys at Linode have on occasion demonstrated more Linux systems administration expertise than I've got.

That's simply not true. There's support engineers hired around the world, and depending on when your ticket is posted, someone awake at that time will answer. DO is super remote friendly and as a result, has employees (and support folks) everywhere on the planet. Not "cheap oversea support" at all. There's a lot of support folks in the US, Canada, Europe, and in India where they have a datacenter.

disclosure: ex-employee

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> That's simply not true. There's support engineers hired around the world, and depending on when your ticket is posted, someone awake at that time will answer. DO is super remote friendly and as a result, has employees (and support folks) everywhere on the planet. Not "cheap oversea support" at all. There's a lot of support folks in the US, Canada, Europe, and in India where they have a datacenter.

Going to guess from this tweet https://twitter.com/AntoineGrondin/status/113096281882239385... that you're currently staffed at DO. That's fine; I know two people who do great work on DO's security team. But it would be helpful if you could disclose this when you comment about your employer publicly so that readers don't have to dig up your keybase and then your twitter account to understand it.

I don't work at DO anymore, but you're right I should disclose that I used to do so. Will edit my original post.

Much appreciated, thanks!

But, isn’t hiring all over the world exactly because it is cheaper for the same kind of talent. I’m sure the company doesn’t do it out of the goodness of their heart.

Then of course, there is no guarantee these people speak and understand english perfectly.

I would say it's not. There's many advantages to hiring remote workers, they've been discussed at length elsewhere. One advantage is not having to pay office space, which indeed lowers cost. However DO has a nice office in Manhattan so really... they're not saving much money. And then on the term of compensation, for some reason DO pays it's remote employees really well. I don't know how this changed in recent years but people in NA and EU are all paid handsomely despite being remote. I don't know about other locales.

The reality is that top talent, even if remote, is competitive whether they are in NYC/SFO/SEA or not. And DO has some pretty talented people on staff.

And then, having people in all timezones is definitely an advantage for 24/7 support. I'd say it's not negligible, and not an after thought.

Now about english fluency, it's only that important to english native locations. And really, most of tech does not necessarily have english as a first language - I certainly don't. So I'd say that encountering support engineers with imperfect english shouldn't be a problem to anyone, and definitely not a sign of cheap labor. In fact, I'd say bitching about someone's english proficiency in tech is kind of counterproductive and I find it discriminatory.

Anyways. DO doesn't hire international employees to get cheap labor, that's a preposterous proposition. And with datacenters around the world and a large presence and customer base, it makes sense to have staff on board from many of these areas. And that staff might answer your tickets at night when they're on shift. Shouldn't they?

I can concur from a company that is not DO we hire workers in locations around the glove specifically to have people awake in their normal time zones, not because it's cheaper because it's not always cheaper. There are many countries that have a large portion of very intelligent and multi lingual people, especially when it comes to English. Just because someone isn't a native English speaker, or speaks in different dialect doesn't mean that they are any less capable.

Not least England, which is literally full of actual native English speakers, and 8 hours ahead of the west coast of the USA.

I probably should have left the word "overseas" out of my initial comment, it gave it a flavor that doesn't match my left-wing multicultural globalist ideals.

That said, I disagree wholeheartedly that it's okay for support staff to not be completely fluent in the language they're providing support in, regardless of the language.

There is functionally no difference between trying to interact with talented support staff who aren't fluent in your language, and trying to interact with illiterate support staff. The end results are identical.

There are people who are very talented and very fluent in more than one language. Those people tend to be more expensive. So, many companies forego hiring those workers and instead hire others who are cheaper and "about as good". My multiple experiences with DO support have suggested that that's what they're doing.

As other commenters are suggesting, it may just be instead that DO is expecting its support staff to meet metrics that are causing them to spend only a minute or two per ticket and send out scripted replies.

I know many engineers who are not that fluent in English whom you would never contemplate qualifying as illiterate; you would quickly see that (1) they're encumbered by English and (2) are obviously extremely proficient technically, and literate.

People who would make gratuitous grammatical mistakes but have read more classics than the average American college graduate. I can easily count many just thinking of it.

You're arguing here against something I didn't say. You took one word from my statement -- "illiterate" -- and built a whole new argument around it which was never mine to begin with. I don't think you're doing it intentionally, I suspect it's just because you have a particular sensitivity on this subject. Either way I don't think I can say anything here that'll get a fair treatment from you.

Not that person, but you said this:

> There is functionally no difference between trying to interact with talented support staff who aren't fluent in your language, and trying to interact with illiterate support staff.

That statement reeks of ignorance. It seems you have almost no experience with other languages than your own, or you would know that communicating while being non-fluent or with a non-fluent works just fine most of the time. Sometimes misunderstandings happens and it can be a bit slower but that is all.

this statement is downright offensive and something i wouldn't expect to read here.

fluency is a high barrier to clear. it took me 5 years of speaking/reading/writing english daily to come even close to "fluency".

before that, i had a really good advanced english, but i wasn't fluent. and it didn't mean i was "illiterate".

> Sometimes misunderstandings happens and it can be a bit slower but that is all.

So your position is that support that's a bit slower, with some misunderstandings, is exactly as good as fast support without misunderstandings, even in downtime-sensitive applications.

Well, okay then.

  isn't a native English speaker, or speaks in different dialect doesn't mean that they are any less capable

It's not just about being less capable... Being less understandable can trump capability.

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