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Comment by shantara | Hacker News Reader

I used to work for a now defunct Swiss company that had “Swiss quality, security and privacy” plastered all over the website and marketing materials. The number of actual Swiss people on the team could be counted on one hand, the rest of developers being from every European country out there, with the most represented ones being Ukraine and Romania. And from talking with my coworkers, the situation is the same across other Swiss IT companies.

I would not pay any attention to the “Swiss X” marketing.

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Almost every company in Switzerland that produces software has a bunch of eastern Europeans on the payroll, that either immigrated to the country or work remotely. But if the company started in Switzerland, or management and especially senior devs are based in Switzerland, I feel like that's good enough to apply the "Swiss quality" marketing because the Swiss _do_ have high standards and expected high quality of work produced.

So, you are complaining that they had immigrants working for them? They are part of the EU free movement region, so that is hardly surprising. Immigrants on the payroll don't change whether or not a company is Swiss.

Were they inside the country? Were also they subject to Swiss laws? Aren't these the things that would make a company Swiss? Even if the company was started by a person that isn't Swiss, I'm pretty sure it is still a Swiss company if it is initially located in Switzerland and governed by Swiss laws.

I am not complaining about the company hiring immigrants and allowing remote work across the Europe. I just haven't seen anything inherently Swiss in it, anything different from any other European company I worked for, that would justify the "Swiss quality" marketing.

Then why would you bring up the nationalities of the folks working there instead of pointing out things about the quality that you find lacking as compared to the advertising?

There wasn't any of that there. The only detail in the complaint was about the non-Swiss folks working there. And I really, really don't understand how it just isn't low-key racism. Could you explain it better for me?

The comment (and what people expect of a "Swiss product") was about the local/nationak law environment which certainly always holds true (for better or worse). "Created by Swiss people" as a feature would be a rather meaningless in the modern world.

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