Ask HN: Hiring a remote engineering team abroad? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Hiring a remote engineering team abroad?

3 pointsarenaninja5 comments

I am thinking of offering the services of a remote engineering team to build/deploy/maintain projects within the US

For context, in my home country there is a lot of engineering talent who graduate from university but don't have the means to work remotely for a US firm or there isn't a pipeline to help them migrate. Many times these CS graduates end up taking up jobs in construction, car mechanic and other trades to keep a roof over their heads. But I know where/how to find them and I'd like to provide them with opportunity - very likely earning more than the local job market would pay them while providing a service to US businesses

My plan is to start off taking on projects that I can handle by myself in a reasonable timeframe while I recruit and train abroad. Then take on larger projects but I would remain the customer's primary contact point

Is this something you or your business would be interested in or am I naive? The pessimist in me thinks this is freelancing with extra steps; the optimist in me says there's so much talent available there that would love an opportunity like this

If you have time please fill the survey (all questions optional): https://forms.gle/tzLGrZoEya16wtco9

It's very doable. Our team is in Algiers, Algeria, but our clients are mainly in Europe. The company charges full rate so the clients are not going to the company for "cheap outsourced talent". We have a structure in Europe for contracts that charges clients, and we have people in Europe with a network who find clients. Our clients know where we are and we have weekly meetings with them, so there's no shady stuff here.

The main challenges will be:

- If the country is unstable or has become unlivable, some of the engineers will want to leave and go abroad. Do you have the structure in place to still employ them when they're abroad? Else, you'll have to replace them but that's another story.

- Do you have people who can prospect and sell what you have to offer ? Depending on what you're doing, when the rate is around $2,000/person.day, you want to have someone who can find clients and sell that service, and a team that delivers. How you build that dynamic is, again, another story. This is important because when you do, you'll have repeat business that decreases the pressure to always find new clients, and you'll have an average contrat value in the mid six figures, which can act as a buffer between contracts.

You'll also want to have your process dialed down: prospecting, qualifying, problem scoping, and execution. You want to have the fewest number of meetings per successful execution(prodctized consulting), and you want to amortize your code base and use your assets: can you make a product for a sector or a vertical? Can you invest in internal tooling that will make you more effective and efficient?

Yes, People use these services. You can check out Goldmediatech, Bairesdev, Wildom, among many others who do this at a large scale in Latin America. Its doable

Thanks. Looking into this it does look like most of their employees speak English, while I was considering people who don't speak English; it may be a tougher sell

well, it doesn't work out that way all the time. I'm a near shore dev, and I've been on teams where someone doesn't speak English and i'd do the interpretation live or help explain a ticket. Though these people usually can at least read and write in English.

You could have a small team where you lead things, interface exclusively with clients and the team. Though you will be the bottle neck as to how much business can be done. You should probably search to have some of your team members know English.

I would stress that if they can at least read and write, you can make it work. Interestingly there are lots of people who can do that but not speak very well.

it sounds like any other outsourcing agency. They obviously exist and have a market, but it can be a difficult one.

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