Ask HN: If you are fully/partially remote, would you hire devs in India?

No. At least not through the normal application process. I have worked with many brilliant Indian people, and some of my favorite colleagues were Indian. However, there is so much "noise" in India's talent pool [1] - bad communication, fake degrees, fake profiles, sloppy work - that it just takes too much effort filtering through it. I understand that it's biased, but simply not hiring from India seems to be the better business decision when there is good talent elsewhere.

Of course, the exception are people that come through the network, not through a "normal" application process.

[1] https://restofworld.org/2020/india-engineering-degree/

> They think they must work only three years as developers and move to management as soon as they can, otherwise they are wasting time, or they think they are a professional failure.

I am an Indian and to be honest, the hierarchical culture is horrible. People misattribute it to caste system but it is much much more than that. We aren't actually expected to straightforwardly say the professor / senior / elders are wrong.

Would you consider Github/tech blogs before rejecting the applicant right away? As an Indian I agree with the sloppy work culture and almost zero effort in actually learning things.

I really think your approach is kinda inside out.

The real question is, what are companies in India willing to do to gain credibility? Assembling a "warm body shop" doesn't add much.

Pick a problem space to specialize in, assemble a competent team and develop an open source app for it. Then use this as "proof of work" for marketing purposes.

You undoubtedly know Indian culture better than me --- what do you think is the most likely response to this sort of selection process?

I would avoid it for most roles. And not just India, but really anywhere that's more than a 6 hour time difference from where I work (and even then, I would prefer less than a 4 hour time difference).

I work on a globally distributed team currently. It is exceptionally difficult to maintain cohesiveness as a team given that there are 0 hours per day that we are all online. What has ended up happening is that we have virtually fragmented into 3 separate teams with our own products. For instance, my team members in Asia are working on a product that I can't effectively support because my shift doesn't overlap. If someone asks me a question about that app, which my team is supposed to support, I have to go start reading source code. Lacking documentation is also an issue there, but that's nearly a universal problem.

Remote working tools are the hot new thing, but nothing effectively solves the timezone issue. Sure, we have async communication, but unless someone is logging in after hours (which I would heavily discourage), you only get one exchange (i.e. an email or Slack message) per day. That's a painfully slow way to collaborate.

That being said, there are roles where the time difference doesn't matter, and is advantageous. NOC and helpdesk (if helpdesk is 24 hours) are well suited to a "follow the sun" model. The team communication seems largely limited to passing off info about incidents, with very occasional full group meetings to give new policy info. They just aren't the prestigious roles typically associated with SV.