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Launch HN: Manara (YC W21) – Connect Middle East engineers with global companies

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Re: Launch HN: Manara (YC W21) – Connect Middle East engineers with global companies

#81

Post by notsureaboutpg »

toyg wrote: post #80
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen reasoning elsewhere along the following lines: Because there is a stronger economic incentive in Middle Eastern countries compared to western countries, more women go into STEM fields.

Could it also be that there is still a bit of a stigma in male circles, for that type of work? Traditional male stereotypes in the Middle East are still very, very well-entrenched; sitting at your desk "playing" with computers is probably not respected as much as elsewhere.

Opposite: if you go to college at all you are going to be doing a desk job.

More women choose STEM in college in the Middle East because the humanities contradict their religion (unlike STEM) and women are on the whole more religious than men.

Re: Launch HN: Manara (YC W21) – Connect Middle East engineers with global companies

#82

Post by langitbiru »

kaladin_1 wrote: post #75

Oh, wonderful! How I wish this works for Africa as well. Here in Africa (Nigeria) to get a good tech job can take like forever... I am so happy you're helping out. Cudos!

You have Andela: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/23/connecting-african-softwar...

Re: Launch HN: Manara (YC W21) – Connect Middle East engineers with global companies

#83

Post by julianlam »

laila90 wrote: post #48
temp2933 wrote: post #37

Speaking from the employer side, can you possibly mention some salary levels? I know the topic is sensitive and difficult, but giving some indication here or on the website would be great. This is hopefully competitive with other low-cost locations for react//dashboards/enterprise-java etc

Hi, no worries, thanks for asking! Curious what you’re seeing are the salary bands in competitive low-cost locations? We’re currently most familiar with the bands in Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, and UAE. What we’re seeing there varies widely, but can probably be thought of as breaking down into two separate scales/salary bands: those paid by local companies and by international companies sourcing talent in the region pr…

Thank you for the response.

I am not the original commenter, but compensation was also my first thought and worry. Regardless, I still filled out the form and look forward to speaking to someone from your team.

The reality is that hiring is hard. It is doubly hard when you don't have a name brand company, and doubly hard again when you are not VC-backed and can't pay salaries competitive to those companies.

We're a tech company on our way to becoming independently owned again (after a small angel round many years ago), and bootstrap our growth according to revenue. This fact leads us to be very fiscally conservative (especially for a startup). A consistent pain point for us has been the fact that we need engineers to take on larger (or more) projects, but we can't afford them (they'd cost more than a project would bring), but we also can't take on these projects without more engineers, so we've been in a holding pattern unwilling to pull the trigger for quite awhile.

I presume this is not a new story to you. This situation is the only reason we cannot hire locally, we literally cannot afford it.

Re: Launch HN: Manara (YC W21) – Connect Middle East engineers with global companies

#84

Post by Frypa »

toyg wrote: post #80
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen reasoning elsewhere along the following lines: Because there is a stronger economic incentive in Middle Eastern countries compared to western countries, more women go into STEM fields.

Could it also be that there is still a bit of a stigma in male circles, for that type of work? Traditional male stereotypes in the Middle East are still very, very well-entrenched; sitting at your desk "playing" with computers is probably not respected as much as elsewhere.

> Could it also be that there is still a bit of a stigma in male circles, for that type of work?

No it's not. You are actually considered a genius if you work in STEM in general

> sitting at your desk "playing" with computers is probably not respected as much as elsewhere.

I'd say this changed in the last decade a lot. But there is a difference between sitting home playing video games while jobless and working in STEM.

Re: Launch HN: Manara (YC W21) – Connect Middle East engineers with global companies

#86

Post by estsauver »

laila90 wrote: post #6
Jugurtha wrote: post #4

Hi, Laila. Congratulations on the launch. I'll share this (Algiers, Algeria). One of the problems people here have is getting paid from companies abroad. I think it would be good to conduct interviews with people who may be having the same problem, and either offer a solution or explain it on the website. Many people work as freelancers, and the way they get their money is Herculean. Also, many, especially here, neit…

Hi! Ahlan! Azul! Really appreciate your bringing these issues up. Regarding payments, this has been coming up and we’ll need to pick your brain as we develop solutions. For now we are managing payments for companies that hire remotely by wire transferring the funds ourselves. In other words, the companies send the money to our US entity and then we do the transfer. We’ve also been looking at https://pilot.co/ https:/…

CurrencyCloud might be another good option. https://www.currencycloud.com/

Disclosure: We (Apollo Agriculture) share an investor with them, so I've met a couple of their folks at social events.

Re: Launch HN: Manara (YC W21) – Connect Middle East engineers with global companies

#87

Post by kaladin_1 »

langitbiru wrote: post #82
kaladin_1 wrote: post #75

Oh, wonderful! How I wish this works for Africa as well. Here in Africa (Nigeria) to get a good tech job can take like forever... I am so happy you're helping out. Cudos!

You have Andela: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/23/connecting-african-softwar...

Many devs in Nigeria avoid them now like you'd a viper.

Their layoffs are way too much and recently they've gone full gigs. They used to employ Engineers that work on foreign projects but ever since they came to the limelight and the main Nigerian co-founder left they've lost the good reputation they previously enjoyed.

TL;DR; It's no longer the place it used to be.

Re: Launch HN: Manara (YC W21) – Connect Middle East engineers with global companies

#88

Post by throwaway313371 »

There's a big caveat here: Middle-eastern engineers will have significant problems working with more liberal/woke companies. They have a strong tendency to be homophobic/transphobic/misogynist.

Last year I fired an off-shored team of 10 otherwise excellent Egyptian engineers because their homophobic statements on LinkedIn and in Slack made people in the company uncomfortable.

If your company's engineers lean more right-wing/republican, then middle-eastern engineers are probably a great untapped resource. If your company is more of a Silicon Valley company, they are a liability which can get you sued.

Re: Launch HN: Manara (YC W21) – Connect Middle East engineers with global companies

#89

Post by throwaway313371 »

square_usual wrote: post #67
amasad wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're starting to! We have people outside and as long as they overlap for 3-4 hours we should be okay. Will make it official soon.

Damn, that's great! Unfortunately, I don't think IST would overlap, so I guess I'm still out of luck.

I'm in the same boat. Before Covid finding a company which would hire me (American) while living in Istanbul was easy. Now the competition with unemployed Americans has made me leave the tech industry, as I'm no longer employable.

Re: Launch HN: Manara (YC W21) – Connect Middle East engineers with global companies

#90

Post by mtalantikite »

Jugurtha wrote: post #53
orliesaurus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

out of curiosity, how would he define himself?

I believe it would be Kabyle, like myself.

Yeah exactly, my family identifies as Kabyle and the majority of them still live in Béjaïa.

(Also, hey! First time I’ve run into another Kabyle on HN)

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