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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

#91

Post by fakedang »

ilianam wrote: post #14
fakedang wrote: post #13

Keeping you guys in mind the next time someone asks me for MENA talent. And if I want to hire some myself!

Thanks so much! That's interesting that people are already asking you for MENA talent sometimes. Under what circumstances does that happen?

When folks want to startup and ask for programmers but only get a bunch of snake oil salesmen who know "AI expertise" or "blockchain" but have a degree and background in marketing. Way too common in Dubai especially. Every time someone asked me, I always referred them to India or Pakistan, since I never knew where the Arab coders are. That is until now.

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

#92

Post by ajcp »

throwaway313371 wrote: post #88

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 rig…

I think your one(?) experience with Middle-eastern engineers has unfortunately given you a bad impression, but I'm not sure that necessitates making such a dogmatic and blanket "caveat".

Following the logic in your own statement equating Republicans to Middle-eastern homophobes, mid-west engineers will(!) have significant problems working with more liberal/woke companies. They have a strong(!) tendency to be homophobic/transphobic/misogynist. They are a liability which can get you sued.

Does that sound like a correct, or even fair, assessment to you?

I'm a Republican software engineer from Kansas and it doesn't to me.

Beyond that, from my time living in Beirut and traveling the Middle-east I can assure you there are many, many liberal (in both the Western and US sense) and metropolitan software engineers who would have no "problems working with more liberal/woke" companies".

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

#93

Post by dang »

kaladin_1 wrote: post #76
filleduchaos wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I also meant by payment problems is the disparity between the conversion rates in banks and on the streets. This is also a problem where I live (Nigeria). It's exhausting explaining black/parallel currency markets to clients/employers in countries with more stable currencies. Way too often I get the knee-jerk reaction that I'm doing something shady/illegal.

Hi @filleduchaos, a Nigerian here, pls, if you don't mind could give few pointers on how you scored your first few foreign jobs. I've sent out so many resumes and cold emails, I have as many rejection letters to prove so. I know there's sth I'm not doing well. Currently studying all sorts of Algo books. Thank you

Don't miss the "Who Wants to Be Hired" and "Freelancer" threads that get posted each month by this auto account: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring.

The Jan threads are now closed (HN threads close to new comments after 2 weeks) but there will be another one on Feb 1. No guarantees, of course, but people definitely get work that way.

Good luck! I hope you find something soon.

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

#94

Post by ilianam »

kaladin_1 wrote: post #76
filleduchaos wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I also meant by payment problems is the disparity between the conversion rates in banks and on the streets. This is also a problem where I live (Nigeria). It's exhausting explaining black/parallel currency markets to clients/employers in countries with more stable currencies. Way too often I get the knee-jerk reaction that I'm doing something shady/illegal.

Hi @filleduchaos, a Nigerian here, pls, if you don't mind could give few pointers on how you scored your first few foreign jobs. I've sent out so many resumes and cold emails, I have as many rejection letters to prove so. I know there's sth I'm not doing well. Currently studying all sorts of Algo books. Thank you

This is what Manara candidates often have experienced too, even when they're excellent. It can be very hard to get the attention of tech companies if you're applying from a country they don't usually work with, especially as a junior engineer. Some companies get 2k applications/role so the resumes go into an automated system to be processed.

Manara solves this problem by setting up partnerships with companies for our candidates. Have you thought about joining Andela?

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

#95

Post by ilianam »

estsauver wrote: post #86
laila90 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks for flagging them - hadn't heard of them previously.

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

#96

Post by ilianam »

langitbiru wrote: post #68

So in the past I read something similar. It's similar business but for Africa: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/23/connecting-african-softwar... Then something similar showed up again. But this time the business is for Europe, Asia and Latin America: https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/23/youteam/ Then I joked with my friend: "Maybe you should build something similar but for South-East Asia." (We live in SEA.) Then the simi…

Yes, there’s a growing trend of connecting tech companies to untraditional talent, including in emerging markets. This is for good reasons: talent is everywhere, there’s a growing need for it in the tech sector, remote work and/or relocations are easier than before, and untraditional talent is less likely to be successful going through traditional application processes on their own.

The vision of these organizations is similar, and they take slightly different approaches. For instance, Andela is an agency (they hire the talent) and YouTeam and Andela are both remote-only. We took the approach of helping talent reach their dream jobs whatever they may be (including jobs at companies like Google in Europe) because that makes it possible to attract the best talent, and because ultimately we believe that will have bigger impact.

I’ve seen at least one example in SEA so far: https://pesto.tech/ If you find others, let us know!

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

#97

Post by ilianam »

lumberjack24 wrote: post #69

Manara sounds like a beacon of light for the MENA engineers! Congrats to you Laila and Iliana for the launch and I will definitely be sharing this with fellow Tunisian developers :)

Thank you so much! We'd love to connect more to the Tunisian software engineering community. Will send you an email.

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

#98

Post by ilianam »

cik wrote: post #71

Wasalaam ukhti, from the other side of the fence. I'm in Israel, and would love to learn more, and see how I can help from here. It could be one of our small steps that helps move the needle on peace! I'd like to introduce you to some friends in North America who will be very interested. Please check out my profile for an e-mail, and let's talk. Shukraan habibti!

Thanks so much for your interest in helping! The best way to get involved is to visit https://www.manara.tech/get-involved. Can you also share that link with your friends in North America who would be interested? Really appreciate your spreading the word!

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

#99

Post by ilianam »

salsheikh wrote: post #66

Just wanted to chime in to share that the original post is great but doesn't do enough justice to the talent. I've been working as an engineer in the Bay Area for 3+ years and found Manara about a year ago. During that time, I've closely mentored 6 engineers and mock interviewed several more. I think nearly every end-of-program mock interview I've given to Manara students are a "Hire" with questions of similar diffic…

Thanks so much for sharing that! Glad you're having such a great experience on our volunteer team. We couldn't do this without people like you.

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

#100

Post by ilianam »

vladoski wrote: post #74
ilianam wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! What other societies have you seen with a high percentage of women developers?

From my experience, the ex Eastern Bloc countries. I am speaking about all the STEM fields, not just SWE. I remember that my mom (Romanian) was shocked when I told her that in my CS high school class (in Italy) we were all boys.

That's interesting. I'm half Polish and I know that there is a perspective that women do really well in science/STEM, but I don't think I've seen them participate at equal rates as men. And when I talk to tech companies in Poland these days, they say their engineering teams are predominantly male and they'd like to change that (which is one reason they want to partner with Manara!)

EDITED: Also, when I worked at Upwork as a PM, most of our software engineers were from Eastern Europe (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, etc) and we had almost no women on the team.

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