There were challenges - The communications needed extra effort, and the results were not as good when they were given autonomy over their work. They also were not happy being on a project long-term - they always were looking for their next promotion. Which means it was difficult to get a true senior-level talent on the team, because the better someone is... the quicker they move on to something else.
Ultimately, my answer is yes, I am willing to hire people no matter where they come from -- but I'd be far more inclined to hire someone who has already spent a couple years working in the USA, so they have a better understanding of both how we communicate, and our business culture.
I lived and worked for one of the big offshoring companies in Karnataka and also the US in my 20s. I'm glad I had the experience to do so, and, as an American, I was never treated so well in another country (I've also lived in the EU several times).
But the whole experience really showed me that it had nothing to do with diversity, cultural exchange, getting the 'best and brightest, nor all the other bullshit that executives and lobbyists use to push offshoring and unlimited visas for foreign workers. It is about wage arbitrage, screwing over US workers while enriching management and shareholders, and ignoring a company's responsibility to pay back the society which provides them the environment they use to create a profitable business.
It is very short-term thinking, and has probably had more to do with the growing inequality between the 0.1% and the rest of us than anything else.
The H1B and other visas, along with offshoring and 'global employees' is way more supported on HN than it would be on any other US based tech site, and that's because HN has way more wanna-be Zuckerburgs and Bezos, and less 50 year old System Admins who've had the unfortunate experience of training their own replacements from India on H1b visas, right before being fired themselves.
Just as important as skill is productivity. And both are more difficult to access remotely.
Credentials have limited substance in the US labor market. In India they have even less --- in my experience.
There is no way to sugar coat this --- India has a credibility deficit in my opinion which translates into additional management oversight required.
Let me show the perspective of an Indian engineer. I don't want to work for remotely for a team with half a day of time zone difference. India has tons of interesting startups doing exciting work.
Most of the bright engineers are happy with the jobs or have their own network of other bright engineers to help with job hunting. Very few good engineers sign for remote work.
Of course, the exception are people that come through the network, not through a "normal" application process.
This means we have over ten offices all over the world.
There is at least one office in India. It used to have many engineers, now it has few.
The reasons: Engineers in India have this culture that values position more than skills. 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.
Now development is mostly done in Europe.
When searching for equally brilliant developers in India itself, I would have to somehow reproduce the effect of this self-selection to get the same wonderful results.
Same applies to a few other countries from which I've seen brilliant colleagues, such as Russia, China, or Turkey.
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.
As mentioned below, there are political reasons you might not want to this. And, there are some logistical hurdles in terms of local regulations which, in my experience, can be overcome and plenty of companies have shown that is the case.
So, to answer your question specifically, the reason to compete for talent in Silicon Valley/locally is exactly what you mentioned: the challenges due to different time zones.
Engineering is inherently a collaborative discipline despite the fact that much of the work is done in a solitary fashion.
Each degree of separation makes collaboration harder. The first degree is when you are not sitting next to your collaborators. And it goes on from there: perhaps when the are on another floor, or even another building, in another city, country, timezone, etc.
The most distance you add to the equation, the harder collaboration becomes.
Why are people constantly threatening us with things that happened 20 years ago? Especially when we've been buried in hysteria over it for decades.
I think the biggest challenge is finding the right people that meet your level of expectations. This is a challenge no matter where the person is located.
Helping companies offshore work destroys local jobs, depresses salaries and helps the rich get all the richer at a time where they've already taken a disproportionate amount of the gains from the increases in productivity since the 70s and in that time, as the panama papers et al. have shown, have done all they can to hide those profits from the societies that generated them.
I'm also pretty staunchly anti-globalism so it would make a hypocrite of me if I did.
As a hiring manager, a large part of my filtering of candidate resumes / applications is focused on being able to validate their credentials e.g. who they've worked for, where they were educated and how they did there, any repos / sideprojects etc. and make my opinion based on the composite.
If I can't easily validate those credentials then I move on. India has a reputation for spinning up "colleges" to pump out "engineers"[0], to the point where they now recognize the issue caused and are trying to put further efforts on hold [1], and so assessing the educational credentials of a candidate who has not explicitly attended IIT becomes a minefield.
Validating non-local experience is a similar minefield. Instead of recognizing previous employers and having some idea of the work they do and the quality of it, one has to start googling the companies, diving into websites / glassdoor / etc. to find out what calibre they are. Another point against hiring globally for me.
Overall, I would be no more hesitant about hiring Indians in India than I would anyone else in a foreign country with a resume that is difficult to validate, but it's not something I will ever support as I believe in creating local jobs and supporting the local society and economy wherever possible.
[0] https://restofworld.org/2020/india-engineering-degree/
[1] https://www.theweek.in/news/sci-tech/2020/02/14/AICTE-No-new...