With technology becoming more of our day to day lives, and more tech jobs becoming available, the younger generations graduating and going to work will face different challenges and benefits with the people they will have to work with.

The three workers that were interviewed were: Aditya Sandhu a Software Developer for Square Trade, Jean Batravil a Test Engineer at Dish, and Ryan McDonald technology Consultant in Accenture. Based off all three interviews, one of the common advantages of working with international teammates were: exposure to different learning and working styles, as well as 24-hour productivity, because people working offshore (from a different country) are working while we in the US are sleeping.

Some of the challenges appear to be the time zone and language differences, because you’re working with people in a different country, therefore, they may or may not speak English, and you might have to collaborate with them at strange times during the day.

Batravil, Jean said, “Yes, we all speak English, but there are different flavors/accents of the language that can prove trying to understand.”

Sandhu, Aditya said, “Not being in front the person that your co-coordinating with and difference of time-zones. When you working like that your work schedule must be disciplined because the windows of communication to say the least are constantly changing.”

One thing that all three computer workers agreed with was that technology has made the above problems a little easier to deal with.

McDonald, Ryan said, “Translators and drawing tools have dramatically improved the ease of teamwork across the globe.”

Batravil said, “With the advent of Webex, Skype etc. Working collaboratively with someone who is remotely located is basically a breeze these days. I have the ability to see exactly what someone is demonstrating as well as the ability to take over their systems(RDP) and create code, modify settings etc. almost as if I were there myself.”

Sandhu said, “VPN’s and Cyber Security implementations have made offshoring and remote work easier. Also, you can work remote with Skype for business, Cisco conferencing and Zoom etcetera for the meeting and screen-share part of the jobs. This is applicable for engineering and business practice.”

International teams are more frequent in technology revolved jobs for a variety of reasons.

McDonald said, “In the US its costs – cheaper labor use of offshore resources in some cases its due to the specific skill set, if you need developers for specific hardware and chipset design you can find most of them in China and in some cases only in China, if you need highly skilled developers for older technologies such as PHP then you need to look at the Philippines, if you need highly skilled automobile connected car developers and engineers you look at Germany.”

Batravil said, “It’s cheaper to outsource and technology allows for a more seamless interaction.”

Sandhu said, “Education, Time Zones and variation of skill sets. All enable work 24 hours a day and have all work in constant peer review so that the best products are developed for global consumption. All tech jobs have an FE product for the customer and that is the why as to WHY the tech jobs exist, to begin with.”

The workers all had their own opinions of where the international Teamwork in technology is going in the future and who will benefit and who will disadvantage from it?

McDonald said” future technology will still be global and based on specific skill sets due to the nature of governments and the rapid changing of supply chains to meet user and industry evolution. Since the future is to have everything built as small reusable services/components teamwork will have to increase as each country and region and city evolves specific skills that meet the specific demands

Batravil said”In the future I envision international teamwork becoming the norm.  The world is shrinking by the day and companies have an opportunity nowadays to expand their reach globally. This means more profits for the company, improved costs, satisfaction and experiences for the consumer. A major disadvantage to this trend growing in the future is unemployment. You see, the work being outsourced isn’t being outsourced to well-developed countries with strong economies and high standards of living. Rather, they are being outsourced to emerging markets with a lowered standard of living. This trend will continue to prove profitable to do so, you can expect many tech jobs to be shipped overseas.  I foresee what has happened to the automobile industry, for instance, to occur in the tech sector. Time was, many people had jobs in an automobile manufacturing plant and reaped pensions upon their retirement. How many people do you know working in an automobile manufacturing plant these days?

Aditya said”Jobs will continue to grow. In Cyber Security alone we have over 1.5 million jobs coming up in the next 10+ years or so in the US alone. It is an excellent thing because it goes along with the Keynesian economic system that you will work in and competition fuels creativity.”

Working with international teammates in tech jobs has many pros and cons, and seems like mixed collaboration will continue in the future. This trend is likely to benefit skilled, motivated and cheap workers from other countries, and maybe hurt the less competitive, high-cost workers here in the U.S.