One invaluable skill I picked up at Intel was managing overseas staff. Around late 2003, Intel India embarked on a frenzied hiring spree. They weren't just hiring manufacturing teams or verificiation engineers or technical support - they were hiring design engineers. Most of my co-workers silently revolted, refusing to train the people they viewed as future replacements.

And Intel was asking a lot out of us engineers in the states. Why would we want to login at 8pm to train new hires in India (they're 12.5 hours ahead of us). On top of that, the engineers in India were mostly fresh out of college (ie unexperienced) and many had thick accents that took some getting used to.

When life deals you lemons, make lemonade...

I was the official guinea pig to lead an offshore design team. In 2002, Intel arranged for me to work remotely full time. Our chipset design team was in Folsom, Ca and Chandler, Az. I wanted to work out of Santa Clara... from home. They arranged this for me, and I've been very grateful to them ever since. My team was already scattered in Folsom and Chandler, so they figured throwing some India engineers into the mix wouldn't hurt.

So with lots of netmeetings, instant messaging, and conference calls at night, I managed a team of up to 10 people at one point, mostly overseas in India and Malaysia. We were well-oiled and efficient, essentially working around the clock. I would delegate some work before I left the office at 6pm, have a quick netmeeting at home for Q/A with my guys around 9pm, and the work was complete by the time I woke up the next morning. During the day in US time, I would review the work, make recommendations and reports to my managers, and kick off a new tasklist by 6pm again.

It was draining to have to log in at night, every night. But at the end of the day, my team completed our design faster than if we were all in the states together.  And these guys in India were hungry.  Passionate about the work, and eager to make a good impression.  Most engineers fresh out of college are excited to be working at Intel.  But these guys had a hunger that was unparalleled.  It was refreshing and inspiring to lead these guys.

For MyChurch.org, we have a couple overseas contractors that take care of a lot of the low-hanging fruit. Mel, in particular, has been an absolute STUD. And I salute him for being an essential and integral part of the team. His dedication, efficiency, and proficiency have been impressive to say the least. If I can afford to get him to the states to join our team full-time, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

There are lots of places to find overseas contractors (elance, guru, rentacoder, getafreelancer, getacoder, etc). I'd say most of the contractors on there are mediocre at best. One day, I'll share some best known methods for finding the ones who care more about your idea than they do about your money...