10 Questions Every Central American Candidate Should Consider

Recently we posted a job announcement in one of our favorite Facebook pages and received some outstanding questions in feedback.

In fact, we thought they were so great we decided to write a blog article about them. If our responses seem a bit more detailed than you’d expect in a blog article, it’s probably because we are answering a specific person’s questions. If you have your own questions, feel free to shoot us an email at jobs@acklenavenue.com and we will do our very best to answer.

1. Is coverage by the social insurance company (IHSS) included?

If you live in Honduras, unfortunately, you know how precarious the state of the IHSS is. We desire better for our team members which is why we offer high-quality private healthcare.

2. Are benefits proportional to seniority?

We offer great benefits and competitive pay for everyone in our company. Perks, benefits, and higher pay are offered for people who take it upon themselves to grow and stretch their abilities. It has nothing to do with age or their tenure in the company, it’s more about your personal drive to improve.

3. Do you offer work stability?

Every job in the world offers the same level of stability, no matter what company or what they say. Just ask all the people who had great jobs in large companies who lost their jobs over Covid-19 in a matter of weeks. We hope we are more stable than they are, but what if the next pandemic affects remote rockstar coders? We’ll be completely sunk. (Yes, we’re stable)

4. A contract governed under a Honduran representative in the event of a labor dispute?

Nope. You do good work and grow yourself professionally and personally, and we’ll keep renewing your contract. We don’t need to have a government breathing down our necks to make sure we treat people fairly. We do that for ourselves and we have an excellent track record.

5. How many vacation days a year do you offer?

Some companies have very strict rules and accounting around vacation, sick, maternity and bereavement days. We believe our team members are better at deciding how many days off they need. So, we offer “unlimited time-off” and a structure where our team members collaborate with each other to plan for time off to make sure projects stay on schedule. Need to take a vacation? Talk to your peers and take your vacation. Sick? Communicate and get some rest. It’s your day to search for toilet paper during the pandemic? Work it out with your team and go!

6. Are national holidays honored in the PTO policy?

The company is based in the USA even though the majority of our people are in Central America. Even so, the company only closes the office on 4 days per year: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve and New Years Day. If you want to take a day off, whether it’s your country’s Independence Day or your 5th cousin’s Birthday, you can do it (see #5). On the other hand, if you’d rather go to the beach when it’s NOT crowded with 1000’s of people on a national holiday, you have the option to pick any day you want (again, refer to #5).

7. What is your policy around working hours and work-life balance?

We try to keep the same hours our clients keep. From project to project, your day would normally start around 8 or 9 am. It should end around 4 or 5 pm. We shoot for about 8 hours a day since it’s a full-time job. Want or need to disconnect? Of course! In most cases, our teams log off and enjoy their non-work lives after work. There are some rare exceptions where we need to meet earlier or later in the day to accommodate a client in another time zone, but even that is something the team works together to sort out by sharing the load.

8. Do you make contributions to different national regimes to access home loans?

I guess this is talking about getting bank loans to buy or build a house? If so, we’re not a bank and we don’t have any influence over banks to help you get a loan. On the other hand, many of our team members have been able to get the credit they need for houses, cars, bigger TV’s, etc. We even care enough about our team members to give some good motherly advice: be careful with credit, because it’s not always the smartest thing to get mixed up in.

9. I understand that it is not necessary to know anything about mathematics to be a part of the company, is that policy still maintained?

I wouldn’t say “absolutely nothing of math.” I mean, our accounting department uses math every day to count how much money our clients pay us. Our payroll department is great at summing all the millions of dollars we pour into Central America every year in salary checks. Joking aside, we make web and mobile apps that solve problems for every-day users. If the problem we are solving requires more math than adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing, we will dust off our memory from our University classes, use that more complicated math, and then move on to more interesting things. For those of us, including the CTO of the company, who didn’t take much more than College Algebra in the university, there exists this amazing tool where every mathematical function that ever existed can be found: google.com.

10. Since you do not provide equipment, how much % of depreciation do you recognize to the employee?

Every team member is technically an independent contractor and proprietor of his or her own company, providing services to our company in a B2B relationship. This might sound really legalistic, but please be assured that we do not treat our team members like contractors are often treated. This does mean that everyone brings his or her own equipment and provides his or her own internet and office. Depreciation is not something our company considers at all. That’s something you would handle in your own “company”. On the other hand, we do provide a way for our team members to get some assistance with upgrades to equipment when needed.

Got more great questions? Why not apply for a job with Acklen Avenue or Hero Unit and ask us in person?