[_coveredInBees]

Gotta love HN down voting this comment that gets to the crux of the problem in OP's original comment. Just goes to highlight the subconscious biases that a lot of predominantly Western devs have when they are totally cool with throwing around language like that without realizing why or how it is problematic.

Some examples of phrasing that would have worked just as well:

- Low-cost developers

- Unskilled, inexpensive developers

But that doesn't quite have the ring of some good ol' casual racism/stereotyping that everyone can pile on I suppose.

[Jensson]

> - Unskilled, inexpensive developers

Would have gotten exactly the same backlash if he said "unskilled inexpensive Indian developers". You just show here how unreasonable you are. The developers being stationed in India is very important for the comment, since then you pay much less for them, and then you pick the cheapest among the developers stationed in India, hence "bottom of the barrel Indian developers". There is no racism at all embedded in that statement.

> But that doesn't quite have the ring of some good ol' casual racism/stereotyping that everyone can pile on I suppose.

What? "Bottom of the barrel" has no racial connotations at all, you can use it in any scenario.

[yunohn]

> There is no racism at all embedded in that statement.

The phrasing and sentiment, which non-Western people are subjected to time and again, are racist.

Your "semantics-based" explanations AKA opinions do not change that.

[KittenInABox]

"Bottom of the barrel devs on the cheap" capture what you want to say without pointing to a specific geographic area or ethnic group, fwiw.