Since we recruit half of our VA's from the Philippines it makes perfect sense to have an office there & a person who takes care of recruiting directly from the Philippines.

We're bringing in a designer in S.F. but for now - since we're bootstrapped I have outsourced the design to a team in Moldova - this is just a temporary thing and I do agree, it would be a problem if it was permanent

Interesting fact about the VA's location. That wasn't what I meant though, I was just referring to the SEO part of Noels job.

Also, it sounds like you're at risk of getting too hung up on the old-fashioned way of strictly splitting design and code (recommended reading: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1061-why-we-skip-photoshop).

From the sounds of it, Noel (among other things) is responsible for finding the actual virtual assistants. That's a critical position. The design team is probably more easy to replace.

The other thing that I note is that the founder wants everyone to read Atlas Shrugged. I'd take that seriously, don't apply unless you're comfortable with that brand of politics.