Accents can be a huge problem, though, especially over the phone where verbal communication is all you've got to work with.
I've worked with a lot of developers from many different backgrounds: Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian, Russian, Ukrainian, etc, etc and while even the thickest accent becomes easier to understand with prolonged exposure, I'd still much rather talk to someone without a strong accent when interviewing, especially over the phone.
If you're spending a significant percentage of your linguistic and abstract/symbolic brain processing just trying to figure out what the other person is saying to you (which can happen with particularly strong accents) it puts you at a big disadvantage for dealing with programming-related questions.
I've worked with a lot of developers from many different backgrounds: Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian, Russian, Ukrainian, etc, etc and while even the thickest accent becomes easier to understand with prolonged exposure, I'd still much rather talk to someone without a strong accent when interviewing, especially over the phone.
If you're spending a significant percentage of your linguistic and abstract/symbolic brain processing just trying to figure out what the other person is saying to you (which can happen with particularly strong accents) it puts you at a big disadvantage for dealing with programming-related questions.