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‘Nearshoring’ Push Is Fueling Tech Job Demand in Latin America

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Re: ‘Nearshoring’ Push Is Fueling Tech Job Demand in Latin America

#51

Post by sammywater »

bonadrag wrote: post #29
ps_on_brazil wrote: post #5

This has been happening for quite a while now, I'm in Brazil and most of my career (11 out of 17 years) was built working for companies in the US and eventually Europe. I know many that followed the same path. One thing that I'm surprised is not happening more, and I'd love to hear your comments about the reasons, is the move of senior engineers from places with high cost of living to countries with much lower cost o…

I live in North America and I have no desire to move back to Brazil. I've toyed with the idea of going there once a year and spend 3 months working remotely but the reality is that, at least in my hometown, the quality of life is much worse except for food. I have a really good time in the first few weeks but then issues like pollution, traffic and general culture of Brazilians starts to get me by week 4. Maybe Brazi…

I feel the same way, after 1.5 yrs in Mexico.

Too much:

- Noise

- Lawless culture & government corruption

- Pollution & its related "who cares" culture around trash & toxic chemicals

To little:

- Infrastructure

- Education

- Respect for nature & concern for reducing the impact of pollution

- Enforcement of health & environmental regulation

That said, there are ardent environmentalists & industrious, educated people. They're just at a low concentration due to the human development itself-- it takes time for societies to develop to high levels of living standards and human achievement.

Re: ‘Nearshoring’ Push Is Fueling Tech Job Demand in Latin America

#52

Post by timbit42 »

bluedino wrote: post #13

Mexico missed the boat on this big time. Some schools, infrastructure, some training, and they could have had a huge piece of the call center and body shop work that India ended up with. The USA was already shipping factory jobs over there.

Mexico may be behind on remote work but they have the big advantage of being the prime location for manufacturing. Both US and Chinese companies are moving manufacturing to Mexico.

Re: ‘Nearshoring’ Push Is Fueling Tech Job Demand in Latin America

#53

Post by holoduke »

mikeryan wrote: post #34
local_crmdgeon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The skill isn't even an issue - you just hire them for the right roles. Having the same definition of "no" as Americans is huge. Indians have a really tough time saying something isn't going well, or that we shouldn't do a project, for cultural reasons. That's great! Culture is great. For work though, something closer to the culture of the outsourcer makes it a lot easier to deal with. Flights are also so muc…

Mexico is going to need to change their labor laws if they want a big piece of this pie. I’ve had a nearshore team in Mexico for four years the people are great for all the reasons mentioned. The gap, however is costs. We’re used to “at-will” employment in the states are used to a “Hire slow, fire fast” paradigm. In MX the cost to fire a full time employee is 3 months severance (regardless of seniority) plus 20 days…

Hope for Mexico they dont follow the unhumane worker rights of the states. Basically europe has the same principles as in Mexico and people in Europe have good lifes.

Re: ‘Nearshoring’ Push Is Fueling Tech Job Demand in Latin America

#54

Post by heyjamesknight »

TexanFeller wrote: post #2

This will get big pretty soon. It's been a trend for a while, my last few jobs we've had LATAM contractors. No time zone issues like with overseas and much less of a language and cultural barrier, like basically nonexistent compared to India. Average skill of LATAM devs is still low compared to the US, but they will learn and grow as more work moves there.

It's pretty big now. Uruguay's entire tech labor pool has been consumed by nearshoring agencies. Competition in Argentina and Colombia is catching up.

Disagree on skill level. The average US dev is pretty bad. Most of us on HN just have the privilege of working at 1% companies with 1% developers. Those same people exist in LATAM, they're just 1% of the population there too!

Re: ‘Nearshoring’ Push Is Fueling Tech Job Demand in Latin America

#55

Post by Jcampuzano2 »

theryan wrote: post #10
TexanFeller wrote: post #2

This will get big pretty soon. It's been a trend for a while, my last few jobs we've had LATAM contractors. No time zone issues like with overseas and much less of a language and cultural barrier, like basically nonexistent compared to India. Average skill of LATAM devs is still low compared to the US, but they will learn and grow as more work moves there.

At a previous company we had some contractors from Brazil and I was really quite impressed. Super knowledgeable and it was great not having a huge language barrier.

At my current company we started doing hiring in Brazil, and a few in Colombia. In both cases they are in general pretty exceptional devs. I have spent a lot of time in Colombia myself and there is a boom in entrepreneurship and tech in my opinion there (and not just among expats since there are plenty there). I can only assume the same of places like Brazil as well.

My last job we also worked with devs from Mexico, and same thing. I have worked with some great Indian colleagues but I would say in general I work a lot easier with devs from Latin America compared to overseas. Though I am a bit biased since I speak Spanish myself at a C1 level. Rarely do I really need to flip to Spanish for anything but it helps to be able to bridge the cultural gap.

Re: ‘Nearshoring’ Push Is Fueling Tech Job Demand in Latin America

#56

Post by heyjamesknight »

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #6
TexanFeller wrote: post #2

This will get big pretty soon. It's been a trend for a while, my last few jobs we've had LATAM contractors. No time zone issues like with overseas and much less of a language and cultural barrier, like basically nonexistent compared to India. Average skill of LATAM devs is still low compared to the US, but they will learn and grow as more work moves there.

Agreed. The skill isn't even an issue - you just hire them for the right roles. Having the same definition of "no" as Americans is huge. Indians have a really tough time saying something isn't going well, or that we shouldn't do a project, for cultural reasons. That's great! Culture is great. For work though, something closer to the culture of the outsourcer makes it a lot easier to deal with. Flights are also so muc…

We hire across LATAM. Mexico still lags behind Argentina and Uruguay in terms of skill level. Lots of low skill, boot-camp style grads. Few true engineers.

Colombia is catching up but ARG and URU still reign supreme.

Re: ‘Nearshoring’ Push Is Fueling Tech Job Demand in Latin America

#57

Post by Tade0 »

danmaz74 wrote: post #25
ps_on_brazil wrote: post #5

This has been happening for quite a while now, I'm in Brazil and most of my career (11 out of 17 years) was built working for companies in the US and eventually Europe. I know many that followed the same path. One thing that I'm surprised is not happening more, and I'd love to hear your comments about the reasons, is the move of senior engineers from places with high cost of living to countries with much lower cost o…

I stayed in London for three years, then moved back to Italy because with the pandemic I had gone to the office only twice in 18 months, and because my wife and daughter didn't like London a lot; I was able to keep my job as a hands on team leader (Rails+React) with the same company I was working for. Now I'm looking for a new job, from Italy, and I'm finding that it's much more difficult to do that when you're alrea…

My social circle's experience is that it's easier and more convenient to find a remote position in a company based in Ireland.

Also tech salaries are higher because Ireland is a country with effectively two, very different economies and wages in the UK outside of London are surprisingly low.

Re: ‘Nearshoring’ Push Is Fueling Tech Job Demand in Latin America

#58

Post by no_wizard »

mikeryan wrote: post #34
local_crmdgeon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The skill isn't even an issue - you just hire them for the right roles. Having the same definition of "no" as Americans is huge. Indians have a really tough time saying something isn't going well, or that we shouldn't do a project, for cultural reasons. That's great! Culture is great. For work though, something closer to the culture of the outsourcer makes it a lot easier to deal with. Flights are also so muc…

Mexico is going to need to change their labor laws if they want a big piece of this pie. I’ve had a nearshore team in Mexico for four years the people are great for all the reasons mentioned. The gap, however is costs. We’re used to “at-will” employment in the states are used to a “Hire slow, fire fast” paradigm. In MX the cost to fire a full time employee is 3 months severance (regardless of seniority) plus 20 days…

I read this differently.

Seems like Mexico isn't open to wanting their workers to be exploited en masse, so they have protections and laws, much akin to Europe for instance, that favor employees in some circumstances, or at least gives them a fair process (the labor board)

This comment really doesn't come off well to me that your basic complaint is that Mexico has laws that don't weight entirely toward the employer, basically

Re: ‘Nearshoring’ Push Is Fueling Tech Job Demand in Latin America

#59

Post by programmertote »

I have worked with (managed) 6 colleagues from Colombia while I working for a multi-national corporation (one of the big 4 advertising firms). In the same company, I also worked with 12+ coworkers from India. I have to say that I found my colleagues in Colombia just as talented and motivated as the ones in India. In fact, because the coworkers from Colombia are direct hires, I have an easier time managing them as opposed to the coworkers in India, who are from a contract firm.

Like others have said here, the timezone difference makes things easier too. I still am in contact with 4 of my ex-coworkers in Colombia because I knew that one day, I might want to have my own business and I would hire them all without hesitation.

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