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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

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Code quality is good and the pay should cause concern US developers. > I look at some of the salaries for similar front-end work in SV/SF and it is so out of line compared to this I don't know what to say. "High cost of living" can be discussed all day, but then companies can just hire someone who isn't in a high cost of living area who can do the same thing. For a lot less. The devs you hired know about this. Now,…

Why exactly would anyone move physically when everyone is insisting remote work is as good and no one is collocated anymore?

If you see other threads about hiring, it appears many people are getting jobs solely based of their network. This is much easier and faster to build in person.

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

#132

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…

Dealing with bureaucracy the biggest one for me. I'd love to move abroad, but almost all countries have limited tourist stays of 90 days. I don't want to be moving around every 3 months.

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

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Louisiana is more fun

My wife's family is from Louisiana. I love visiting, the people are very warm and the food is great. But after 3 days I want to go back to Atlanta. Louisiana is a terrible place to live , unfortunately.

I find it not so bad compared to other places - Portland for example.

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

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Code quality is good and the pay should cause concern US developers. > I look at some of the salaries for similar front-end work in SV/SF and it is so out of line compared to this I don't know what to say. "High cost of living" can be discussed all day, but then companies can just hire someone who isn't in a high cost of living area who can do the same thing. For a lot less. The devs you hired know about this. Now,…

Why exactly would anyone move physically when everyone is insisting remote work is as good and no one is collocated anymore?

They might switch to remote to work for one of these firms, at a much better pay.

Eventually, they might transfer to a team that's more committed to staying in-office and get an L1 company transfer.

I've seen it happen (very frequently). There are very little arbitrage opportunity in this world.

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

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My colleagues in Argentina (many of them are from elsewhere in latam and migrated to ARG) are from what I can tell equally skilled to my US-located peers. Maybe there's more noise to signal in the region, but the talent is there and available.

Yeah, I don't think we've had a bad hire yet from ARG. Most of our devs are absolutely world-class, but at a fraction of the cost of comparable US employees. And we pay them very well for the region; several have built homes not just for themselves but for family members since they started working with us.

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

#136

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…

> Firing someone with 3-4 years tenure can cost 3-6 months of salary.

You seem to be saying this like it's a bad thing?

It is the USA that really needs to change labor laws to be more humane. Sounds like Mexico is doing well.

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

#138
post #26

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We've bumped into each other. I'm also a Miami dev and part of the 00s brain drain. It's been exciting to see this city change so much. And I've gotten to meet so many amazing developers and engineers.

Probably. I've been down here 7 years now and I used to be pretty active in the local scene in terms of going to meetups, talks, etc.. I am not as active these days but participated in Hack Week. We probably have a few folks in common. Do you participate in any of the meetups like Brickell Tech Tuesday, the Wynwood Tech slack group, etc..?

On my way to the miami tech happy hour now. I participated at ‘22 and ‘23 Hack Week. I was really impressed by the winners, Yenta.

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

#139
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Average skill of LATAM devs is still low compared to the US I'd say it is a sample bias of the developers working as contractors (average devs with good enough English). Top LATAM talent moves abroad or works as employees at international companies that pay way more than nearshores.

i consider myself a good developer. when i was working as contractor for us companies, my fees were on par with my US colleagues (low six digits USD). but it was not worth it for me to keep doing it, so i moved to europe (which was also quite easy given my resume).

Can you please provide more detail on why?

I would’ve figured it would be an amazing situation being in lcol earning a lot

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

#140
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the situation with cartels? I like the idea of Mexico but tbf I'm terrified of even visiting for tourism because of the shooting/kidnapping stories. For example for the '24 eclipse I'm just sticking to Texas

Around 2006 I travelled around Mexico extensively including drinking heavily and getting on tubes late at night in Mexico City and living in an apartment for a while. Had no problems whatsoever. I was hit by terrorists in Nepal and thieves in Costa Rica which everyone seems to consider safe. Maybe things have changed a lot since then, would be interesting to see the stats. I'd be way more concerned with gangs as a bu…

Sounds like you lived life to the fullest
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