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U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent

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Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent

#111

Post by Daishiman »

jviotti wrote: post #54

I think this article underestimates the difficulty of finding great talent in Latin America as a remote company. Everybody in Latin America wants to work remotely at foreign companies, yet few actually do in practice. I was born and raised in Argentina, but studied and worked abroad (UK) and never was in the Latin American market. As an Engineering Lead at a London-based startup, I interviewed tons of software engine…

If you're a good engineer in Latin America you're not settling for less money than your first-world counterparts.

Argentina and Brazil's engineering talent is _outstanding_, and these people are not settling for mediocre companies or mediocre salaries.

Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent

#112

Post by irrational »

Accujack wrote: post #79
chrisseaton wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in e-commerce at Shopify. My company is building some great developer experience stuff for the long-term like some truly excellent cloud-development environments. My previous company, Oracle, was developing an entirely new kind of language virtual-machine to run the programming languages of the future as well. I see this in many places.

That's just long term product planning. The rest of the people here are talking about long term employee development - making your employees more valuable so they produce better products rather than treating them as costs that must be reduced.

If I wanted to get a tech masters degree, my company would pay for it. If I want to learn a new technology, my manager will absolutely allow me to spend time doing that. I’m constantly working on projects that force me to learn new technologies. I feel like my company had no problems with my becoming more valuable. It’s mostly up to me.

Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent

#114

Post by kragen »

giantg2 wrote: post #105
thaumaturgy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universities aren't reliably producing CS graduates that can code. If a student enters a collegiate program with some interest or experience in programming, then they're likely to come out of it with solid skills and find some opportunities. If an employer has the resources to select from the best that universities have to offer, then they can find great candidates. But for us that aren't working for FAANG, a univers…

"Universities aren't reliably producing CS graduates that can code." And companies stereotype all graduates as worth nothing to them. I had a couple simple Android apps when I graduated. Even though they were simple, it would show that I could follow best practices, code, test, and deliver something. I had a decent GPA (3.5), clubs, etc. I still had a hard time finding companies that would even give me an interview.…

How are you on leetcode?

Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent

#115

Post by myth2018 »

It is, more than EVER, time to return to SIMPLICITY. As it's been said, most applications aren't that special and shouldn't demand overly specialized developers. Much like it used to be during back in the day, the old times of xBase languages and other contemporary technologies. Even though, nowadays even a simple CRUD app is expected to have "improved" UX, modern UI, mobile support, front and backend developers and other unnecessary intricacies which adds to overall projects costs while adding zero value to end-products. That has to stop and the conditions for ending this collective self-delusion are better than ever.

Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent

#116

Post by giantg2 »

pc86 wrote: post #95
thaumaturgy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universities aren't reliably producing CS graduates that can code. If a student enters a collegiate program with some interest or experience in programming, then they're likely to come out of it with solid skills and find some opportunities. If an employer has the resources to select from the best that universities have to offer, then they can find great candidates. But for us that aren't working for FAANG, a univers…

This is the sweet spot that products like LeetCode or BinarySearch could be used to solve - people who have the academic background, and should know how to code if they're coming out of a good program, but don't have a portfolio of work to show or a catalogue of experience to draw examples and answers from for a typical interview. And all the DSA stuff that is irrelevant for 90% of dev jobs 90% of the time is still f…

Not going to lie, as soon as you mentioned LC I was disinterested. But your suggestion sounds good. A few easy/medium questions and maybe the ability to Google sounds fair. I sort of enjoy basic fizz bang code screenings.

Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent

#117

Post by reese_john »

soneca wrote: post #87
jviotti wrote: post #54

I think this article underestimates the difficulty of finding great talent in Latin America as a remote company. Everybody in Latin America wants to work remotely at foreign companies, yet few actually do in practice. I was born and raised in Argentina, but studied and worked abroad (UK) and never was in the Latin American market. As an Engineering Lead at a London-based startup, I interviewed tons of software engine…

I worked as a software developer in one company in Brazil and in three American companies. The skill gap was non-existent. I could see the same level of talent in both places.

What kind of companies in Brazil though? I feel like the level of brazilian engineers outside high growth tech companies is very low. Most of them will literally fail "Fizz-Buzz" style coding tests. Good devs are either making a very good salary in Brazil (30-50k USD) or 2-3X that working remotely for an American company

Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent

#118

Post by pc86 »

giantg2 wrote: post #116
pc86 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the sweet spot that products like LeetCode or BinarySearch could be used to solve - people who have the academic background, and should know how to code if they're coming out of a good program, but don't have a portfolio of work to show or a catalogue of experience to draw examples and answers from for a typical interview. And all the DSA stuff that is irrelevant for 90% of dev jobs 90% of the time is still f…

Not going to lie, as soon as you mentioned LC I was disinterested. But your suggestion sounds good. A few easy/medium questions and maybe the ability to Google sounds fair. I sort of enjoy basic fizz bang code screenings.

And just to be clear I'm only suggesting it for junior positions. Most of the time I think you can suss out whether someone can code by discussing their direct contributions to previous projects. If not, you can always do one LC problem.

I see it as a great way to just run a sanity check that this person who graduated from Random State six months ago can actually code, and as a great way to ensure high quality very senior people refuse to go through your interview (unless you're paying FAANG wages).

Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent

#119

Post by giantg2 »

raz32dust wrote: post #107
devwastaken wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what university students in the U.S. and abroad have been faced with. Most engineers with a paycheck simply don't get the problem. Competition is higher now than ever for entry, companies do not want to hire graduates, they do not want to invest resources into them. They want the maximum amount of short term profit possible. Build things fast, sell them, next project. We are racing to the bottom and t…

This is not true. I work in a FAANG-like company. Talent shortage is real - we are having to hire entry level grads where we originally wanted experienced candidates. We are even going out of the way to hire candidates from non-traditional backgrounds and train them.

Maybe your company is the exception.

The fact that there is a talent shortage seems to point to a long-term issue regarding barriers to entry across the industry.

Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent

#120

Post by faangiq »

gregdoesit wrote: post #3

It’s not just Latin America. It’s also Canada, most of Europe, it’s India, Asia, and I’m hearing Africa also experiencing a similar pull. There’s a global talent shortage for experienced people in software engineering, and it’s spilling over everywhere. Remote work becoming the norm thanks to the pandemic, plus the rise of services like Remote.com, Deel and similar ones is making it much easier to hire remotely in mo…

Reminder, every “talent shortage” is actually a wage shortage. Double those salaries and you’ll find plenty of talent.
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