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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

#111

Post by 908B64B197 »

EMM_386 wrote: post #90

I am a lead on a project that uses a 'nearshore' team to augment a very small team of very senior devs. 20+ years each respectively. That decision was made above me, but has turned out well. Code quality is good and the pay should cause concern US developers. This is an enterprise system with an Angular 15 front-end. Just the front-end is complex enough that it requires strong understanding of how to write proper Ang…

> 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, they have experience at an American company on their resume. Making it easier for them to jump ship to these jobs in the Bay Area.

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

#112

Post by projectazorian »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #83
josu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 32 US cities, including Huston TX, with a higher homicide rate than Mexico City. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_homicide_rat... Foreigners getting kidnapped is very uncommon. It happens from time to time, although it makes it to the news and they do try to find the kidnappers. School shootings are extremely rare.

Why so many red flags on the State Department website then? Are you saying they're just wrong? https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/...

Even the State Department warnings are localized to certain areas.

And as a rule, the State Department’s advisories tend to be incredibly conservative. Nobody wants to get hauled in front of Congress because something bad happened to a tourist in an area the State Department said was okay.

People who actually do business in Mexico have access to much more detailed and nuanced security advice.

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

#113

Post by ethbr0 »

jghn wrote: post #64
peteradio wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what your alternative was? How was this your fault?

If you're aware of the situation you can change the questions you ask and how you probe in to account for the difference in "no" in order to get to the truth. I believe they're saying that due to them being busy they didn't think about it at the time even though they should've known better.

Having had similar things happen before, the optimal move on my part would have been to language-engineer a better confirmation question and/or ask for read-back of the plan.

E.g. open-ended, no direct requirement to reply in a negative manner, etc.

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

#115

Post by InitialLastName »

causi wrote: post #69
snapcaster wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really get this anecdote, this seems less like someone having a different definition of "no" and more like just ignoring you (which happens all the time, it's hard to listen to everything in a workplace slack)

I'm surprised Slack doesn't have a functionality where you can tag something like a sentence or a phrase as "essential" and make everybody else tap a button acknowledging that they've read and understood it. Maybe also with a timer that stops you from tapping it before you can read it.

The true engineering fields have a praxis of using actual signatures on designs, documentation, and decisions for exactly this reason: people are more likely to take meaningful responsibility for understanding the subject matter when their signature is permanently engraved on the decision (and there is in fact more meaningful responsibility when you can trace signatures).

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

#116

Post by diebeforei485 »

EMM_386 wrote: post #90

I am a lead on a project that uses a 'nearshore' team to augment a very small team of very senior devs. 20+ years each respectively. That decision was made above me, but has turned out well. Code quality is good and the pay should cause concern US developers. This is an enterprise system with an Angular 15 front-end. Just the front-end is complex enough that it requires strong understanding of how to write proper Ang…

> We have a lot of junior developers out of bootcamps who can't find work due to saturation

Most bootcamps simply aren't that great.

The early bootcamps were extremely selective at choosing students who were already good at math or logical reasoning or some other helpful skill, and putting them through an intense process.

Some combination of policymakers, the HR industry, and the DEI industry then decided that this could scale.

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

#117

Post by NickC25 »

haliskerbas wrote: post #24
NickC25 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in South Florida. All big companies here have a big tech presence in LatAm, especially Argentina & Chile. The last company I worked for had maybe 5 developers tops locally, the rest were based in Argentina. Funny enough my old landlord is not technical at all yet runs a near-shoring dev shop, primarily in Argentina....she charges a pittance in pure USD terms compared with local devs but somehow she's managed to m…

How did she connect her devs with her clients?

That, I do not know - I'd have to ask. I'm guessing she acts as an intermediary/agent of sorts, and probably has 1-2 PMs or lead engineers here in the US, so all external calls are with that group, and then the work is partitioned off from there to the team in Argentina.

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

#118

Post by NickC25 »

yardie wrote: post #26
brianbreslin wrote: post #9

For anyone who has worked with a tech company based in Florida, this has been the norm for 15 years. It started with Buenos Aires/Argentina based devs in early 2000s and then clusters started popping up in Bogota, Mexico City, Santiago, and now in 2nd tier Latam cities too. In mid 2000s there was a big push in universities across LatAm to teach OSS tools. One of my friends had a team of 250 engineers in Guatemala lik…

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..?

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

#119

Post by NickC25 »

gathersnow wrote: post #80
josu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 32 US cities, including Huston TX, with a higher homicide rate than Mexico City. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_homicide_rat... Foreigners getting kidnapped is very uncommon. It happens from time to time, although it makes it to the news and they do try to find the kidnappers. School shootings are extremely rare.

I don't think that CDMX is considered a hotbed of cartel activity?

It's not, atleast directly. The cartels do participate in politics but that's mainly through bribery and other white-collar illegal activities that mainly concerns politicians.

Same goes for the touristy areas like Cabo and Cancun - the cartels own them all and that's a legitimate source of real, clean income (and dollars) for the cartels, and the last thing they want to do is mess with that. The cartels have a vested interest in keeping the resort towns running as smoothly and crime-free as possible.

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

#120

Post by SauciestGNU »

heyjamesknight wrote: post #56
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…

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.
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