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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

#211

Post by laurencerowe »

jorblumesea wrote: post #75
krasin wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a first hand experience working with a great team at Trinidad and Tobago. Maybe we got lucky in finding them, but I've got an impression that good universities exist and therefore there's a steady supply of capable new grads. As for timezone, Trinidad and Tobago is EST+1, Lima (Peru) is EST, and Brazil is EST+2. That gives much more workday overlap than even Western Europe.

Overall, Latin America has way less STEM graduates per capita than they need and is absolutely unable to fill the demand. Some countries might fare better than others but the trend is overall that most companies will end up competing for the few graduates that do exist. The article also pointed this out. https://tcdata360.worldbank.org/indicators/h77528693?country... Many tech companies are West coast so you're +5 ho…

Having 3 hours of overlap during the regular work day is going to be much easier than no overlap during the normal work day and people having to work early/late for meetings.

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

#212

Post by KptMarchewa »

ironmagma wrote: post #177
KptMarchewa wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is very, very different and incomparable situation than presented in the article or discussed in the comments. The same issues could present if you bought incompetent company in the US.

The language barrier was 80% of the problem. Everything else could have worked out if we had been on board and the management handled it correctly. The engineers were good enough.

Language barrier would be something that you could filter on within 15 minutes of recruiter screen talking with the candidate.

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

#213

Post by [deleted] »

obblekk wrote: post #56

I wonder if the reverse is also true, or if we're about to see white collar wages in the US get crushed. On the one hand, American workers now have the ability to work for more companies, including outside the US. On the other hand, there are a lot more people outside than inside, and far fewer large firms outside than inside, so off-shoring could be net negative for American workers. I wonder if we're about to see p…

[deleted]

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

#214

Post by ivnubinas »

tbrock wrote: post #183

Id love to hire some Latin American developers for my team. Any pointers on how to find them? Do folks go through outsourcing firms or try to directly hire folks?

Consider https://bluecoding.com, on their blog they have an article for each Latin American country that explains what to expect from Latam developers (english level, salary ranges, most used tech stack).

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

#215

Post by [deleted] »

kragen wrote: post #155
reese_john wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Most American engineers (even specifically programmers) fail FizzBuzz-style coding tests, too, if you go by job interview candidates. That's why FizzBuzz exists.

[deleted]

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

#216

Post by zozbot234 »

kragen wrote: post #188
MadSudaca wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crab-bucket mentality you talk about, at least in what the belief of business being bad respects, comes from the cultural influence of Catholicism, and it’s pervasive in all LA. I’d dare to say it can be found in Spain/Portugal as well.

I think it comes from the cultural influence of Spain, not Catholicism. I don't see it in Ireland or Switzerland, and not much in France, though they all have large Catholic populations. More generally, I think it comes from the cultural influence of feudalism. Catholicism teaches that wrath, covetousness, and envy are mortal sins, and strongly endorses property rights. Rallying people to confiscate their neighbor's…

Catholicism endorses a peculiar idea of social justice founded on commutative justice, viz. paying the pre-determined "just" or "fair" price as opposed to whatever most efficient price might be set by the market - far more strongly than it might endorse property rights. Property rights are really only acknowledged to the extent that they might tend to preserve a rigid, authoritarian social order.

There is, by and large, no appreciation in Latin America for the actual long-term benefits of property rights, such as, for instance, letting average people obtain formal title over the land that they might currently be holding/homesteading informally in a kind of adverse possession. Of course the lack of this acknowlegdement leads to all sorts of power imbalances, and predictable tensions as some try to push back without addressing the actual underlying issues.

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

#217

Post by cblconfederate »

ryanSrich wrote: post #93

I’ve been hiring engineers from pretty much any country for the better part of a decade. It still blows my mind that companies are just figuring this out now. It’s not just contractors either. With tools like remote.com, you can hire FTEs almost anywhere. There is no labor shortage. There’s a shortage of adaptable companies. I’ve been preaching this for years, but the new way is here. It’s all about async, 100% remot…

But why do all these companies have to be in america? One often hears about companies hiring remotely, but hardly ever establishing remotely.

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

#218

Post by [deleted] »

snovv_crash wrote: post #189
brezelgoring wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the belief that anyone who is rich got that way by screwing over other people Is this a symptom/cause of the crab-bucket mentality? It is here in Uruguay, as well, and I hold it myself, to my own detriment. Is there a name for this? I want to read about it and see if I can change my mind, grow a bit. Thank you

Another name for it is Tall Poppy Syndrome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome

[deleted]

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

#219

Post by cblconfederate »

pid-1 wrote: post #149
pevey wrote: post #5

"Brain Drain" has been a thing for years. I can remember in the late 90s in my Developmental Econ class my Peruvian professor complaining of brain drain from Latin America and how loss of top tier talent affected economic growth. We all appreciated the irony since she herself was a part of the issue she complained about, having studied and taught in the US for quite some time as she was standing up there saying this…

In the past brain drain meant good professionals would leave their countries to live in the US or Europe. Nowadays, with remote work, people are being paid handsomely and spending their money in their home countries. Anecdotally, I'm seeing that happening a lot with dev friends in Rio de Janeiro. People are using money earned in the US to help the local economy. They still interact with local universities and contrib…

In the long term though this is not good for the home countries, they are left behind and at best become tourist destinations. There is no country that pulled itself forward this way, not even with remote work. Eastern europe is an example with very low growth rates since the fall of communism.

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

#220

Post by cblconfederate »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #34
pevey wrote: post #5

"Brain Drain" has been a thing for years. I can remember in the late 90s in my Developmental Econ class my Peruvian professor complaining of brain drain from Latin America and how loss of top tier talent affected economic growth. We all appreciated the irony since she herself was a part of the issue she complained about, having studied and taught in the US for quite some time as she was standing up there saying this…

Yeah, it's really interesting but also a huge economic opportunity for countries if they can figure out enough reforms without these people to make the country attractive enough that these people come back with all their experience (and networks) and help boost the economy even further.

Unless these people start building companies in said countries this does not benefit the countries. They re essentially tourists
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