U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by 8note » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 12:58 AM UTC

kragen wrote: post #162

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

I don't know to what extent you can disentangle cause and effect in human psychology. Certainly if you believe rich people are evil, you will feel justified in tearing them down, so you will tend to tear them down more, in which case it's a cause of the crab-bucket mentality. But you might also just feel a lot of envy for rich people and consequently engage in motivated reasoning that leads you to believe that they a…

Capitalism really gave the wealthy a reason to not hurt the up and coming, by requiring the newcomers to pay tribute to the old rich.

It's not doing good per se(since capitalism doesn't care if you're doing good or bad, just profitably), just that you can't benefit without also benefiting some already wealthy folks. Thus, the wealthy folks are incentivized to allow the new rich to propser

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

#232

Post by 8note » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 12:59 AM UTC

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…

Why European influences, vs the experiences of people that the Europeans screwed over to become wealthy?

This seems to ignore the history of bad people stealing land to make themselves rich, and the continuing wealth from that theft.

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

#233

Post by refurb » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:01 AM UTC

faangiq wrote: post #120

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.

At the margins.

But let’s say there are 100 heart transplant specialists in the US getting paid $1M per year, but you need 200.

You can increase their wages as high as you want and you can’t create 100 of them out of thin air.

I’d suggest for highly technical roles, shortages can exist.

Unskilled or semi-skilled labor is a better fit for your statement.

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

#234

Post by bigbillheck » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:01 AM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #61

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…

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

Have they ever been?

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

#235

Post by soneca » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:01 AM UTC

throwmeaway666 wrote: post #193

>“An American company was offering him $15,000 per month to work for them,” Campos told Rest of World. “We cannot compete with that.” Wow, that's crazy. As a (senior?) software engineer based in Chile who was recently hired by an American company for around $3.5k/mo (that was my offer) I am now feeling underpaid. :) Assuming that this information is correct, I am now wondering how much I could get away with next time…

You are underpaid.

There are two types of American companies hiring devs from LatAm. The ones that are actively recruiting in LatAm and the ones that just hire remote and don’t mind you are out of the US.

The actively recruiting ones are trying to make the salary arbitrage work in their favor. They will offer top 1% salary of the local market. Which is a lot lower than American labor market for tech. That’s probably what you got.

Then there are those that just hire remotely and don’t mind being outside of the US. They are basically the same as in the US. They don’t recruit in LatAm. They are also small companies. You don’t find them on LinkedIn or through recruiters. You find them on AngeList and HN’s Who is Hiring. Look for those and it will not be hard to find a job paying a senior $10k a month (more depending on experience, luck, and negotiation). Those $15k seems to be the ceiling though, FAANG don’t hire like this

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

#236

Post by 8note » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:01 AM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #187

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.

Argentina used to be a first-world developed country in the late 19th and early 20th century. The self-defeating crab bucket mentality only took root there as a result of left-wing populist politics.

Argentina was a successful cow product exporter, then cow products became cheap elsewhere

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

#237

Post by 8note » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:03 AM UTC

kgran wrote: post #198

pid-1 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Also causing the prices in some sectors, such as real estate, to raise abnormally.

That seems unlikely, unless the couple tech workers can buy out the whole town

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

#238

Post by 8note » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:05 AM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #61

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…

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…

A cs graduate isn't somebody that can code; those are only loosely related to each other

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

#239

Post by soneca » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:05 AM UTC

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?

Search for unicorn startups in Brazil (there aren’t that much) and look for devs from those places on LinkedIn. The tech talent is usually good.

If you pay US salaries, by mentioning salary upfront you will have a lot of interest. If you pay even top 1% Brazilian salary, they will probably stay where they are.

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

#240

Post by TheBozzCL » Mon, Jan 31, 2022, 1:06 AM UTC

Latin American here. In my last year of college, I got a pretty decently-paid job at a local IT/tech company. Later that year I got hired by a FAANG, and my salary grew threefold. No wonder most of my college friends moved abroad as well.

In my country, the retail industry dreads Amazon's looming expansion. They've started hiring ex-Amazonians to try to catch up. I wonder if they've raised the salaries to match.