What's the point of even hiring American tech talent anymore. For companies that still hire American engineers, are they really 3-4x better than engineers from countries where the average wage of software engineers is 3-4x less?
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
#252What's the point of even hiring American tech talent anymore. For companies that still hire American engineers, are they really 3-4x better than engineers from countries where the average wage of software engineers is 3-4x less?
> For companies that still hire American engineers, are they really 3-4x better than engineers from countries where the average wage of software engineers is 3-4x less?
They don't need to be; first, because wages aren't the whole cost of employment, and second because the measure being maximized is value minus cost, not value divided by cost.
Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent
#253Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent
#254The headline says "pillaging," which is a kind of stealing by force. But actually (as the less editorialized HN headline says) what the US companies are doing is hiring Latin America's tech talent, paying a fair price instead of the shitty prices Latin American companies are used to paying. Unsurprisingly these companies think of Latin American developers as their property, so they see it as "pillaging". Because I'm…
Poaching would be the more correct word to use.
Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looks like you’re in Venezuela. How do you get paid by Americans?
You can pay them as independent contractors. They have to sign a W-8 BEN and you can make payments via Wise. If you see that you are hiring a relatively large team from the same country, then at some point you can open a local subsidiary (cost center) and employ them via the local entity. The way to do this has been the same - most US companies became open to this after 2020.
The question was about Venezuela because of the sanctions. It’s not just any country that works with Wise
Venezuela is banned on wise and many/most banking apps. https://wise.com/help/articles/2978049/which-countries-can-i...
Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looks like you’re in Venezuela. How do you get paid by Americans?
Bitcoin
People are downvoting but this is correct - I know many being paid in USDT and USDC as well. One benefit is the central bank doesn’t steal your US currency and replace it with the worse (inflationary, poorly accepted) local currency.
Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent
#257Earlier 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…
> There's no way to sort candidates by skill that doesn't involve a ton of labor.
This is the exact concept of an IQ test. They aren't labor intensive.
Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent
#258Id 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?
Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent
#259The headline says "pillaging," which is a kind of stealing by force. But actually (as the less editorialized HN headline says) what the US companies are doing is hiring Latin America's tech talent, paying a fair price instead of the shitty prices Latin American companies are used to paying. Unsurprisingly these companies think of Latin American developers as their property, so they see it as "pillaging". Because I'm…
That's part and parcel of deep, amalgamated, problems our countries suffer from. I receive in crypto, live in south america and still sleep worry-free. I just do a good job and happen to heap benefits from all this shit we're immersed in (ridiculous low prices for everything) and from working for a rich country. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, no matter how deep I look. I don't even worry about how my cou…
How do you convert your crypto to local currency?
Re: U.S. companies are hiring Latin America’s tech talent
#260Earlier 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.
> 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.
I am currently applying for an entry-level position at a FAANG company. I had "in-person" remote interviews a few weeks ago. I was told that I passed, and I should expect some "team fit" interviews the following week.
Except over the intervening weeks, I've had zero team fit interviews, because - as far as I can tell - the recruiter handling me hasn't been able to persuade even a single manager to agree to an interview. This is not a situation that screams "we are experiencing a worker shortage, and we will even lower ourselves to hire inexperienced workers that we have to train". It would tend to suggest that the company is swimming in far more applicants than it wants for every role.