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

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

#31

Post by bkovacev » Sun, Jan 30, 2022, 8:37 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #23

bkovacev wrote: post #21

I have been trying to get US companies to hire from Eastern Europe (mainly south eastern europe). My company would act as a middleman (essentially outsourcing), pay money to the devs which would work directly 1:1 for that company. The devs would be working for us, yet, we would not manage their day to day activities - we'd just act as an HR/recruiting/legal middleman. I have tried with two major outsourcing companies…

I've done something like this. It worked well with the caveat that even when working as FTEs most Eastern European devs still preferred to work like contractors, e.g. "tell me exactly what to build and I'll build it". It worked best when pairing a senior engineer in the US or Western Europe with a team of 2-3 devs in Eastern Europe.

True and fair point! I have been trying to change that mindset for a while. One major thing I believe is the uncertainty of contracting - they never know when they may not be needed again. However, if an EE dev can align himself with the company and has a senior dev / manager above him who can help him make that transition - I think they'd make a great team.

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

#32

Post by georgeburdell » Sun, Jan 30, 2022, 8:37 PM UTC

99_00 wrote: post #8

People underestimate cultural difference and even pretend they don't exist. Even within a culture there are people who don't fit into the dominant cultural values and way of working. A big part of diversity and inclusion is addressing that. This becomes an even bigger problem when dealing with other cultures. And you might find that other cultures don't value diversity and inclusion as much as n American corporate cu…

> This becomes an even bigger problem when dealing with other cultures.

I have worked with many in Latin America (Costa Rica and Mexico in particular) and cultural differences (with respect to work) have never come up. They seem extremely "Americanized", or perhaps the differences aren't there in their own native cultures either. It's like talking to an American with a slight accent.

> And you might find that other cultures don't value diversity and inclusion as much as n American corporate culture and really look down on the way others do things and see there way as the right way.

Unless they have a proclivity for wearing red hats or being out of the house Sunday mornings [0]. U.S. diversity & inclusion amounts to parading around people with different skin colors that think exactly like a West Coast White Liberal.

[0] Tongue-in-cheek reference: Silicon Valley, Season 5, Episode 4

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

#33

Post by spamizbad » Sun, Jan 30, 2022, 8:38 PM UTC

bkovacev wrote: post #21

I have been trying to get US companies to hire from Eastern Europe (mainly south eastern europe). My company would act as a middleman (essentially outsourcing), pay money to the devs which would work directly 1:1 for that company. The devs would be working for us, yet, we would not manage their day to day activities - we'd just act as an HR/recruiting/legal middleman. I have tried with two major outsourcing companies…

My company uses Eastern European contractors for certain projects as "staff augmentation". Overall, I would say our experience is positive. There are indeed many experienced devs who do great work. But it does have some drawbacks:

1) 10-hour time difference between West Coast US and, say, Kyiv is pretty big. It's easier on EST people, but on the US side you're going to have to plan on jamming your calendars full of meetings between 7:30-10:30am.

2) Because you have fewer "business hours" between two, you need product, project, and engineering management to operate in a fairly well-oiled manner with more stuff spelled-out up-front, otherwise your team across the pond is stuck until the next day for some answer. Also, if your org even attempts to adopt "agile" this communication breakdown will murder your velocity; you're better off doing Waterfall.

3) They cannot be on-call to troubleshoot product issues during US business hours. This makes the business-side uneasy

4) Higher churn-rate than domestic engineers. Mostly over salary; this falls squarely at the feet of the "middleman" who undercuts their engineers. We attempt to ameliorate this by giving them feedback on employees who they should focus on retaining but IME they just view their talent as widgets rather than craftsmen. I've seen several good devs leave over money we'd have gladly paid them but their contracting org refused.

5) Speaking of higher churn rate: Onboarding can be more painful, again because of the TZ difference as well as certain cultural issues.

None of these are deal-breakers. But it's easy to understand why a company might be willing to pay 50-100% more to avoid these concerns.

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

#34

Post by atlasunshrugged » Sun, Jan 30, 2022, 8:38 PM UTC

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.

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

#35

Post by Tehchops » Sun, Jan 30, 2022, 8:40 PM UTC

bkovacev wrote: post #21

I have been trying to get US companies to hire from Eastern Europe (mainly south eastern europe). My company would act as a middleman (essentially outsourcing), pay money to the devs which would work directly 1:1 for that company. The devs would be working for us, yet, we would not manage their day to day activities - we'd just act as an HR/recruiting/legal middleman. I have tried with two major outsourcing companies…

I know the experience varies, but I've seen nothing but trouble from hiring devs from EE.

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

#36

Post by atlasunshrugged » Sun, Jan 30, 2022, 8:41 PM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #33

bkovacev wrote: post #21

I have been trying to get US companies to hire from Eastern Europe (mainly south eastern europe). My company would act as a middleman (essentially outsourcing), pay money to the devs which would work directly 1:1 for that company. The devs would be working for us, yet, we would not manage their day to day activities - we'd just act as an HR/recruiting/legal middleman. I have tried with two major outsourcing companies…

My company uses Eastern European contractors for certain projects as "staff augmentation". Overall, I would say our experience is positive. There are indeed many experienced devs who do great work. But it does have some drawbacks: 1) 10-hour time difference between West Coast US and, say, Kyiv is pretty big. It's easier on EST people, but on the US side you're going to have to plan on jamming your calendars full of m…

Somewhat unrelated but just a side comment, many Ukrainian folks are really trying to move away from the spelling of Kiev as you did, instead they prefer Kyiv (I was corrected several times for this by Ukrainian friends/colleagues when I got to the region so just thought I'd share).

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/kyiv-not-...

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

#37

Post by plumeria » Sun, Jan 30, 2022, 8:41 PM UTC

pevezzac wrote: post #13

brandonmenc wrote: post #10

Disappointed to see no mention of Costa Rica. At my last company, about half of our dev team was from CR and they kicked ass. They got rid of the army in 1948 and redirected the funds into education, transforming it into a high tech hub.

FWIW, Microsoft is hiring in Costa Rica. More specifically the M365 Core team. I work with a few of Costa Ricans.

There's also Intel and Amazon. I wonder if/when more tech companies will eventually set up offices in CR. They'd be very welcome and could get some tax benefits establishing in a free zone, for example.

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

#38

Post by Clubber » Sun, Jan 30, 2022, 8:43 PM UTC

tinyhouse wrote: post #30

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…

I think US salaries are more to do with it than anything else. It's just not sustainable anymore for most tech companies. So they hire where talent is cheaper. It was obvious it will happen with remote work.

>It's just not sustainable

I'm not sure if it's a sustainability issue or tactic to eek out every dollar possible given the landscape. I suspect it's the latter. I'll bet most don't do the leet code interviews for offshore developers though.

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

#39

Post by mensetmanusman » Sun, Jan 30, 2022, 8:44 PM UTC

bushbaba wrote: post #12

99_00 wrote: post #8

People underestimate cultural difference and even pretend they don't exist. Even within a culture there are people who don't fit into the dominant cultural values and way of working. A big part of diversity and inclusion is addressing that. This becomes an even bigger problem when dealing with other cultures. And you might find that other cultures don't value diversity and inclusion as much as n American corporate cu…

Is diversity and inclusion addressing this? For example Eastern Europe is getting a lot of outsourcing. Yet there’s zero d&i initiatives targeting that region. Same goes for Africa. I’ve seen zero d&i initiatives To better integrate those living in Africa.

Hiring from around the globe is tautologically increasing diversity.

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

#40

Post by beebeepka » Sun, Jan 30, 2022, 8:45 PM UTC

brandonmenc wrote: post #10

Disappointed to see no mention of Costa Rica. At my last company, about half of our dev team was from CR and they kicked ass. They got rid of the army in 1948 and redirected the funds into education, transforming it into a high tech hub.

Intel used to build their best chips in Costa Rica. Sorry for the useless trivia.