IT Outsourcing in Latin America – Discovering the Opportunities

As stated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and cited by Forbes, the 2020 shortage of tech talent has already reached 1.4 million jobs. The talent gap continues to increase, making the US companies in need of top-skilled specialists consider software engineering outsourcing. Fortunately, there are several promising outsourcing destinations to choose from, and Latin America is one of them. Its great tech talent pool, favorable business climate, and affordable labor force cost make this region especially attractive for the United States-based businesses.

That’s why in this article, we suggest taking a look at the specifics of IT outsourcing to Latin America, its benefits, and the top countries to hire tech talent from. 

Why Latin America – top reasons to consider this destination

Despite the slowed-down economic growth in Latin America caused by the pandemic, the market for software development services is on the rise in this region. It has pretty optimistic growth projections, the leading tech companies establish their offshore development center here, while the investment and taxing environment is pretty favorable for foreign businesses. 

There are more than 825 thousand software developers in Latin America. Since Latin America has more than 3,000 universities, most programmers from Latin America have higher engineering education and good English language skills. JavaScript and Python are the technologies app developers in Latin America are most skilled with.

Latin America is experiencing technological growth, becoming an attractive destination for tech outsourcing. In our recent article, we have already discussed the ten benefits of IT outsourcing in Latin America that prospective investors appreciate  most, so go have a read when interested to learn more. 

Still, why hire in Latin America? In brief, the main benefits include, but aren’t limited to the perfect price-quality match, large talent pool, solid tech proficiency and hands-on experience of the developers, cultural and geographical proximity, convenient time zones overlap, and foreign business-friendly investment environment. There are several outsourcing destinations in Latin America you are welcome to consider in particular, so let’s take a deeper look at them.

Feel like outsourcing your software development to Latin America will drive benefits to your business? Get in touch with Bridge to hire top talent in Latin America and run your project growth!

Top 5 Latin America IT outsourcing destinations to make the winning choice

Which country is best for outsourcing in South America? Our experience suggests that the best destination is the one that perfectly matches your project requirements, budget, expectations, and scalability projections. Among all the countries in South America, we would recommend paying special attention to Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, and Brazil. 

Mexico

Mexico is one of the leading countries in offshore business services worldwide and the country with the second-largest tech talent pool in the region. Local developers stand out with a good level of higher engineering education, however, their English proficiency is relatively low. 

8 Questions to a Mexican Tech Talent Recruiter You’ve Always Wanted to Ask (But Didn’t Dare)

That’s why Mexico becomes a good choice for the projects in need to hire an affordable workforce mostly for either the highly-predictable projects created according to the Waterfall methodology, or the ones requiring a lot of repetitive jobs to be done, for instance for data-intensive projects. The cost to hire software developers in Mexico is pretty reasonable and is up to $50 per hour on average. 

How Much Does It Cost to Hire Software Developers in Mexico

As for the economic landscape, Mexico is ranked 60 among 190 economies when it comes to the ease of doing business. This is also a politically stable country with a low business climate risk rate. 

Drop us a line to hire a tech team in Mexico and unlock all the benefits of this destination! 

Argentina

Argentina is a quick-win destination for the projects that prioritize the development proficiency backed up with higher education and English proficiency of the programmers. 40% of the local population has a bachelor’s degree. There are 114,000+ software engineers in Argentina who are mostly skilled in data analysis, distributed systems development, Java, and C++. 

Examples of Companies Started in Argentina [+Tech Pioneers and Startup Scene]

The Argentinian economy is the second-largest in South America, being led by Brazil. There are also attractive tax incentives for investors, and the newly introduced governmental policies made the process of business launch much easier for both domestic and foreign entrepreneurs. 

Let’s get started with hiring Argentinian developers right now! Send us a short message to run the process in an instant! 

Colombia

Colombia has been one of the fastest-growing economies in Latin America., According to the IMD World Talent 2019 Ranking, Colombia’s workforce is the largest in the region, with the highest growth and training rates.  Its talent pool is smaller compared to the ones of Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil, however, this is the country with great education projections. Between 2001 and 2018, 690,491 students graduated from Software & IT-related programs, as stated by the Ministry of Education of Colombia. 

What’s more, the cost to hire tech minds in this country is affordable and meets the average level in Latin America. An hourly rate for a software developer in Colombia is up to $50. This country often becomes a choice for AI and ML projects since the developers are particularly skilled with data analysis and statistical programming. 

Chile

The talent pool in Chile is small compared to other countries in Latin America. However, this is the case when the quality outweighs the quantity. Because of the talent shortage, Chilean businesses import tech talent from Argentina and Colombia. 

Chilean programmers are pretty educated and can boast of moderate English proficiency. Data analysis, statistical programming, Java, C++, and Python development are the core specializations of Chilean coders. 

In 2022, experts predict a robust growth for the Chilean software development market, mainly due the fact that more and more companies get started with digital transformation, after being hit by the pandemic. This is a promising country for projects related to cloud computing, cyber-security, Internet of Things (IoT), and AI. 

Sounds like a perfect fit for your tech startup? Get in touch with us for a free hiring consultation! 

Brazil

In 2020, Brazil had the largest information technology market value among the leading Latin American countries. And there is nothing shocking about it – Brazil is the leading software development outsourcing destination in Latin America. It stands out with the largest tech talent pool, decent level of engineering education, along with its accessibility, and still, affordable cost of Brazilian developers for hire. 

Brazil also has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. While the country is ultimately rich with natural resources, the IT outsourcing segment in Brazil grows as well, making up 48.5% of the total IT industry. Such companies as DuoLingo and OLX are Latin American unicorns (the companies reached a valuation of $1 billion without being featured on the stock market). 

Would you like to join the list of successful startups created in Brazil? We will help you get in touch with top-notch Brazilian developers for hire – just drop us a line!

How to hire the best-in-class developers in Latin America – tips and best practices

So, why should a US company consider hiring offshore talent from Latin America? A large talent pool of top-skilled developers, similar time zones, cultural similarities, and perfectly matched labor costs are the main reasons to consider IT outsourcing to Latin America.

Below are some value-adding tips you are welcome to follow. 

Choose the destination wisely

Latin America software outsourcing is a winning strategy due to the reasons we’ve talked about above. Many countries in Latin America have a lot in common in terms of outsourcing software developers at the first glance, however, each of the countries has its specifics to take into account. 

For example, choose Brazil if you want to hire a large team in a flash.  Chile would be a great choice to develop Big Data, AI, and Business Intelligence (BI) projects remotely. Argentinian developers are highly skilled in English, in addition to other reasons to hire software developers in Argentina. You are welcome to choose them if clear and frequent communication with a tech team is key for the stakeholders. 

Decide on the top-priority roles and prepare the functional requirements

Each project is unique in its hiring needs. That’s why the next step toward successful outsourcing in Latin America is deciding on the top-priority roles and developing detailed requirements for each of them, depending on the project’s specifics, the tech stack at its heart, and the budget. 

At this stage, getting in touch with a tech consultant would be a wise choice. The talent sourcing and development vendor would be able to suggest the winning team structure for your project and help you with shortlisting the core competencies of each of the future team members. 

You are also welcome to try our project budget calculator to come up with a preliminary cost estimate for hiring a development team in Latin America. With the help of this simple tool, you will get an idea of a hiring budget you need and plan your future expenses while staying flexible and agile. 

Get in touch with a talent sourcing vendor to get all-inclusive support

For projects with no experience in remote team hiring and management, getting in touch with the talent sourcing vendor is the smartest option. Supported by the IT recruitment company, the tech business unlocks the value-adding opportunities of global hiring at an affordable cost, accessing the top tech specialists and bridging the talent gap in the shortest possible time.

Bridge is an IT recruitment company with hands-on expertise in gathering a tech team in Latin America and beyond. Our services cover IT staffing (extending your in-house team with remote specialists according to your project’s requirements) and sourcing-as-a-service (providing you with a well-validated list of potentially suitable software engineering professionals). You can get more information about the latter offer by reading Obvious.ly and Jasper.ai case studies.

Conclusion

Latin America stands out with its IT outsourcing industry. This is a win-win destination for the projects striving for the best price-quality match, talented software developers, cultural and geographical proximity, along with a favorable investment environment. While hiring top tech talent is still a challenge for both startups and mature companies, Bridge is here to help you with engineering talent sourcing and managing. 

Get in touch with us right now to run your project with the help of great tech minds and hands sourced from Latin America!