January 28, 2025 • 46 mins
What if accessing top-tier engineering talent from around the globe could transform your business? Join us as we unlock the secrets to building exceptional nearshore teams with Kevin Haggard, the VP of Engineering at Zenzions. Kevin takes us on a journey through his career, from early days at Deloitte and Weight Watchers to his current role at a cutting-edge startup focused on data conversion using machine learning. He provides an insider's perspective on how global collaboration has shaped his approach to technology, infrastructure, and software delivery.
In our conversation, Kevin shares rich stories from his experiences working with engineering teams in places like India, Jordan, and Eastern Europe. By recounting projects in Ukraine and the Czech Republic, he illustrates the technical prowess and language skills these regions offer, despite the hurdles of time zone differences. Kevin's insights into the strategic expansion to Latin America, particularly Argentina, demonstrate the cultural and operational advantages of tapping into this vibrant region. He highlights the value of time zone alignment and effective communication, crucial elements in fostering a collaborative and productive environment.
Our discussion culminates in practical advice for engineering leaders aiming to optimize their global team-building strategies. Kevin emphasizes the importance of treating nearshore talent as integral members of the team, fostering a sense of belonging and investment in the company's success. From navigating cultural nuances to ensuring efficient communication, this episode offers a treasure trove of insights for anyone looking to harness the potential of a global talent pool. Join us as we explore the art of building effective nearshore teams and unlock the full potential of international collaboration.
📢 Don’t forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS for more insights on Latin America’s growing tech scene! 🎧🔥
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Welcome everyone to another episode of the Nearshore
Cafe podcast.
I'm Brian Sampson, your host.
We're sponsored by PlugTechnologies a great way to
connect software developers fromLatin America to growing US
companies.
We've got a treat today.
If you're in a hiring positionwith a US company engineering
(00:53):
leader, product leader you'regoing to want to listen.
We've got a real life exampleof how someone went through this
and they evaluated and hirednear shore team members.
We're lucky to have KevinHaggard on the show.
Kevin's the VP of engineeringfor Zenzions.
Welcome to the show, kevin.
Thank you, excited to be here.
(01:14):
Zenzions, let's start there.
What is it?
What does it do?
Who is it for?
Can you tell us more?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, sure, so we're very early stage startup with
pre-series A.
What Zynchins focuses on isdata conversion.
So trying to help people orcompanies move data from you
think of like moving from likelarge mainframe systems, out of
date systems, to more modernsystems, and so we're trying to
help them with that dataconversion.
(01:43):
Also, helping customer orclients move their customers in
an onboarding situation wherethey're trying to bring data
onto their, onto their platformfrom one of their, from one of
their clients, and helping themdo that.
So we're trying to automatethat process as much as possible
, leveraging machine learning tohelp with that.
So it's a big problem, a lot ofit's a.
(02:05):
Companies spend billions ofdollars on this every year,
especially large financialinstitutions.
That's typically who we'retargeting, but we're not limited
to just that.
That's where we've beenfocusing at first, but we'll
expand beyond that as thecompany gets older and more
mature.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, and tell us a little more about how you came
in this engines.
How did that that story happen?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, I uh, I knew one of the co-founders.
Uh, I was uh taking a breakfrom uh spending some time with
my kids, and just wanted to takea little break from work.
I hadn't done that before in mycareer, uh, so I was excited to
do it.
And then uh and the co-founderand I had worked at a previous
company before and we juststayed in touch and yeah, he was
(02:45):
telling me about Zinjins allalong and when I decided to take
my break and when I startedlooking, I was like, hey, are
you interested in joining us?
It ended up being a good fitand so I met with the team,
liked everyone and they liked me, so I joined Zinjins a little
over a year ago.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
That's great, and your title is VP of Engineering
and there's semantics, I think,across the industry of you know.
You ask 10 VPs of engineeringwhat they do, you may get 10
different answers.
What does that mean for youtoday?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah, so for me, I am responsible for everything
technology within the company,technology within the company.
So from securing our assets,infrastructure, it, our devices
(03:37):
to the delivery of the software.
And I have some really goodpartners, like a VP of product
and design that I work with, sohe is driving a lot of the
requirements and designs withhis group, and then my team is
responsible for making sure wedeliver what we say we're going
to do, and I'm trying to make itwork and keep it up and running
as well.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah, and what does your team look like today?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, so we're a mix of we're about 15 people.
We're a mix of data scientists,full stack engineers, both back
end, front end, and then acouple of people on
infrastructure, like engineoperations.
They all do a little more thanthat, but like your typical SRE
team, but a little more thanthat, just because of the size
(04:18):
of where we are right now.
Sure, but as we grow they'llkind of more formalize and wear
probably less hats, but not fora while.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah yeah, the old scale versus scope question.
Yeah yeah, and would you mindsharing a little more about what
the tech stack looks like?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, so we are.
Majority of the tech stack isback in this Python Postgres
MySQL on our databases.
Like backend is Python PostgresMySQL on our databases.
We use Redis a lot formessaging and for caching and
then we've got we're switchingto React for our front end away
from Vue, mostly because of justthe availability of people that
(05:00):
are available, obviouslyTypeScript as well, and then
Nextjs as well.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, okay, okay, great.
And if you don't mind a littlebit about some of the other
places you've been a VP ofengineering at, can you give us
some sense of the scope and thescale and size?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, yeah, so it was VP of engineering at retell me,
not we were.
This was thinking about like itwas basically online coupons
helping people try to save money.
Yeah, there, I think at onepoint had somewhere close to 150
people in the org reporting tome bunch of various teams.
So different definitely muchdifferent scale are today.
(05:43):
We are today at Syngence and ithad its own challenges.
One of the teams I led therewas like an incubation team, so
we were trying to help thecompany find the next big thing
that we should pursue and we hadsome good successes.
We had a lot of failures, asyou would expect, so that was
really fun.
We made a few acquisitions thatI led when we integrated them
(06:04):
into the company as well, sothat was a global team as well.
Most of the people were inAustin, but we had people all
over, especially like EasternEurope and Phoenix were some of
the hub spots for where we hadpeople.
After that Security Scorecard,which is a security company that
(06:28):
focuses on giving a publicprofile rating to help you
understand your cybersecurityposture.
Think of it like if you're avendor or if you're hiring some
vendors and you want to knowwhat their security posture is.
There's a way to have anoutside point of view of the
security posture of that companyand basically give you an A to
F type rating and help youidentify, understand some of the
(06:50):
issues that they were facing aswell.
So there we had, we's see,czech Republic.
(07:10):
I think we had some other,mostly Argentina.
I think we had people in a fewother locations too, and then
all across the US.
We were a fully remote company.
Well, not fully remote, we werea remote company with a
headquarter in New York beforethe pandemic.
So we were the majority of uswere working remotely at that
(07:31):
time.
Yeah, yeah, interesting, yeahThen after that, simspace,
another cybersecurity company,okay, and that was thinking of
cybersecurity training, helpingpeople prepare for attacks, and
a lot of it was DoD-relatedengagements or we were
delivering software to them.
And again, teams kind of allover, but definitely all over
(07:54):
the US, then heavily in Peru aswell.
Oh, interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Okay, okay.
So I think it's fair to sayyou've done a little bit of
hiring in your career.
Yes, definitely, yeah, well,maybe we'll start with your US
hiring experience.
Can you talk about maybe someof the you don't have to name
names, but some of the betterengineers that you've hired?
(08:20):
What does that look like to you?
What are you usually lookingfor in?
These types of people.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah.
So when I'm looking to hirepeople, it kind of depends on
the level too.
You know, if we're going forsomeone with a lot more senior
seniority and they're going tobe driving a lot of the work, I
look for people who can talkthrough how they delivered the
work that they've done.
Um, I'm really interested inthe interpersonal skills, like
(08:49):
how well can they mentor andhelp others?
Because we hear this, you know,about 10x engineers.
I'm not a big fan of or believein that, but there are those
people who can enable others todeliver a lot more.
And that's usually when I'mlooking at the senior people.
How are they enabling others tobe more productive, get things
done?
You know, besides just thetechnical skills, which are
(09:10):
really those are extremelyimportant, but those soft skills
are just as important becauseif you, if they can't help the
rest of the team grow anddeliver, then it just typically
aren't as successful.
So I look for people that havereally those type of soft skills
, and there's been some reallygood.
(09:31):
I've been fortunate to workwith some really strong
engineers that I hope I will getthe opportunity to work with
again.
I've worked with a couple oftimes, but hopefully find a
third and fourth time to get todo that as well.
Yeah, on the more junior side,like when they are earlier in
their career, I'm looking forthe hunger, besides the
(09:54):
technical skills.
The technical skills are reallyimportant too, but I've hired
people with English degreeswho've gone into tech and
computer science degrees fromsome of the best tech schools in
the US.
And one thing the ones that doreally well just have a passion
for learning and kind of just goget it attitude, whereas like
(10:17):
they're not waiting for you totell them everything they have
to do to be able to do work.
They are the good out therediscoverer that you can just
tell that they soak up.
They're like a sponge justsoaking up as much information
and trying things.
We'll break things but and takefeedback really well, but then
we'll talk to others about howto do things, and so, again,
coming back to the soft skillsare extremely important around,
(10:40):
like communication and beingable to ask questions.
But yeah, for the I look for.
I really try to figure out away during the interview process
to see what you know, how theyreact and like what, what those
skills are going to be like.
I try to stay away from codingexercises in terms of
whiteboarding sessions or onlinecoding exercises.
(11:02):
I don't think those work well,for I mean, they do for some
people, but not for everyone.
It's better to give people achoice.
Often, what I like to do is saybring us an application, that
or some code that you've written, walk us through it, tell us
about it.
You can tell them a lot.
You can learn a lot about whatpeople are passionate about and
how well they know the tech ifthey walk through their own code
(11:23):
.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, that's really interesting what you said about
your hiring process today.
Did you always feel that way,or is this?
Oh no, there was a kind ofswitch.
Yeah, switch your thoughtprocess on that.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
It really came, I think when I was at RetailMeNot
it really sank in.
We were hiring so many peopleand we had interviewing days
where it was like whiteboardingsessions and just people walking
through tons of code, and youcan tell that for some people we
knew they were probably reallygood engineers, but they just
weren't doing well on thatscenario.
So we started thinking, likewhat else can we do?
So we started doing take homeexercises and that people come
(12:02):
back, which are good, but you'realso cutting into people.
You know they have a job andit's a hot market, especially
going back to, like you know,like 2012, to you know, up
through the pandemic.
It was a hot market.
It was hard to hire people, soyou had to be, you had to make
it to where it wasn't too muchof a burden for people to do the
(12:23):
interviews as well, and so Ihad to start changing it.
And then I think recently, witha lot of the layoffs that have
happened and the tech marketjust being down somewhat, a lot
of companies are already puttingthose barriers back in place.
I'm not a huge fan of that.
I actually think it's stillimportant to how can you make
(12:45):
the candidate experience as goodas possible, because if it's
good for them, it's actuallyprobably good for you as a
hiring manager.
So I've really tried to changeaway from giving questions
around like theoretical stuffthat could be doing here, but
like and during the interviewswe'll talk about what we do and
(13:06):
then we'll ask them, when we getto the coding part or, like
going through their tech, try togive them something if they can
figure out a way to relate thework that they've done to what
we're trying to do.
And in Zinjins that's kind ofhard because not a lot of people
have done data conversions, butin other aspects people have,
like other industries or othercompanies have done something
similar and they can showexamples of that.
(13:27):
So but yeah, I think that shiftreally happened for me a few
years ago of trying to make iteasier and make it a better
candidate experience for doingthe interview, even in this
market.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
I still think it's that's important to do, yeah,
especially for uh, for thereally great talent.
You know they uh experiencematters and you're you're always
looking for any differentiatoryou can have you know,
competitive advantage?
Yeah, Um, how do you thinkabout the, the um, the steps in
the process you know about?
How many times do you need todo you, your team, need to touch
(14:03):
that engineer to?
Yeah, like, you've got all theinformation that you need yeah,
I typically I'd say about fourpeople.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Uh, four to five is the max, um and but it's.
Every interview is different interms of what we're focusing on
.
We try to make sure we're notcovering the same topics, um and
um.
And then after it's, I like toask them if you know if they've
learned anything in theinterview like they, or people
heard about people that theywant to also meet.
(14:32):
But you typically know, withinfour to five, I will always do
the first screen and get us toget a feel of like, do we
progress on or not?
And then and if we do, thenI'll introduce them to the group
and then they'll meet.
They'll go and meet everyoneelse.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, when you're, when you're spending your time
the way you want to as a VP ofengineering, how much of that
time is spent on recruiting?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Oh, yeah, I would say the majority of it.
Yeah, I would say the majorityof it when I'm able, especially
when we're hiring a lot.
I mean in St John's we're nothiring a lot right now, so I'm
not spending a ton of time there, but again when you're in a
growth mode, I'd say themajority of it is spent there
and that's where, as a VP ofengineering, you've got to have
(15:21):
really good leaders that canhelp support running the
day-to-day.
And I still have to be there forthe critical delivery or
critical issues that arehappening.
But I think the majority of ithas to be recruiting.
Also important to that it's notjust when I think about
recruiting, it's not justrecruiting for the people coming
in, it's also like what am Idoing to recruit the people that
are here to keep them at thecompany, Because the cost of
them leaving is expensive tohave to replace?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
no-transcript.
When was the?
You know you had mentionedearlier a few different
countries that you've workedwith.
What was your first experienceof working with engineers
outside the US?
Can you talk more about that?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, that was probably when I was at Deloitte
Early 2000s.
We had some team members inIndia and, yeah, that was
probably the first time, butthere was more interfacing of
like I was just handing off work.
I wasn't really uh, um, Iwasn't in manager roles, I
(16:27):
wasn't you know, it's reallyjust kind of helping them, um,
get their work done, uh,checking work, things like that.
Um, and then, but I'd say,probably manager from like,
where I really felt like I gotclose to the team and really got
to know them.
Um, so I was at weight watchers, uh, very early in my career
early 2000s.
Um, we were the dot-com part ofweight watchers and it was like
(16:51):
a startup within the biggercompany.
Well, we actually were aseparate company at the time,
but, um, we, um, we were doingthe digital experience and I was
working with the team in jordan.
Uh, it was a phenomenalexperience, yeah, I was
surprised because I've neverheard anyone outsourcing to uh
to jordan, yeah, and, but it was.
It was at that time.
I mean, so many companies aretrying to outsource.
(17:12):
It was actually really a greatuh spot for us, because not
weren't very many other playersin the market so so we weren't
facing competition of like wewere like you would in India at
the time, where you know companywere.
So many companies wereoutsourcing at the time.
They'd scoop up thousands ofpeople, and so for us to retain
(17:32):
people was almost impossible.
But by going to Jordan weweren't facing that same
competition.
We were getting phenomenaltalent too.
So so it was uh.
It was really a fun andinteresting experience, and plus
just getting to spend time inthe country was really
fascinating.
I learned a ton just to you knowabout jordan and getting to see
petra uh, got to go there twoor three times, uh, with the
(17:55):
team.
It was, uh, it's a really,really great.
So I'd say, you know, I thinksince then I got a little.
You know, I think if I cantravel to the countries, that
where people I'm working with,that gets me even more excited.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, that's awesome.
And then, what led you over toEastern Europe?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, so we were I think it was retell me not when
the first time we were doingwork there um in the Ukraine and
um, just uh, we needed peoplethat were really good at um, at
like advanced logic or likealgorithms.
And it's interesting in EasternEurope, the math there, the way
(18:39):
they teach math and computerscience, is just very it's just
really strong and as peoplecoming out of there like really
good backend engineers and yeah,we had really great success
with the team there and reallygood people could you people
(19:00):
good English skills as well.
So we didn't have really a lotof communication barriers.
Really, the time zone was thebiggest challenge that we had,
but that wasn't too bad.
We had a few hours of overlapevery day, so that wasn't really
much of a problem.
But that was also a reallygreat experience to be able to
spend some time there.
And then I've gone back toEastern Europe like the Czech
(19:21):
Republic with Security Scorecard.
That was really good talent aswell, both from front end and
back end, which was I hadn'tdone front end in Eastern Europe
before but found some reallygood people there doing the work
.
Again, times those werechallenged but you know, still
quite a bit of overlap before.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah too big of an issue.
Yeah, when you think about theintentionality you know of India
, jordan, ukraine, czech, was itoriginally a follow the sun
operation, or you were justlooking for, like the best
engineers you could find?
Or, yeah, costs.
You know what were some of theoriginal intentions for those.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, we were, uh, we weren't really looking at
follow this, uh, follow the side.
We were really kind of looking,uh, just where we made somebody
had had experience working inthat market before or in that
area, um, looking for a reallygood talent pool and just where
people are available and alsokind of the people that we're
(20:26):
going to be working with andfrom a leadership perspective
and for managing the day to daycompanies or outsourcing
companies that had goodleadership in place to help
support and grow the peoplethere as well.
You know, and I think it's kindof for my, at various stages of
companies like, as you're moremature, like 200 to 300, 200
(20:49):
plus company, you have a lotmore processes in place.
You probably have your HRdepartment that can help.
You can afford to have theseother your partners manage a lot
of the day-to-day for youbecause you're focused on your
full-time staff.
But in early stages, like me, Ilike to be much more hands-on
with the team that I'm workingwith, almost where I'm acting
(21:12):
like the hiring manager for them, because I'm treating them like
that.
I'm doing one-on-ones with them, getting to know them, because
they're so small, they're acritical part to our delivery.
Like we can't have a misstep.
But at the larger companies youhave more number or more people
, so you need local leaders.
You can do the touch points withthem and get to know them
(21:33):
better and support them.
So I think that's you know.
I look at it differently nowbased on the size of the company
.
But then you know anothercompany in the future, you know,
or Zensions grows, I would lookat it differently depending on
what stage of the company we are.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yeah, do you tend to work in a agile, sprint,
stand-up type of style?
Yeah, we follow more of aKanban approach type of style.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
We follow more of a combine approach.
We'll put dates and objectivesout of what we're hoping to hit.
That's kind of help us aroundprioritizing.
If we're trying to go by thisdate, what do we need to cut out
?
What do we really need to focuson?
Just kind of help clarity ofwhat we're trying to deliver.
It is definitely agile, maybe alittle chaos at sometimes, just
(22:23):
as you know, early stage you'rehaving to react to things.
So yeah, that's part of it?
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Sure, yeah.
And what led you to LatinAmerica?
Can you remember the firstfirst time you hired out there?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah.
So again, back again, back atretail me, not we were looking
at um, we were.
We wanted to find someone thatwas in a similar time zones and
um that we could work with.
We were um.
We just wanted more overlap.
You know, just during the day,like when you're instant
messaging back and forth, likeon Slack, you want to be able to
just be able to chat or say,hey, let's get together and chat
(22:56):
about something, not have towait till the next day.
Um.
So we, we started.
We looked in Argentina.
We found a good partner there.
Um started working with them,but we did in a limited capacity
.
Um.
It wasn't until um.
We probably had 10 people thatwere working with us at one
point on a specific area.
Um.
That only lasted for a coupleof years, not because of their
(23:17):
capability, just because of theway the business was growing.
We needed a trimmed staff.
So we, it was.
We cut there first and then wethen security scorecard.
We had a good portion of theteam in Argentina because of one
of the early engineers on theteam was from there and then was
(23:38):
able to hire a lot through hisnetwork and grow that.
So I think we had 20 somethingpeople there at one point.
Yeah, really good, really goodteam members.
So, yeah, I think the firsttime was I think it was tell me
not when I went into our team,and that took a while too,
because we looked in.
Let's see, I think we werelooking in Honduras um some of
(24:02):
the other Latin Americancountries.
we were having a lot of um, um,we just had a lot of missteps,
um, we couldn't find like wewere really.
We were really struggling tofind good technical skills, good
communication skills, um, but Iwould, I mean, I would say the
technical skills just weren'twhere we were hoping to find and
then, part of that's, we werenot to say that those skills
(24:24):
don't exist there.
We just weren't able to findthe partners, the people there
that we needed.
But we were able to find it inArgentina at the time.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah, yeah, argentina is a little more mature.
They export a lot of softwareservices.
A lot of people do that.
I'm excited to ask you aboutthe travel part, because you've
traveled a lot of these places.
Tell us about your first timevisiting Argentina and your
thoughts.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, loved it.
I haven't been back a long time.
I want to take my wife and thekids.
I've heard me talk about a lot.
I've had some of them come tovisit here.
My family's met them, sothey're anxious to go.
Food and the people are great,especially the food, the wine
and the steaks.
(25:11):
I would be a very happy personI am a very happy person when
I'm eating there and sodefinitely hope to get back and
it's a.
It's a beautiful country too.
So, um, buenos aires is very uh, has a very european feel to it
in terms of like if you're usedto like, uh, you've been to
europe and you've traveled to,uh, european cities.
I, the architecture and stuffis very similar to that.
(25:33):
Um, so it's uh, you know it's,it's beautiful.
I really like it.
There's some beautiful parts oftravel outside of the country
or outside of the city as well,so I hope to go back and do more
there.
I would love to explorePatagonia and Mendoza more, so
eat and drink my way throughArtesina would be great.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah Well, if you ever make it to Mendoza or
Patagonia.
Those are some of my favorites,Happy to share.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Yeah, yeah Well if you ever make it to Mendoza or
Patagonia, those are some of myfavorites Happy to share.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, you've really hit a loton communication you know, plus
technical skills.
So I guess what what Argentinahas is the overlap you know over
some of the other countries.
But can you talk a little morespecifically about any patterns
or things you've seen from a,especially from a communication
standpoint, when you're workingwith Argentina?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, I think.
Well, I think it varies.
You'll find some people thatare very shy or very English is
a second language, and so you'vegot to find, uh, some people
that kind of more in the feelcomfortable um communicating.
It also depends on the size ofthe team.
So when there, when we had alarger team, we didn't need
(26:49):
everyone to have be reallystrong in english.
Um, because we could, we couldrely on some of the uh the other
people to do to be moreeffective in that.
But the leaders uh had to havereally good communication skills
, had to be able to travel andspend time with us, same for
going to there, and so I thinkthe patterns are, you know, I
(27:10):
think not everyone iscomfortable or as skilled as in
speaking, and so, um, we, Ithink that we're good at written
communication.
Um, you gotta be a littleslower too, and like how you're
communicating things.
So don't be like I think, uh,after living in New York for 13
(27:32):
years, I can be very differenttimes.
I can be very rapid fire andand how I'm talking.
Uh, then I'm from Texas really,so I can be very laid back as
well, but tend to with businessI can just rapid fire and I
gotta make sure I don't do thatBe very articulate in what I'm
saying and give them time tothink about what we're doing and
not, you know, just not expectan immediate response or just a
(27:53):
constant dialogue back and forth.
There needs to be pauses inthere.
That's why writtencommunications really good tip
and if you see that from them, Ifeel really confident that
they're gonna be a great hire.
If you know what the otherskills that are there too.
But yeah, I, you know, I thinkI don't find like I will say I
don't know if an Argentina, thatthe skill set I've seen or the
(28:15):
patterns been different therethan I have seen in other
countries.
It's more, I think, just thatsecond language part of just
like where.
Where are they at that level?
Uh, and my Spanish is terrible,so I have to rely on them to to
do the heavy lifting for that,unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Um, yeah, is there anything else that?
Um, uh, you know, sometimespeople talk about, uh, the
passion you know of, you know ofthe country there and the
people, or in my experience I'veseen a lot more pushback
sometimes, like, if they don'tagree with the technical
(28:52):
decisions or the tradeoffs, youmight get that, and sometimes
you want that, sometimes youdon't.
You know, can you talk moreabout that?
Yeah, definitely, it's a reallygood point.
I'm sometimes you want that,sometimes you don't.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Can you talk more about that?
Yeah, definitely, it's a reallygood point.
I'm glad you brought that up.
Yeah, definitely, in someplaces you'll get the.
I'm just you tell me what youwant me to do, I'll go do it.
But there are the others thatreally kind of want to have a
discussion about the way it'sbeing implemented.
I would say, in my experience,eastern Europe, argentina, were
(29:25):
really good about pushing backor asking questions and
challenging, and I would sayIreland as well, and then in
then in other countries likeIndia and Jordan, I would say
those tend to, I mean, just,this is hate being so, not to
(29:48):
stereotype, but it's, you know,I'd say it's not fair to
everyone.
It's not everyone's like that,but yeah, but the, you know
there a lot of it's like waitingto be or not waiting.
We'll be, you tell them whatyou want to go do and they'll do
it, and they'll usually do itvery well.
Um, but they're not necessarilyquestioning it and I think that
you know it depends on whatpeople are looking for.
Uh, yeah, that's fit for them.
(30:09):
Um, and I personally like the,the challenge, I like people
pushing back and asking um, youknow, not always agreeing with
the way to do it, just my style,for as a manager, but in other
times you just kind of needpeople to follow do what I tell
you to do, don't question it,get it done type thing.
But you can find that anywhere.
(30:29):
Yeah, both personality typesexist, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
And I'm sure we'll.
We'll have quite a few softwareengineering leaders, you know,
listening to the show and if youhave any advice for them on,
like how stage of your companymight matter in, you know, this
is exactly what I want.
Just do it Versus you know, Idon't know, maybe earlier stage
(30:55):
you might want some morecollaboration and pushback.
Do you have an opinion on that?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, I mean I my opinion is always get the people
who go, get people who aregoing to challenge, even if um,
or try to get them to challengeum or ask questions, feel
comfortable with that.
That's just my opinion.
Um, at all stages of uh of acompany.
Um, I definitely think it'searlier.
It's important at the earlierstages because you're trying to
(31:22):
well, people could see thatdifferent ways.
Like, I see it that way becauseyou're you're young in what
you're doing, you want to makesure you're doing it right, you
want to hear various opinionsand also, at the earlier stages,
I like to go for more seniorpeople, which is not always
beneficial to the companybecause of cost, um, but uh, I
think the more it's.
(31:42):
I think it's a fallacy thatjust because you're hiring
cheaper labor, that you're going, or like younger people that
are less experienced, thatyou're saving the company money,
you're actually could bespending more because of
delivery time, um, notunderstanding trade-offs that
are being made.
So I actually like to emphasizefewer hires, more senior people
in the earlier stages, becauseI think it improves our chances
(32:07):
of getting it right, Excuse me,so in the later stages, I think
then you're looking for thatmore mix of skill sets.
You need your more seniorpeople, but you also need the
mix of people who are learningand being mentored and growing
in their career.
Because of the evolution ofit's a longer, more stable
company, you're going to havepeople there for multiple years.
You need to create that kind ofpyramid or that leveling and
(32:32):
give the people that are moresenior chances to mentor others.
So I try to think aboutstaffing or like where I go for
that.
But you do have to weigh in thecost factor to it.
So certain areas in LatinAmerica are more affordable, or
in South America than others,and same with Eastern Europe.
(32:54):
We were.
I think your Eastern Europeansalaries weren't too different
from salaries in the U S?
Um, so it wasn't about there,you know, it was about just
getting great people whereveryou happen to be Um.
It wasn't we were outsourcingfrom a cost perspective, um, it
was just we were trying to findthe best staff we could Um, and
(33:15):
then if you're looking, but ifyou're having to be cost
conscious, you have to look atwhere you're, what those
countries, what the, what theaverage salary is for those, and
so um, and you can get seniorpeople in those other countries,
um, but the pool may not be asbig as some of the others, like
in Argentina, there's a big pool.
It's a much larger populationthan if you were trying to go to
um.
You know, like a smaller, justa smaller country, like a
(33:38):
Honduras or something like that.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Yeah, it makes me think about your earlier point
about maybe fishing where othersaren't.
When you were in Jordan, youhad less competition.
There's great people everywhere.
Are you fishing in SanFrancisco with everybody else,
or?
Speaker 2 (33:55):
did you find some arbitrage, yeah, I think it's
harder to do that now because ofthe well, at least it was
recently because of the pandemicand then everybody working
remotely, with a lot ofcompanies forcing or pushing to
go back into the office.
That makes it easier forcompanies like us that are fully
remote to get back to that andfind talent in those areas that
(34:17):
others wouldn't maybe go pursue.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yeah, and then Peru has come up.
Yeah, we don't want to makethis only about Argentina.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
How did you?
How did you stumble into Peru?
You know, mexico and Argentinaseem to be on the in Colombia
seem to be on the, the morecommonly used nearshoring
countries.
Peru is a little less common,so we'd love to hear the story
around that.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah, so Scary Scorecard.
When I was working there, therewas already a relationship
established there and it wasspecifically because of the type
of tech we were doing and thecompany we were working with had
a lot of experience infunctional programming, a
specific language that we werelooking for, and it had really
good staff and we were finding,just as we were expanding our
(35:04):
tech stack, getting out of that,there were a lot of other
people within Peru that weremeeting some of the needs that
we had.
So we got excited about thatand kept recruiting and
expanding there, and I've beento Peru on uh on vacation for
myself not, unfortunately,business and it's also, you know
(35:26):
, phenomenal country to visit umand such a diverse geography.
Uh, it's really cool to get tovisit there.
Coming back to where I like togo travel, if I can now source
it, but anyway, the uh perudidn't work out that way for me.
I just was fortunate to travelthere earlier, but I would love
to get a chance to go back.
But good English skills,technical skills were.
(35:46):
I just didn't know what toexpect and been very impressed
with the people that we've hadthere and both now that we're
working, we work with you guyson as engines we are.
You know, we've hired a coupleof people there and they've been
doing a fantastic job and uh,so we just keep finding them
really good talent, good diversetalent too, around um,
(36:08):
different tech sex, um, and I'vebeen pretty, yeah, I think it's
.
Uh, it's not, it wasn't a placethat was on my radar a few
years ago, but like now when Ithink about it, uh, or like when
I think about where I want, ifI want to build a developer hub
in a specific area, especiallylike if we're going to try to
bring people togetheroccasionally we do know remote,
we want to get togetherperiodically it's we expand more
(36:30):
in our hiring.
We'll hire in the U?
S, but we'll also hire more inPeru, and but it's, you know, at
some point we'll probably allmeet up in Lima and just
somewhere central for them to beable to get to meet.
But yeah, talent there has beenreally great.
I think this is true with anycountry.
The largest thing I mean Ithink one of the hardest
(36:52):
considerations is figuring outhardware situation.
So, unfortunately, ourapplication requires pretty
hefty machines, like a lot ofRAM, and so it's not always easy
to get the latest and greatestinto the countries and so you
have to work with them to planfor that and just take a little
longer lead times and thinkabout the cost of that too.
(37:14):
So that's probably been thebiggest challenge for that
Actually, that is the biggestchallenge.
Outside of that, like technicalskills communication at least
with the people I've worked withhave have been there really
been really good, on par withwhat I've seen in other
countries as well.
Have you seen the challenge andchallenging trade offs,
(37:39):
challenging that you that youmight see in other places too
you know, um, you know, I thinkI think the I'm still learning,
I think I'm still learning a lotabout Peru.
I think there were, you know,kind of come back to mixed
personality or like the types ofpersonality types I've seen
both.
They're like people who arejust do what you want, they'll
get it done.
Then there's the other of hey,I'll question and challenge you,
(38:02):
and I think that kind of haswhat's in your already in
comfort level, um, and so thatpart's been good.
I think, uh, what has beenreally uh beneficial to us is,
uh, the cost of the mark, uh,the labor market there is, um,
the cost of labor is much uhbetter for us and or us, than
(38:22):
for, like some of the othercountries, like in Argentina.
Argentina is just a lot moreexpensive and I think the cost
of living there is much higherthan it is especially with
inflation than it is in Peru.
So that is, you know, I haven'tI don't think I've really run
into challenges from staffing orlike the type of skill sets and
stuff like that.
It's all been on par with whatI've experienced in other places
(38:45):
and and financially good aswell.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
That's great to hear.
Yeah, we've.
We've had a few people fromPeru on the pod, including
startup founders in Peru thathave raised VC money from the US
, and they're just able tocompete.
There's a lot less competitionbecause the domestic Peruvian
companies just can't touch it.
(39:14):
So I'm sure, as you're fishingagain, I think a common theme of
the show is arbitrage andfinding untapped markets,
whether it's Jordan or Lima, andit's great to hear that.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah, and thinking about people in Peru raising
money from VCs in the US.
I think that reminds me.
I think, depending on the kindof company you are, what are you
looking for in the people?
Are people comfortable withrisk and doing a startup?
And I haven't seen anyone inPeru concerned about that, and
(39:51):
so there's like I've usually hadlong relationships like very
little turnover with the peoplethat I've worked with and
obviously as engines we're stillvery early on, so wouldn't
expect that.
But previous company veryconsistent and I um, that was
really nice.
So like getting you can build ateam there and not worry about
it changing on you too toofrequently, which is, uh, very
helpful because you invest a lotof time in getting the building
(40:13):
up the knowledge.
So I think you know in thesecountries, where do people feel
comfortable or the type of riskare they willing to take is
important too.
Um, like I think some placesthat in some countries have
worked people were very typical,like wanted to be at the large
companies of uh who they workedfor is a large part of their
identity.
Uh and uh that you know it'sbrand names mattered, but in
(40:35):
some comp, in some countries,that doesn't matter as much,
like they don't.
It doesn't.
It's not as much about theiridentity, it doesn't and and
it's not as impressive about thename of the company they're
working for.
It's about they care more about.
What are they getting to do?
and what skills are theydeveloping and learning, getting
to work on.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I want to be berespectful of your time.
You've already been so generous, Kevin Ruben.
What do we miss?
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Is there anything that we should be asking?
Yeah, there was one thing.
You know, kevin, every day whenwe're talking to our clients,
prospects and over the last yearand a half we've heard this
over and over again the reasonto go near shore has been time
zone alignment.
I mean, that's been the numberone, overwhelming reason.
Of course, there's other thingscost, cultural affinity, things
like that.
I'm just wondering, from yourperspective, how does that
(41:23):
affect your projects, theefficiency, how quickly you can
get things done?
If you can just speak a littlebit to that, that would be great
.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Yeah, the time zone part is extremely critical, just
for, I mean, I believe inasynchronous communication and
not having everybody be on thesame hours.
I believe in asynchronouscommunication and not having to
have everybody be on the samehours, but the fact that the
majority of your day is spentthe same time.
It's easy to get together, haveimpromptu meetings, just to get
together and talk, especiallydevelopers wanting to be able to
(41:53):
jump on a call, just do ahuddle on Slack for 10 minutes
and so do that at any point inthe day or in the afternoon.
It's extremely important,especially when I think about
our stage of company.
We have to be very careful thatwe are hitting the milestones
that we're trying to accomplishso that it sets up the business
(42:14):
to be successful.
So that, to me, was extremelyimportant, extremely important.
So when we started discussingdoing some outsourcing as
engines, I could have easilyhave gone to some really good
partners that I have in EasternEurope and gotten very good
talent.
It would have been moreexpensive, but I was less
concerned about that than I wasthe overlap, the time in order
(42:37):
to quickly have a discussion,not having to wait until the
next day to have it, or, and soI just uh, I think having on
that same time zone, or verysimilar time zones, extremely,
uh, just too, really justextremely important at that
earlier stage and I think kindof depends on this it could be
us as a company, but it could beat your, any other company the
(42:59):
stage of the product, um, thatthey're working on, the things
that are working, it's veryearly on having lots of
discussions and being able tocommunicate is so important.
When it gets more mature, youcan rely on little uh, um, more
formal channels to have acommunication about stuff, plan
things a little more ahead, souh, but yeah, that's was the.
That time zone was a number onefactor, uh, for one factor for
(43:22):
Zinjins and for me when we werelooking at a partner for
outsourcing.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
That's great.
That's great and, of course,what you said about the great
testament to the country of Peruthat probably a lot of the
people listening today aren'tgoing to be thinking about in
terms of finding talent, whereyou have found some excellent
talent, and that exists in othercountries around Latin America
as well where you have foundsome excellent talent, and that
exists in other countries aroundLatin America as well.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Man, they should go to Columbia, peru or whatever.
Columbia or Brazil, stay out ofPeru.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Stay out of Peru.
That's great, Kevin.
Is there anything else?
Like any last words of adviceyou might give other VPs of
engineering that have nevernearshored before Advice, so
(44:11):
they have some success as theybegin their journey down this
path.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Yeah, I think being really good at written
communication, clear with whatto expect how you're going to
work with them, is is is reallyimportant.
Spending time with them andtreating them like you, almost
like you do an employee of like,helping, coach and mentor,
spend time getting to know them,building just building those
personal connections that youwould with any full-time
(44:36):
employee is extremely importantto do.
I think the more you treat themthat way, instead of a hired
gun or like just a mercenary uh,the better off you'll be
because they'll be really vestedin what they're trying to do.
And I have found some, you know, when people understand what
they're trying to accomplish andare part of that overall goal
and not treat it as just thatmercenary type, delivery is
(44:58):
phenomenal and I can just causethey're part of the and they
really contribute, contributebusiness ideas, to what you're
doing.
So I would say, uh, treat themas much as you can legally as an
employee and uh and uh andinclude them in everything that
you can uh as a part of thecompany.
And if you can send swag, sendswag, you know.
(45:19):
Just a little bit.
Those little things matter andare important.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
That's great advice.
I think I've seen this in myown career of sometimes there
can be an us versus them.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Oh yeah, If you just make it us and us.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
It makes all the difference.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
If you can afford it, bring them to visit and get
your team together or go visit.
I have found I've been in thosefinger, those finger pointing
situations where that us versusthem almost all the time.
That gets removed as soon asthey start spending time
together.
Spend a little bit of time,just get to know each other on a
more personal level, not justthe person over a camera.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah, great advice.
Well, kevin, this has beenabsolutely fantastic.
We went a little over.
Hope you don't mind, but thishas just been a world of gems,
so appreciate that.
Yeah, thanks, enjoyed it.
We'll thank our sponsor, plugTechnologies, once more.
That's pluggtech.
Great way to find softwaredevelopers from Latin America
(46:16):
for growing US companies.
Thanks again for listening tothe Nearshore Cafe podcast.
See you next time.
Welcome everyone to another episode of the Nearshore
Cafe podcast.
I'm Brian Sampson, your host.
We're sponsored by PlugTechnologies a great way to
connect software developers fromLatin America to growing US
companies.
We've got a treat today.
If you're in a hiring positionwith a US company engineering
(00:53):
leader, product leader you'regoing to want to listen.
We've got a real life exampleof how someone went through this
and they evaluated and hirednear shore team members.
We're lucky to have KevinHaggard on the show.
Kevin's the VP of engineeringfor Zenzions.
Welcome to the show, kevin.
Thank you, excited to be here.
(01:14):
Zenzions, let's start there.
What is it?
What does it do?
Who is it for?
Can you tell us more?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, sure, so we're very early stage startup with
pre-series A.
What Zynchins focuses on isdata conversion.
So trying to help people orcompanies move data from you
think of like moving from likelarge mainframe systems, out of
date systems, to more modernsystems, and so we're trying to
help them with that dataconversion.
(01:43):
Also, helping customer orclients move their customers in
an onboarding situation wherethey're trying to bring data
onto their, onto their platformfrom one of their, from one of
their clients, and helping themdo that.
So we're trying to automatethat process as much as possible
, leveraging machine learning tohelp with that.
So it's a big problem, a lot ofit's a.
(02:05):
Companies spend billions ofdollars on this every year,
especially large financialinstitutions.
That's typically who we'retargeting, but we're not limited
to just that.
That's where we've beenfocusing at first, but we'll
expand beyond that as thecompany gets older and more
mature.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, and tell us a little more about how you came
in this engines.
How did that that story happen?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, I uh, I knew one of the co-founders.
Uh, I was uh taking a breakfrom uh spending some time with
my kids, and just wanted to takea little break from work.
I hadn't done that before in mycareer, uh, so I was excited to
do it.
And then uh and the co-founderand I had worked at a previous
company before and we juststayed in touch and yeah, he was
(02:45):
telling me about Zinjins allalong and when I decided to take
my break and when I startedlooking, I was like, hey, are
you interested in joining us?
It ended up being a good fitand so I met with the team,
liked everyone and they liked me, so I joined Zinjins a little
over a year ago.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
That's great, and your title is VP of Engineering
and there's semantics, I think,across the industry of you know.
You ask 10 VPs of engineeringwhat they do, you may get 10
different answers.
What does that mean for youtoday?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah, so for me, I am responsible for everything
technology within the company,technology within the company.
So from securing our assets,infrastructure, it, our devices
(03:37):
to the delivery of the software.
And I have some really goodpartners, like a VP of product
and design that I work with, sohe is driving a lot of the
requirements and designs withhis group, and then my team is
responsible for making sure wedeliver what we say we're going
to do, and I'm trying to make itwork and keep it up and running
as well.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah, and what does your team look like today?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, so we're a mix of we're about 15 people.
We're a mix of data scientists,full stack engineers, both back
end, front end, and then acouple of people on
infrastructure, like engineoperations.
They all do a little more thanthat, but like your typical SRE
team, but a little more thanthat, just because of the size
(04:18):
of where we are right now.
Sure, but as we grow they'llkind of more formalize and wear
probably less hats, but not fora while.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah yeah, the old scale versus scope question.
Yeah yeah, and would you mindsharing a little more about what
the tech stack looks like?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, so we are.
Majority of the tech stack isback in this Python Postgres
MySQL on our databases.
Like backend is Python PostgresMySQL on our databases.
We use Redis a lot formessaging and for caching and
then we've got we're switchingto React for our front end away
from Vue, mostly because of justthe availability of people that
(05:00):
are available, obviouslyTypeScript as well, and then
Nextjs as well.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, okay, okay, great.
And if you don't mind a littlebit about some of the other
places you've been a VP ofengineering at, can you give us
some sense of the scope and thescale and size?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, yeah, so it was VP of engineering at retell me,
not we were.
This was thinking about like itwas basically online coupons
helping people try to save money.
Yeah, there, I think at onepoint had somewhere close to 150
people in the org reporting tome bunch of various teams.
So different definitely muchdifferent scale are today.
(05:43):
We are today at Syngence and ithad its own challenges.
One of the teams I led therewas like an incubation team, so
we were trying to help thecompany find the next big thing
that we should pursue and we hadsome good successes.
We had a lot of failures, asyou would expect, so that was
really fun.
We made a few acquisitions thatI led when we integrated them
(06:04):
into the company as well, sothat was a global team as well.
Most of the people were inAustin, but we had people all
over, especially like EasternEurope and Phoenix were some of
the hub spots for where we hadpeople.
After that Security Scorecard,which is a security company that
(06:28):
focuses on giving a publicprofile rating to help you
understand your cybersecurityposture.
Think of it like if you're avendor or if you're hiring some
vendors and you want to knowwhat their security posture is.
There's a way to have anoutside point of view of the
security posture of that companyand basically give you an A to
F type rating and help youidentify, understand some of the
(06:50):
issues that they were facing aswell.
So there we had, we's see,czech Republic.
(07:10):
I think we had some other,mostly Argentina.
I think we had people in a fewother locations too, and then
all across the US.
We were a fully remote company.
Well, not fully remote, we werea remote company with a
headquarter in New York beforethe pandemic.
So we were the majority of uswere working remotely at that
(07:31):
time.
Yeah, yeah, interesting, yeahThen after that, simspace,
another cybersecurity company,okay, and that was thinking of
cybersecurity training, helpingpeople prepare for attacks, and
a lot of it was DoD-relatedengagements or we were
delivering software to them.
And again, teams kind of allover, but definitely all over
(07:54):
the US, then heavily in Peru aswell.
Oh, interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Okay, okay.
So I think it's fair to sayyou've done a little bit of
hiring in your career.
Yes, definitely, yeah, well,maybe we'll start with your US
hiring experience.
Can you talk about maybe someof the you don't have to name
names, but some of the betterengineers that you've hired?
(08:20):
What does that look like to you?
What are you usually lookingfor in?
These types of people.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah.
So when I'm looking to hirepeople, it kind of depends on
the level too.
You know, if we're going forsomeone with a lot more senior
seniority and they're going tobe driving a lot of the work, I
look for people who can talkthrough how they delivered the
work that they've done.
Um, I'm really interested inthe interpersonal skills, like
(08:49):
how well can they mentor andhelp others?
Because we hear this, you know,about 10x engineers.
I'm not a big fan of or believein that, but there are those
people who can enable others todeliver a lot more.
And that's usually when I'mlooking at the senior people.
How are they enabling others tobe more productive, get things
done?
You know, besides just thetechnical skills, which are
(09:10):
really those are extremelyimportant, but those soft skills
are just as important becauseif you, if they can't help the
rest of the team grow anddeliver, then it just typically
aren't as successful.
So I look for people that havereally those type of soft skills
, and there's been some reallygood.
(09:31):
I've been fortunate to workwith some really strong
engineers that I hope I will getthe opportunity to work with
again.
I've worked with a couple oftimes, but hopefully find a
third and fourth time to get todo that as well.
Yeah, on the more junior side,like when they are earlier in
their career, I'm looking forthe hunger, besides the
(09:54):
technical skills.
The technical skills are reallyimportant too, but I've hired
people with English degreeswho've gone into tech and
computer science degrees fromsome of the best tech schools in
the US.
And one thing the ones that doreally well just have a passion
for learning and kind of just goget it attitude, whereas like
(10:17):
they're not waiting for you totell them everything they have
to do to be able to do work.
They are the good out therediscoverer that you can just
tell that they soak up.
They're like a sponge justsoaking up as much information
and trying things.
We'll break things but and takefeedback really well, but then
we'll talk to others about howto do things, and so, again,
coming back to the soft skillsare extremely important around,
(10:40):
like communication and beingable to ask questions.
But yeah, for the I look for.
I really try to figure out away during the interview process
to see what you know, how theyreact and like what, what those
skills are going to be like.
I try to stay away from codingexercises in terms of
whiteboarding sessions or onlinecoding exercises.
(11:02):
I don't think those work well,for I mean, they do for some
people, but not for everyone.
It's better to give people achoice.
Often, what I like to do is saybring us an application, that
or some code that you've written, walk us through it, tell us
about it.
You can tell them a lot.
You can learn a lot about whatpeople are passionate about and
how well they know the tech ifthey walk through their own code
(11:23):
.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, that's really interesting what you said about
your hiring process today.
Did you always feel that way,or is this?
Oh no, there was a kind ofswitch.
Yeah, switch your thoughtprocess on that.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
It really came, I think when I was at RetailMeNot
it really sank in.
We were hiring so many peopleand we had interviewing days
where it was like whiteboardingsessions and just people walking
through tons of code, and youcan tell that for some people we
knew they were probably reallygood engineers, but they just
weren't doing well on thatscenario.
So we started thinking, likewhat else can we do?
So we started doing take homeexercises and that people come
(12:02):
back, which are good, but you'realso cutting into people.
You know they have a job andit's a hot market, especially
going back to, like you know,like 2012, to you know, up
through the pandemic.
It was a hot market.
It was hard to hire people, soyou had to be, you had to make
it to where it wasn't too muchof a burden for people to do the
(12:23):
interviews as well, and so Ihad to start changing it.
And then I think recently, witha lot of the layoffs that have
happened and the tech marketjust being down somewhat, a lot
of companies are already puttingthose barriers back in place.
I'm not a huge fan of that.
I actually think it's stillimportant to how can you make
(12:45):
the candidate experience as goodas possible, because if it's
good for them, it's actuallyprobably good for you as a
hiring manager.
So I've really tried to changeaway from giving questions
around like theoretical stuffthat could be doing here, but
like and during the interviewswe'll talk about what we do and
(13:06):
then we'll ask them, when we getto the coding part or, like
going through their tech, try togive them something if they can
figure out a way to relate thework that they've done to what
we're trying to do.
And in Zinjins that's kind ofhard because not a lot of people
have done data conversions, butin other aspects people have,
like other industries or othercompanies have done something
similar and they can showexamples of that.
(13:27):
So but yeah, I think that shiftreally happened for me a few
years ago of trying to make iteasier and make it a better
candidate experience for doingthe interview, even in this
market.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
I still think it's that's important to do, yeah,
especially for uh, for thereally great talent.
You know they uh experiencematters and you're you're always
looking for any differentiatoryou can have you know,
competitive advantage?
Yeah, Um, how do you thinkabout the, the um, the steps in
the process you know about?
How many times do you need todo you, your team, need to touch
(14:03):
that engineer to?
Yeah, like, you've got all theinformation that you need yeah,
I typically I'd say about fourpeople.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Uh, four to five is the max, um and but it's.
Every interview is different interms of what we're focusing on
.
We try to make sure we're notcovering the same topics, um and
um.
And then after it's, I like toask them if you know if they've
learned anything in theinterview like they, or people
heard about people that theywant to also meet.
(14:32):
But you typically know, withinfour to five, I will always do
the first screen and get us toget a feel of like, do we
progress on or not?
And then and if we do, thenI'll introduce them to the group
and then they'll meet.
They'll go and meet everyoneelse.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, when you're, when you're spending your time
the way you want to as a VP ofengineering, how much of that
time is spent on recruiting?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Oh, yeah, I would say the majority of it.
Yeah, I would say the majorityof it when I'm able, especially
when we're hiring a lot.
I mean in St John's we're nothiring a lot right now, so I'm
not spending a ton of time there, but again when you're in a
growth mode, I'd say themajority of it is spent there
and that's where, as a VP ofengineering, you've got to have
(15:21):
really good leaders that canhelp support running the
day-to-day.
And I still have to be there forthe critical delivery or
critical issues that arehappening.
But I think the majority of ithas to be recruiting.
Also important to that it's notjust when I think about
recruiting, it's not justrecruiting for the people coming
in, it's also like what am Idoing to recruit the people that
are here to keep them at thecompany, Because the cost of
them leaving is expensive tohave to replace?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
no-transcript.
When was the?
You know you had mentionedearlier a few different
countries that you've workedwith.
What was your first experienceof working with engineers
outside the US?
Can you talk more about that?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, that was probably when I was at Deloitte
Early 2000s.
We had some team members inIndia and, yeah, that was
probably the first time, butthere was more interfacing of
like I was just handing off work.
I wasn't really uh, um, Iwasn't in manager roles, I
(16:27):
wasn't you know, it's reallyjust kind of helping them, um,
get their work done, uh,checking work, things like that.
Um, and then, but I'd say,probably manager from like,
where I really felt like I gotclose to the team and really got
to know them.
Um, so I was at weight watchers, uh, very early in my career
early 2000s.
Um, we were the dot-com part ofweight watchers and it was like
(16:51):
a startup within the biggercompany.
Well, we actually were aseparate company at the time,
but, um, we, um, we were doingthe digital experience and I was
working with the team in jordan.
Uh, it was a phenomenalexperience, yeah, I was
surprised because I've neverheard anyone outsourcing to uh
to jordan, yeah, and, but it was.
It was at that time.
I mean, so many companies aretrying to outsource.
(17:12):
It was actually really a greatuh spot for us, because not
weren't very many other playersin the market so so we weren't
facing competition of like wewere like you would in India at
the time, where you know companywere.
So many companies wereoutsourcing at the time.
They'd scoop up thousands ofpeople, and so for us to retain
(17:32):
people was almost impossible.
But by going to Jordan weweren't facing that same
competition.
We were getting phenomenaltalent too.
So so it was uh.
It was really a fun andinteresting experience, and plus
just getting to spend time inthe country was really
fascinating.
I learned a ton just to you knowabout jordan and getting to see
petra uh, got to go there twoor three times, uh, with the
(17:55):
team.
It was, uh, it's a really,really great.
So I'd say, you know, I thinksince then I got a little.
You know, I think if I cantravel to the countries, that
where people I'm working with,that gets me even more excited.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, that's awesome.
And then, what led you over toEastern Europe?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, so we were I think it was retell me not when
the first time we were doingwork there um in the Ukraine and
um, just uh, we needed peoplethat were really good at um, at
like advanced logic or likealgorithms.
And it's interesting in EasternEurope, the math there, the way
(18:39):
they teach math and computerscience, is just very it's just
really strong and as peoplecoming out of there like really
good backend engineers and yeah,we had really great success
with the team there and reallygood people could you people
(19:00):
good English skills as well.
So we didn't have really a lotof communication barriers.
Really, the time zone was thebiggest challenge that we had,
but that wasn't too bad.
We had a few hours of overlapevery day, so that wasn't really
much of a problem.
But that was also a reallygreat experience to be able to
spend some time there.
And then I've gone back toEastern Europe like the Czech
(19:21):
Republic with Security Scorecard.
That was really good talent aswell, both from front end and
back end, which was I hadn'tdone front end in Eastern Europe
before but found some reallygood people there doing the work
.
Again, times those werechallenged but you know, still
quite a bit of overlap before.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah too big of an issue.
Yeah, when you think about theintentionality you know of India
, jordan, ukraine, czech, was itoriginally a follow the sun
operation, or you were justlooking for, like the best
engineers you could find?
Or, yeah, costs.
You know what were some of theoriginal intentions for those.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, we were, uh, we weren't really looking at
follow this, uh, follow the side.
We were really kind of looking,uh, just where we made somebody
had had experience working inthat market before or in that
area, um, looking for a reallygood talent pool and just where
people are available and alsokind of the people that we're
(20:26):
going to be working with andfrom a leadership perspective
and for managing the day to daycompanies or outsourcing
companies that had goodleadership in place to help
support and grow the peoplethere as well.
You know, and I think it's kindof for my, at various stages of
companies like, as you're moremature, like 200 to 300, 200
(20:49):
plus company, you have a lotmore processes in place.
You probably have your HRdepartment that can help.
You can afford to have theseother your partners manage a lot
of the day-to-day for youbecause you're focused on your
full-time staff.
But in early stages, like me, Ilike to be much more hands-on
with the team that I'm workingwith, almost where I'm acting
(21:12):
like the hiring manager for them, because I'm treating them like
that.
I'm doing one-on-ones with them, getting to know them, because
they're so small, they're acritical part to our delivery.
Like we can't have a misstep.
But at the larger companies youhave more number or more people
, so you need local leaders.
You can do the touch points withthem and get to know them
(21:33):
better and support them.
So I think that's you know.
I look at it differently nowbased on the size of the company
.
But then you know anothercompany in the future, you know,
or Zensions grows, I would lookat it differently depending on
what stage of the company we are.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yeah, do you tend to work in a agile, sprint,
stand-up type of style?
Yeah, we follow more of aKanban approach type of style.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
We follow more of a combine approach.
We'll put dates and objectivesout of what we're hoping to hit.
That's kind of help us aroundprioritizing.
If we're trying to go by thisdate, what do we need to cut out
?
What do we really need to focuson?
Just kind of help clarity ofwhat we're trying to deliver.
It is definitely agile, maybe alittle chaos at sometimes, just
(22:23):
as you know, early stage you'rehaving to react to things.
So yeah, that's part of it?
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Sure, yeah.
And what led you to LatinAmerica?
Can you remember the firstfirst time you hired out there?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah.
So again, back again, back atretail me, not we were looking
at um, we were.
We wanted to find someone thatwas in a similar time zones and
um that we could work with.
We were um.
We just wanted more overlap.
You know, just during the day,like when you're instant
messaging back and forth, likeon Slack, you want to be able to
just be able to chat or say,hey, let's get together and chat
(22:56):
about something, not have towait till the next day.
Um.
So we, we started.
We looked in Argentina.
We found a good partner there.
Um started working with them,but we did in a limited capacity
.
Um.
It wasn't until um.
We probably had 10 people thatwere working with us at one
point on a specific area.
Um.
That only lasted for a coupleof years, not because of their
(23:17):
capability, just because of theway the business was growing.
We needed a trimmed staff.
So we, it was.
We cut there first and then wethen security scorecard.
We had a good portion of theteam in Argentina because of one
of the early engineers on theteam was from there and then was
(23:38):
able to hire a lot through hisnetwork and grow that.
So I think we had 20 somethingpeople there at one point.
Yeah, really good, really goodteam members.
So, yeah, I think the firsttime was I think it was tell me
not when I went into our team,and that took a while too,
because we looked in.
Let's see, I think we werelooking in Honduras um some of
(24:02):
the other Latin Americancountries.
we were having a lot of um, um,we just had a lot of missteps,
um, we couldn't find like wewere really.
We were really struggling tofind good technical skills, good
communication skills, um, but Iwould, I mean, I would say the
technical skills just weren'twhere we were hoping to find and
then, part of that's, we werenot to say that those skills
(24:24):
don't exist there.
We just weren't able to findthe partners, the people there
that we needed.
But we were able to find it inArgentina at the time.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah, yeah, argentina is a little more mature.
They export a lot of softwareservices.
A lot of people do that.
I'm excited to ask you aboutthe travel part, because you've
traveled a lot of these places.
Tell us about your first timevisiting Argentina and your
thoughts.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, loved it.
I haven't been back a long time.
I want to take my wife and thekids.
I've heard me talk about a lot.
I've had some of them come tovisit here.
My family's met them, sothey're anxious to go.
Food and the people are great,especially the food, the wine
and the steaks.
(25:11):
I would be a very happy personI am a very happy person when
I'm eating there and sodefinitely hope to get back and
it's a.
It's a beautiful country too.
So, um, buenos aires is very uh, has a very european feel to it
in terms of like if you're usedto like, uh, you've been to
europe and you've traveled to,uh, european cities.
I, the architecture and stuffis very similar to that.
(25:33):
Um, so it's uh, you know it's,it's beautiful.
I really like it.
There's some beautiful parts oftravel outside of the country
or outside of the city as well,so I hope to go back and do more
there.
I would love to explorePatagonia and Mendoza more, so
eat and drink my way throughArtesina would be great.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah Well, if you ever make it to Mendoza or
Patagonia.
Those are some of my favorites,Happy to share.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Yeah, yeah Well if you ever make it to Mendoza or
Patagonia, those are some of myfavorites Happy to share.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, you've really hit a loton communication you know, plus
technical skills.
So I guess what what Argentinahas is the overlap you know over
some of the other countries.
But can you talk a little morespecifically about any patterns
or things you've seen from a,especially from a communication
standpoint, when you're workingwith Argentina?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, I think.
Well, I think it varies.
You'll find some people thatare very shy or very English is
a second language, and so you'vegot to find, uh, some people
that kind of more in the feelcomfortable um communicating.
It also depends on the size ofthe team.
So when there, when we had alarger team, we didn't need
(26:49):
everyone to have be reallystrong in english.
Um, because we could, we couldrely on some of the uh the other
people to do to be moreeffective in that.
But the leaders uh had to havereally good communication skills
, had to be able to travel andspend time with us, same for
going to there, and so I thinkthe patterns are, you know, I
(27:10):
think not everyone iscomfortable or as skilled as in
speaking, and so, um, we, Ithink that we're good at written
communication.
Um, you gotta be a littleslower too, and like how you're
communicating things.
So don't be like I think, uh,after living in New York for 13
(27:32):
years, I can be very differenttimes.
I can be very rapid fire andand how I'm talking.
Uh, then I'm from Texas really,so I can be very laid back as
well, but tend to with businessI can just rapid fire and I
gotta make sure I don't do thatBe very articulate in what I'm
saying and give them time tothink about what we're doing and
not, you know, just not expectan immediate response or just a
(27:53):
constant dialogue back and forth.
There needs to be pauses inthere.
That's why writtencommunications really good tip
and if you see that from them, Ifeel really confident that
they're gonna be a great hire.
If you know what the otherskills that are there too.
But yeah, I, you know, I thinkI don't find like I will say I
don't know if an Argentina, thatthe skill set I've seen or the
(28:15):
patterns been different therethan I have seen in other
countries.
It's more, I think, just thatsecond language part of just
like where.
Where are they at that level?
Uh, and my Spanish is terrible,so I have to rely on them to to
do the heavy lifting for that,unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Um, yeah, is there anything else that?
Um, uh, you know, sometimespeople talk about, uh, the
passion you know of, you know ofthe country there and the
people, or in my experience I'veseen a lot more pushback
sometimes, like, if they don'tagree with the technical
(28:52):
decisions or the tradeoffs, youmight get that, and sometimes
you want that, sometimes youdon't.
You know, can you talk moreabout that?
Yeah, definitely, it's a reallygood point.
I'm sometimes you want that,sometimes you don't.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Can you talk more about that?
Yeah, definitely, it's a reallygood point.
I'm glad you brought that up.
Yeah, definitely, in someplaces you'll get the.
I'm just you tell me what youwant me to do, I'll go do it.
But there are the others thatreally kind of want to have a
discussion about the way it'sbeing implemented.
I would say, in my experience,eastern Europe, argentina, were
(29:25):
really good about pushing backor asking questions and
challenging, and I would sayIreland as well, and then in
then in other countries likeIndia and Jordan, I would say
those tend to, I mean, just,this is hate being so, not to
(29:48):
stereotype, but it's, you know,I'd say it's not fair to
everyone.
It's not everyone's like that,but yeah, but the, you know
there a lot of it's like waitingto be or not waiting.
We'll be, you tell them whatyou want to go do and they'll do
it, and they'll usually do itvery well.
Um, but they're not necessarilyquestioning it and I think that
you know it depends on whatpeople are looking for.
Uh, yeah, that's fit for them.
(30:09):
Um, and I personally like the,the challenge, I like people
pushing back and asking um, youknow, not always agreeing with
the way to do it, just my style,for as a manager, but in other
times you just kind of needpeople to follow do what I tell
you to do, don't question it,get it done type thing.
But you can find that anywhere.
(30:29):
Yeah, both personality typesexist, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
And I'm sure we'll.
We'll have quite a few softwareengineering leaders, you know,
listening to the show and if youhave any advice for them on,
like how stage of your companymight matter in, you know, this
is exactly what I want.
Just do it Versus you know, Idon't know, maybe earlier stage
(30:55):
you might want some morecollaboration and pushback.
Do you have an opinion on that?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, I mean I my opinion is always get the people
who go, get people who aregoing to challenge, even if um,
or try to get them to challengeum or ask questions, feel
comfortable with that.
That's just my opinion.
Um, at all stages of uh of acompany.
Um, I definitely think it'searlier.
It's important at the earlierstages because you're trying to
(31:22):
well, people could see thatdifferent ways.
Like, I see it that way becauseyou're you're young in what
you're doing, you want to makesure you're doing it right, you
want to hear various opinionsand also, at the earlier stages,
I like to go for more seniorpeople, which is not always
beneficial to the companybecause of cost, um, but uh, I
think the more it's.
(31:42):
I think it's a fallacy thatjust because you're hiring
cheaper labor, that you're going, or like younger people that
are less experienced, thatyou're saving the company money,
you're actually could bespending more because of
delivery time, um, notunderstanding trade-offs that
are being made.
So I actually like to emphasizefewer hires, more senior people
in the earlier stages, becauseI think it improves our chances
(32:07):
of getting it right, Excuse me,so in the later stages, I think
then you're looking for thatmore mix of skill sets.
You need your more seniorpeople, but you also need the
mix of people who are learningand being mentored and growing
in their career.
Because of the evolution ofit's a longer, more stable
company, you're going to havepeople there for multiple years.
You need to create that kind ofpyramid or that leveling and
(32:32):
give the people that are moresenior chances to mentor others.
So I try to think aboutstaffing or like where I go for
that.
But you do have to weigh in thecost factor to it.
So certain areas in LatinAmerica are more affordable, or
in South America than others,and same with Eastern Europe.
(32:54):
We were.
I think your Eastern Europeansalaries weren't too different
from salaries in the U S?
Um, so it wasn't about there,you know, it was about just
getting great people whereveryou happen to be Um.
It wasn't we were outsourcingfrom a cost perspective, um, it
was just we were trying to findthe best staff we could Um, and
(33:15):
then if you're looking, but ifyou're having to be cost
conscious, you have to look atwhere you're, what those
countries, what the, what theaverage salary is for those, and
so um, and you can get seniorpeople in those other countries,
um, but the pool may not be asbig as some of the others, like
in Argentina, there's a big pool.
It's a much larger populationthan if you were trying to go to
um.
You know, like a smaller, justa smaller country, like a
(33:38):
Honduras or something like that.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Yeah, it makes me think about your earlier point
about maybe fishing where othersaren't.
When you were in Jordan, youhad less competition.
There's great people everywhere.
Are you fishing in SanFrancisco with everybody else,
or?
Speaker 2 (33:55):
did you find some arbitrage, yeah, I think it's
harder to do that now because ofthe well, at least it was
recently because of the pandemicand then everybody working
remotely, with a lot ofcompanies forcing or pushing to
go back into the office.
That makes it easier forcompanies like us that are fully
remote to get back to that andfind talent in those areas that
(34:17):
others wouldn't maybe go pursue.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yeah, and then Peru has come up.
Yeah, we don't want to makethis only about Argentina.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
How did you?
How did you stumble into Peru?
You know, mexico and Argentinaseem to be on the in Colombia
seem to be on the, the morecommonly used nearshoring
countries.
Peru is a little less common,so we'd love to hear the story
around that.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah, so Scary Scorecard.
When I was working there, therewas already a relationship
established there and it wasspecifically because of the type
of tech we were doing and thecompany we were working with had
a lot of experience infunctional programming, a
specific language that we werelooking for, and it had really
good staff and we were finding,just as we were expanding our
(35:04):
tech stack, getting out of that,there were a lot of other
people within Peru that weremeeting some of the needs that
we had.
So we got excited about thatand kept recruiting and
expanding there, and I've beento Peru on uh on vacation for
myself not, unfortunately,business and it's also, you know
(35:26):
, phenomenal country to visit umand such a diverse geography.
Uh, it's really cool to get tovisit there.
Coming back to where I like togo travel, if I can now source
it, but anyway, the uh perudidn't work out that way for me.
I just was fortunate to travelthere earlier, but I would love
to get a chance to go back.
But good English skills,technical skills were.
(35:46):
I just didn't know what toexpect and been very impressed
with the people that we've hadthere and both now that we're
working, we work with you guyson as engines we are.
You know, we've hired a coupleof people there and they've been
doing a fantastic job and uh,so we just keep finding them
really good talent, good diversetalent too, around um,
(36:08):
different tech sex, um, and I'vebeen pretty, yeah, I think it's
.
Uh, it's not, it wasn't a placethat was on my radar a few
years ago, but like now when Ithink about it, uh, or like when
I think about where I want, ifI want to build a developer hub
in a specific area, especiallylike if we're going to try to
bring people togetheroccasionally we do know remote,
we want to get togetherperiodically it's we expand more
(36:30):
in our hiring.
We'll hire in the U?
S, but we'll also hire more inPeru, and but it's, you know, at
some point we'll probably allmeet up in Lima and just
somewhere central for them to beable to get to meet.
But yeah, talent there has beenreally great.
I think this is true with anycountry.
The largest thing I mean Ithink one of the hardest
(36:52):
considerations is figuring outhardware situation.
So, unfortunately, ourapplication requires pretty
hefty machines, like a lot ofRAM, and so it's not always easy
to get the latest and greatestinto the countries and so you
have to work with them to planfor that and just take a little
longer lead times and thinkabout the cost of that too.
(37:14):
So that's probably been thebiggest challenge for that
Actually, that is the biggestchallenge.
Outside of that, like technicalskills communication at least
with the people I've worked withhave have been there really
been really good, on par withwhat I've seen in other
countries as well.
Have you seen the challenge andchallenging trade offs,
(37:39):
challenging that you that youmight see in other places too
you know, um, you know, I thinkI think the I'm still learning,
I think I'm still learning a lotabout Peru.
I think there were, you know,kind of come back to mixed
personality or like the types ofpersonality types I've seen
both.
They're like people who arejust do what you want, they'll
get it done.
Then there's the other of hey,I'll question and challenge you,
(38:02):
and I think that kind of haswhat's in your already in
comfort level, um, and so thatpart's been good.
I think, uh, what has beenreally uh beneficial to us is,
uh, the cost of the mark, uh,the labor market there is, um,
the cost of labor is much uhbetter for us and or us, than
(38:22):
for, like some of the othercountries, like in Argentina.
Argentina is just a lot moreexpensive and I think the cost
of living there is much higherthan it is especially with
inflation than it is in Peru.
So that is, you know, I haven'tI don't think I've really run
into challenges from staffing orlike the type of skill sets and
stuff like that.
It's all been on par with whatI've experienced in other places
(38:45):
and and financially good aswell.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
That's great to hear.
Yeah, we've.
We've had a few people fromPeru on the pod, including
startup founders in Peru thathave raised VC money from the US
, and they're just able tocompete.
There's a lot less competitionbecause the domestic Peruvian
companies just can't touch it.
(39:14):
So I'm sure, as you're fishingagain, I think a common theme of
the show is arbitrage andfinding untapped markets,
whether it's Jordan or Lima, andit's great to hear that.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah, and thinking about people in Peru raising
money from VCs in the US.
I think that reminds me.
I think, depending on the kindof company you are, what are you
looking for in the people?
Are people comfortable withrisk and doing a startup?
And I haven't seen anyone inPeru concerned about that, and
(39:51):
so there's like I've usually hadlong relationships like very
little turnover with the peoplethat I've worked with and
obviously as engines we're stillvery early on, so wouldn't
expect that.
But previous company veryconsistent and I um, that was
really nice.
So like getting you can build ateam there and not worry about
it changing on you too toofrequently, which is, uh, very
helpful because you invest a lotof time in getting the building
(40:13):
up the knowledge.
So I think you know in thesecountries, where do people feel
comfortable or the type of riskare they willing to take is
important too.
Um, like I think some placesthat in some countries have
worked people were very typical,like wanted to be at the large
companies of uh who they workedfor is a large part of their
identity.
Uh and uh that you know it'sbrand names mattered, but in
(40:35):
some comp, in some countries,that doesn't matter as much,
like they don't.
It doesn't.
It's not as much about theiridentity, it doesn't and and
it's not as impressive about thename of the company they're
working for.
It's about they care more about.
What are they getting to do?
and what skills are theydeveloping and learning, getting
to work on.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I want to be berespectful of your time.
You've already been so generous, Kevin Ruben.
What do we miss?
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Is there anything that we should be asking?
Yeah, there was one thing.
You know, kevin, every day whenwe're talking to our clients,
prospects and over the last yearand a half we've heard this
over and over again the reasonto go near shore has been time
zone alignment.
I mean, that's been the numberone, overwhelming reason.
Of course, there's other thingscost, cultural affinity, things
like that.
I'm just wondering, from yourperspective, how does that
(41:23):
affect your projects, theefficiency, how quickly you can
get things done?
If you can just speak a littlebit to that, that would be great
.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Yeah, the time zone part is extremely critical, just
for, I mean, I believe inasynchronous communication and
not having everybody be on thesame hours.
I believe in asynchronouscommunication and not having to
have everybody be on the samehours, but the fact that the
majority of your day is spentthe same time.
It's easy to get together, haveimpromptu meetings, just to get
together and talk, especiallydevelopers wanting to be able to
(41:53):
jump on a call, just do ahuddle on Slack for 10 minutes
and so do that at any point inthe day or in the afternoon.
It's extremely important,especially when I think about
our stage of company.
We have to be very careful thatwe are hitting the milestones
that we're trying to accomplishso that it sets up the business
(42:14):
to be successful.
So that, to me, was extremelyimportant, extremely important.
So when we started discussingdoing some outsourcing as
engines, I could have easilyhave gone to some really good
partners that I have in EasternEurope and gotten very good
talent.
It would have been moreexpensive, but I was less
concerned about that than I wasthe overlap, the time in order
(42:37):
to quickly have a discussion,not having to wait until the
next day to have it, or, and soI just uh, I think having on
that same time zone, or verysimilar time zones, extremely,
uh, just too, really justextremely important at that
earlier stage and I think kindof depends on this it could be
us as a company, but it could beat your, any other company the
(42:59):
stage of the product, um, thatthey're working on, the things
that are working, it's veryearly on having lots of
discussions and being able tocommunicate is so important.
When it gets more mature, youcan rely on little uh, um, more
formal channels to have acommunication about stuff, plan
things a little more ahead, souh, but yeah, that's was the.
That time zone was a number onefactor, uh, for one factor for
(43:22):
Zinjins and for me when we werelooking at a partner for
outsourcing.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
That's great.
That's great and, of course,what you said about the great
testament to the country of Peruthat probably a lot of the
people listening today aren'tgoing to be thinking about in
terms of finding talent, whereyou have found some excellent
talent, and that exists in othercountries around Latin America
as well where you have foundsome excellent talent, and that
exists in other countries aroundLatin America as well.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Man, they should go to Columbia, peru or whatever.
Columbia or Brazil, stay out ofPeru.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Stay out of Peru.
That's great, Kevin.
Is there anything else?
Like any last words of adviceyou might give other VPs of
engineering that have nevernearshored before Advice, so
(44:11):
they have some success as theybegin their journey down this
path.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Yeah, I think being really good at written
communication, clear with whatto expect how you're going to
work with them, is is is reallyimportant.
Spending time with them andtreating them like you, almost
like you do an employee of like,helping, coach and mentor,
spend time getting to know them,building just building those
personal connections that youwould with any full-time
(44:36):
employee is extremely importantto do.
I think the more you treat themthat way, instead of a hired
gun or like just a mercenary uh,the better off you'll be
because they'll be really vestedin what they're trying to do.
And I have found some, you know, when people understand what
they're trying to accomplish andare part of that overall goal
and not treat it as just thatmercenary type, delivery is
(44:58):
phenomenal and I can just causethey're part of the and they
really contribute, contributebusiness ideas, to what you're
doing.
So I would say, uh, treat themas much as you can legally as an
employee and uh and uh andinclude them in everything that
you can uh as a part of thecompany.
And if you can send swag, sendswag, you know.
(45:19):
Just a little bit.
Those little things matter andare important.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
That's great advice.
I think I've seen this in myown career of sometimes there
can be an us versus them.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Oh yeah, If you just make it us and us.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
It makes all the difference.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
If you can afford it, bring them to visit and get
your team together or go visit.
I have found I've been in thosefinger, those finger pointing
situations where that us versusthem almost all the time.
That gets removed as soon asthey start spending time
together.
Spend a little bit of time,just get to know each other on a
more personal level, not justthe person over a camera.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah, great advice.
Well, kevin, this has beenabsolutely fantastic.
We went a little over.
Hope you don't mind, but thishas just been a world of gems,
so appreciate that.
Yeah, thanks, enjoyed it.
We'll thank our sponsor, plugTechnologies, once more.
That's pluggtech.
Great way to find softwaredevelopers from Latin America
(46:16):
for growing US companies.
Thanks again for listening tothe Nearshore Cafe podcast.
See you next time.
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