October 30, 2025 • 23 mins
Global hiring is shifting — fast. In 2025, U.S. companies are moving away from India and Asia, turning instead to Latin America for tech talent, loyalty, and time-zone alignment.
In this episode of The Nearshore Cafe Podcast, host Brian Samson, Founder of Plugg Technologies, talks with Evan Greenberg, Director of Client Solutions at Plugg, about what’s really driving this transformation.
They discuss the massive rise in nearshoring, how AI and data roles are reshaping recruiting, and why Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina are becoming the new global tech hubs.
You’ll also learn about the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model that’s helping startups and mid-market companies scale fast — without the headaches of compliance or setup.
From fake resumes to loyalty challenges and H-1B visa changes, this episode breaks down the biggest staffing stories of the year — straight from the front lines of hiring.
🎧 Listen now to hear how Latin America is redefining the future of remote work, loyalty, and innovation.
🎧 Host | Brian Samson – Founder of 💻 Plugg Technologies
🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/briansamson/
🎙️ Sponsored by Plugg Technologies – Connecting U.S. companies with top-tier software developers across Latin America.
🌐 https://www.plugg.tech
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:08):
Welcome to another episode of the Nearshore Cafe
Podcast.
I'm your host, Brian Sampson.
Before we get into this episode,let me thank our sponsor, Plug
Technologies, PLUG.tech.
Great way to connect LatinAmerica talent with growing U.S.
(00:29):
companies.
If you want to know what'strending right now in the world
of staffing, Latin Americastaffing, near shoring, AI, H1B
visas, this is going to be agreat episode for you.
We've got Evan Greenberg alsowith our sponsor company, Plug.
(00:50):
Evan is the director of clientsolutions.
Evan, great to see you again.
This is your second time on theshow.
It is.
Thanks for having me back.
Absolutely.
Well, you're in it.
You're talking to customers allday, prospects all day, uh,
you're reading, you're right onthe front lines.
(01:14):
Tell us about 2025.
If you could kind of sum up,we're almost 10 months through
the year.
Kind of sum up like what did thestaffing industry feel like this
year?
And then uh I'll also get intolater what you see coming down
the road.
But let's just kind of look lookuh at the past for a minute.
(01:35):
The last 10 months, how wouldyou summarize that?
SPEAKER_01 (01:38):
Yeah, sure.
So definitely uh feel likethere's a huge shift to Latin
America.
Again, we we hear it every day,every week, in terms of
companies really being attractedto the talent pool, attracted to
time zone overlap.
Um companies really want peoplethat are gonna stay longer.
(02:00):
Um really attracted to the ideathat in Latin America I feel
like people are a little bitmore loyal, and you know, that's
definitely a big thing.
Um, I would say there's a hugeshift from companies kind of
going from India to LatinAmerica as well for all
different types of jobs, butdefinitely kind of see that as
(02:23):
well.
SPEAKER_00 (02:23):
Yeah, um, I see that too.
See, there's two things that Iwanted to hit on a little more.
You talked about the loyaltyfactor, and I agree.
Tenure seems to be a lot quickerin the U.S.
You know, we're only a few yearsremoved from quiet quitting.
Employees are constantly lookingfor new things.
Also, you know, unemploymentrate is still relatively low in
(02:47):
the U.S.
That means that recruiters areconstantly working hard, you
know, to poach talent.
Tell me more about loyalty inLatin America.
Like what contributes to that?
Why are why is the talent alittle bit more loyal than they
might be in the States?
Sure.
SPEAKER_01 (03:01):
Again, from my conversations in my experience,
it just seems like people are alittle more dedicated, super
hardworking.
Again, we we recruit across manydifferent countries, mostly
Mexico, Brazil.
But yeah, just seeing a lot ofjust seeing a lot of people kind
of just being more loyal than Iwould say US talent, um, and
(03:23):
maybe other places as well.
I would say one other thing uhin terms of kind of trends this
year, um, and maybe I'm kind ofgetting ahead, but I'll mention
it.
Kind of the whole like build,operate, transfer model.
A lot of companies are wantingto secure like office uh office
space in certain countries, butthey don't want to handle
compliance, payroll, and techsetup.
(03:45):
That's becoming more popular.
A lot of companies, you know,may you know have a huge
operation, but they might wantan office or something to have
an entity and kind of scale up.
And that's actually kind of anew offering for us, just
because we've seen a lot ofinterest in that area.
SPEAKER_00 (04:05):
Yeah.
Do you see, I mean, theoptionality, I think, of that is
really key for companies.
Do you see that as more of alarger company request or are
small startups looking at thatas well?
SPEAKER_01 (04:19):
Yeah, I think I mean, I think it can be both.
We definitely, we definitely seea lot of for for larger
companies, they may already havean entity.
Or they might have multipleoffices in Latin America or in a
country.
For that small and medium, youknow, they may only have
operated in the US, maybe UK,and they want to build, um,
build out their infrastructureand people in Mexico, for
(04:41):
instance.
So it might make more sense forthem.
Obviously, firms, you know,bigger companies might have
multiple offices in one country.
So, like I said, they might bemore down the path.
SPEAKER_00 (04:51):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And then, you know, we we alsotalked about um, you know, we've
talked about loyalty, we'vetalked about um kind of this
trend towards near shoring.
But let's dig into that a littlebit more.
Um are you seeing certaincountries that are like more
popular than others that arebeing requested and kind of why?
(05:15):
You know, why why is thathappening?
Yeah, for well, not for somereason, but for a good reason.
SPEAKER_01 (05:20):
Yeah.
I've played Mexico and Brazilrecently.
I feel Brazil, I I'm gonna touchon this a little later, but from
Brazil's perspective, you know,seven million people speaking
English, 150 million internetusers, um, I think more than
16,000 startups, you know.
(05:42):
Obviously, they're uh, you know,on a great path to being, you
know, a tech powerhouse ifthey're not already, right?
A lot of roles in Brazil are arebeing, you know, kind of data
cloud AI driven.
So I think a lot of that comesfrom education system.
I would say um, I'll say onemore thing would be um the fact
(06:06):
that um you know companies aredefinitely kind of looking
beyond, let's just say, youknow, India and certain places
in Asia.
Um and uh Brazil also being in asimilar time zone to East Coast
um and just the whole US, um,you know, makes it really
attractive.
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (06:26):
How about how about for Mexico?
SPEAKER_01 (06:28):
Yeah, I think for Mexico similar.
Obviously, Mexico City, 25million people, a really good
education system, uh really gooduniversity in Monterey as well.
Um, definitely makes for kind ofthat that near shore kind of
hub.
Even even in other places inMexico, seeing a lot of talent
in Guadalajara, even in theYucatan, in Merida, good talent
(06:49):
as well.
So yeah, I think that's yeah,we're we're also seeing that.
SPEAKER_00 (06:55):
Yeah, I I wanted to um also dive a little bit into
something that I think is on theminds of a lot of people, you
know, as the Trumpadministration is uh revising
the H1B uh posting fee, which isessentially what it is, three
thousand dollar uh in the past,jumping enormous to a hundred
(07:22):
thousand dollar uh H1B postingfee.
What does that mean?
Like, what does that mean forstaffing companies?
What does that mean for India?
What does that mean for nearshore?
Would love to get your take.
SPEAKER_01 (07:35):
Yeah, no, I think it definitely I think it changes
the game for US companies tolook elsewhere, right?
Where traditionally maybethey're in India, other
countries.
I think it definitely opens thefloodgates for Latin America
because you know, they can beyou can access talent much
quicker, lower cost, same kindof cultural alignment.
(07:57):
And time zone, which I alreadymentioned.
And I think it'll continue tokind of be a big thing,
especially in the AI kind ofdata front, where companies with
the boom of AI is just creatingmore data roles, data data
engineer, cloud engineer typeroles.
Um, so I definitely feel likethat's um gonna become more
prevalent in yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:18):
Well, let's talk about the conversations you're
having with hiring managers.
Uh, you know, first off, kind ofset the stage for us.
Are you talking to startups?
Are you talking to bigcompanies?
Are you talking to engineeringleaders, other roles?
Kind of set the scene a littlebit for us.
(08:40):
And then tell us what's on theirmind.
You know, what are they thinkingabout right now?
Sure.
SPEAKER_01 (08:46):
So yeah, I would say it's yeah, it's a mixture of
small to medium, someenterprises as well.
But yeah, I would say mostlysmall to mid-market.
Yeah, for us, a lot of here,things that I'm hearing are
frustrations with when it comesto vetting taking too long, high
turnover, project delays, thingsof that nature.
(09:07):
Even in several cases, I heardum a head of engineering mention
that he had a quota on hiring.
So again, when you think aboutwhen you think about that, you
know, personal impact, itdefinitely kind of changes the
game.
So yeah, I mostly speak to CIOs,CTOs, head of engineering types
when it comes to softwareengineering jobs.
SPEAKER_00 (09:29):
Yeah, tell us more, like what are they worried
about, what are they excitedabout?
Sure.
SPEAKER_01 (09:35):
Yeah, I think the biggest worry is I would say
wasted wasted time, almost yeah,well, wasted time in terms of
taking away their time fromtechnical uh projects and kind
of critical thinking about thebusiness um and having to spend
you know man hours onrecruiting.
It's not something that maybe ahead of engineering wants to
(09:58):
spend 10 hours a week doing.
So I definitely hear that a lot.
I would say in many cases,companies want kind of the
ability to like plug and play.
So they don't want they wantsomeone that can come in, that
stays, that's loyal, but thatcan also mesh with their team.
So I definitely have seen thatas well.
(10:19):
I would say another one, and wekind of already talked about it,
but a lot of people are gettingfrustrated with time zone issues
with South Asia.
Um, and I keep mentioning itbecause it's probably it's
probably one of the number onethings I hear.
I probably hear it once a week,right?
So from a from a projectstandpoint, you know, you're
missing out on hours and hoursand hours because of misaligned
(10:42):
time, and that's definitely afrustration.
Um I would say another one isnot bad resumes, but resumes
that also waste hiring managers'time.
Yeah.
So um I've seen that be a bigone where again, a head of
engineering doesn't want tospend X hours combing resumes
(11:04):
and then figuring out that evenin some cases like fake resumes.
And so having an extra layer tokind of sift through the
resumes, um save them a lot oftime is definitely something
that I hear about.
SPEAKER_00 (11:18):
Uh yeah, are you s yeah, I I I didn't realize this
trend.
Tell us more about the the fakeresumes.
Is this because of AI or likewhat what's going on with this?
I think so.
SPEAKER_01 (11:30):
I mean, honestly, a client complained to me a couple
weeks ago about it, and theypretty much said that you know
people are even if they don'tlive in the US, they might say
they do.
So it's so it's wasting time.
And then there's all sorts ofyou know job scams and whatnot.
So again, uh using a staffpartner like us, we kind of sift
(11:52):
through that, uh, just make itseamless for a for a hiring
manager to uh bring on talent.
SPEAKER_00 (11:59):
Yeah.
You know, and I think oftencompanies don't calculate the
cost of their hiring manager'stime very, very you know,
correctly.
Um they might just look at itlike the true hourly rate.
Like their hiring manager makes$150,000 a year, so it's$75 an
(12:19):
hour.
But the opportunity cost of thathiring manager directing the
team, moving roadblocks,creating a vision, who ain't,
dealing with executives.
I mean, this is really like athousand dollar an hour type
work, right?
That they're being pulled awayfrom by dealing with fake
(12:41):
resumes and all this otherstuff.
SPEAKER_02 (12:43):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (12:44):
How does how do how do you and the rest of the plug
team um vet out some of the fakeresumes, fake candidates to save
that thousand dollar an hourtime?
SPEAKER_01 (12:56):
Yeah, I think it comes down to attention to
detail, understanding theclient's job description, having
multiple conversations with usbefore they even kind of get to
the client.
Yeah.
So I feel like that definitelyum yeah, that definitely fills
the gap.
SPEAKER_00 (13:10):
Yeah, yeah.
Creates a much tighterconversion, right?
Of candidates that thatinterview are much more aligned.
So then it just becomes aboutculture and domain knowledge,
not is this person in Sri Lankareally?
But they're saying that they'rein, you know, Minnesota or
Mexico.
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (13:30):
Exactly.
And then one other one otherthing, sorry, one other thing I
didn't touch on earlier.
One thing I hear a lot and seena lot uh recently, um with small
to medium companies, evenlarger, is just you know the
cost of an engineer in a majorcity in the US, right?
I mean, on average, probably 150to even 500 uh K a year.
(13:52):
Right.
In obviously in Latin America,it's much less.
But even beyond that, you know,the overall talent in Latin
America is super strong withwith big hubs like I already we
already mentioned, kind ofMexico City, Argentina Argentina
as well, and and Brazil.
So just wanted to mention thatas well.
SPEAKER_00 (14:13):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
For sure.
Well, I mean, you've had uh anice success story um in the
recent months, uh bringing nearshore talent to a client.
Tell us more about that.
Kind of set the scene, what kindof industry were they in?
What kind of size are they?
What were they looking to filland and what you did there?
SPEAKER_01 (14:36):
Yeah, yeah, happy to share one.
Um, of course, I'll keep thename confidential.
Yeah, I recently um worked witha uh cloud-focused tech firm uh
out of the US uh West Coast.
They were kind of building outtheir engineering team.
So full stack, front-end, and uhprincipal engineer.
(14:57):
Some things they were runninginto were kind of regional
hiring blocks, I would say.
So they were open to the idea ofnear shore.
They were also exploring Europeas well, but ultimately decided
with near shore.
Um, a couple things that kind ofstood out for them.
Again, they, you know, werefrustrated with some previous
(15:19):
outsourcing issues, most of themkind of communication in time
zone, I would say.
I would say um, I guess anotherthing was that you know, lost
productivity of you know,waiting too long to hire
somebody.
SPEAKER_00 (15:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (15:34):
Was kind was definitely affecting them.
In terms of the value webrought, in terms of the value,
you know, I would say a kind ofrapid turnaround.
I mean, we quickly quickly madethem a team of two to three in,
you know, a matter of weeks, notmonths.
Another thing that kind of stoodout there, you know, we we kind
of aligned a job descriptionfrom the get-go.
That was really nice to you knownot have any issues in terms of
(15:59):
misalignment.
Um, just kind of workingtogether there.
I would also say, again, somereasons kind of they picked us.
Again, it came down to it camedown to uh the ability to uh you
know build a team quick, findreally good talent.
In this case, you know, we foundtalent in Brazil.
They're very cloud-centric, likeI mentioned.
(16:19):
So they were looking for prettyspecific kind of um technical
requirements.
Again, with plug, we don't wedon't have a bench necessarily,
so we go recruit for each foreach role.
I feel like that stood outbecause we found you know
several excellent people.
I'll say some other things thatkind of stood out were the yeah,
just kind of listening to theclient, right?
For specific traits that theywere looking for.
(16:42):
You know, some things they weretelling me were like someone
that really shows initiative,being able to prioritize system
design, um, you know, otherthings like that, and just kind
of throughout the the processbeing able to um, you know, find
the right people for them andmake them happy with that.
SPEAKER_00 (17:00):
There's something that I wanted to dive deeper
into what you just said, andthat was they wanted engineers
that showed the initiative.
And I think maybe a commonmisnomer is you know, engineers
in the US kind of have the senseof urgency, they're
self-starters.
Once they kind of build thebuild an architect, the code
(17:20):
base, then you throw it over thewall to people to like maintain
it, right?
And um, but maybe maybe that'snot correct.
Uh companies are able to getself-starter, innovative
engineers that can build thingsfrom Latin America.
Tell us tell us about thatperception and you know, myth
(17:40):
versus reality.
SPEAKER_01 (17:43):
Yeah, I think in this case, I think in this case
it was interesting because theyactually ended up going with or
they actually ended up pickingengineers that were, I would
say, you know, pretty young,right?
But they were young, but theywere self-starters, showed that
initiative, serious about theirwork, and I feel like that was
something that they reallyvalued, right?
So again, you know, a lot ofcompanies may have you know 10
(18:08):
years on a on a JD, but um Ifeel like you know, in this
case, they were really theyreally knew what they were
looking for and were open to um,you know, really good young
talent.
SPEAKER_02 (18:23):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (18:24):
Okay, okay, good.
SPEAKER_00 (18:27):
All right, well, let's talk more about uh AI.
It's on everybody's mind, it'snot a new thing anymore.
You know, companies are usingit, and they want to stay, they
want to stay current or maybeeven ahead.
What are they doing to make surethey've got the resources,
they've got the talent, and howdoes nearshoring play into this,
(18:49):
this arms race for AI?
SPEAKER_01 (18:50):
Yeah, no, I think it plays a major role.
Everyone's probably seen theopen AI investment recently in
Argentina, the$25 billion.
I think that will only kind ofincrease the awareness of AI and
kind of data jobs kind of movingto Latin America.
I also think with the boom ofAI, and I kind of mentioned this
earlier, it's leading to a lotof kind of new new titles.
(19:15):
So, like prompt engineer, evenum, there's all sorts of new
titles kind of spinning off fromAI.
Yeah.
I feel like um, yeah, I mean, wesee it, we see it every week in
terms of, you know, I need an AIengineer, I need a data
engineer.
We're also seeing, you know, alot of interest in uh, you know,
(19:37):
data bricks, snowflake typeroles as well.
I mean, that also comes fromkind of the AI boom and just
kind of more, more data, morerise on it.
unknown (19:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:47):
But yeah, with the AI boom, I definitely feel like
it's obviously it does take alot of jobs, but it also creates
a lot of jobs.
SPEAKER_00 (19:55):
Yeah, yeah.
As we talked about, Evan, you'reyou're our returning guest on
the show.
Last time we really dug intoyou're a world traveler.
You've been to a lot ofdifferent places.
Is there any place that wedidn't get into last time you
were here that you'd like toshare more to the listeners and
maybe maybe drive some interestover there?
SPEAKER_01 (20:18):
Yeah, there definitely is.
So I don't I don't think Itouched on this last time.
We we did talk about severalcountries and cities and
whatnot.
I wanted to talk about Oaxaca,actually.
So I went to Oaxaca a coupleyears back before I had a baby,
and it was kind of funny how westumbled upon it, but our we
were supposed to go to MexicoCity and it was during COVID,
(20:39):
and obviously everything shutdown.
Right.
Well, the hotel that I wassupposed to go to shut down and
opened up in Oaxaca.
So I had this credit that I hadto use like in a two-year time
frame or something, right?
But then I started doing moredigging on Oaxaca, and you know,
I'm really into food culture,fan of Mezcau.
Yeah.
So we went to Oaxaca, right?
(21:00):
We went to Oaxaca City.
I just think it's a reallyunderappreciated place.
I think Oaxaca in general hasthey speak like I think they
have 16 different likeindigenous groups in Oaxaca,
which is pretty interesting.
I thought the food culture wasamazing.
When we landed, I mean, I almostfelt like we were in like a
huge, huge city, but it wasreally Oaxaca City and it wasn't
(21:20):
that big.
I almost felt like I was in likea Miami bar, but I was in Oaxaca
City.
So yeah, I definitely,definitely recommend uh Oaxaca
for anyone thinking abouttravel, you know, outside of
Mexico City or Cancun.
It's just a great place, reallygood, really good coffee as
well.
Um yeah, I just wanted to wantedto share that.
SPEAKER_00 (21:40):
Okay.
Cool.
Cool.
Well, hopefully that inspiressome people, maybe myself, to go
check it out.
Yeah, I do recommend it.
Yeah, any any final thoughts,notes that we didn't touch on in
the show that you want ourlisteners to know before we we
wrap up?
SPEAKER_01 (22:00):
I think we I think we touched on a lot.
I mean, again, there's a hugesurge of business kind of moving
to Latin America.
I mean, I've seen it like in myfamily.
My wife works at a at Lenovo,big computer company.
They've had teams in Costa Ricafor years, mostly on the sales
side.
Uh, but even HubSpot.
(22:21):
They've had teams of customersuccess managers, salespeople in
Colombia for a number of yearsas well.
So I think it's no, I think it'sno um, I think it's no surprise
that companies are moving toLatin America, and I do think
we'll see you know more of thatmoving into next year.
SPEAKER_00 (22:39):
Good stuff.
Well, Evan, thanks so much foryour time here on the show.
Summarizing trends, uh,reviewing this 2025, looking
ahead, uh, some really greatstuff.
Thanks again to our sponsor,Plug Technologies, P L U G G dot
tech.
Great way to connect talent allover Latin America with U.S.
(23:03):
companies.
This is the Nearshore CafePodcast.
I'm Brian Sampson.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome to another episode of the Nearshore Cafe
Podcast.
I'm your host, Brian Sampson.
Before we get into this episode,let me thank our sponsor, Plug
Technologies, PLUG.tech.
Great way to connect LatinAmerica talent with growing U.S.
(00:29):
companies.
If you want to know what'strending right now in the world
of staffing, Latin Americastaffing, near shoring, AI, H1B
visas, this is going to be agreat episode for you.
We've got Evan Greenberg alsowith our sponsor company, Plug.
(00:50):
Evan is the director of clientsolutions.
Evan, great to see you again.
This is your second time on theshow.
It is.
Thanks for having me back.
Absolutely.
Well, you're in it.
You're talking to customers allday, prospects all day, uh,
you're reading, you're right onthe front lines.
(01:14):
Tell us about 2025.
If you could kind of sum up,we're almost 10 months through
the year.
Kind of sum up like what did thestaffing industry feel like this
year?
And then uh I'll also get intolater what you see coming down
the road.
But let's just kind of look lookuh at the past for a minute.
(01:35):
The last 10 months, how wouldyou summarize that?
SPEAKER_01 (01:38):
Yeah, sure.
So definitely uh feel likethere's a huge shift to Latin
America.
Again, we we hear it every day,every week, in terms of
companies really being attractedto the talent pool, attracted to
time zone overlap.
Um companies really want peoplethat are gonna stay longer.
(02:00):
Um really attracted to the ideathat in Latin America I feel
like people are a little bitmore loyal, and you know, that's
definitely a big thing.
Um, I would say there's a hugeshift from companies kind of
going from India to LatinAmerica as well for all
different types of jobs, butdefinitely kind of see that as
(02:23):
well.
SPEAKER_00 (02:23):
Yeah, um, I see that too.
See, there's two things that Iwanted to hit on a little more.
You talked about the loyaltyfactor, and I agree.
Tenure seems to be a lot quickerin the U.S.
You know, we're only a few yearsremoved from quiet quitting.
Employees are constantly lookingfor new things.
Also, you know, unemploymentrate is still relatively low in
(02:47):
the U.S.
That means that recruiters areconstantly working hard, you
know, to poach talent.
Tell me more about loyalty inLatin America.
Like what contributes to that?
Why are why is the talent alittle bit more loyal than they
might be in the States?
Sure.
SPEAKER_01 (03:01):
Again, from my conversations in my experience,
it just seems like people are alittle more dedicated, super
hardworking.
Again, we we recruit across manydifferent countries, mostly
Mexico, Brazil.
But yeah, just seeing a lot ofjust seeing a lot of people kind
of just being more loyal than Iwould say US talent, um, and
(03:23):
maybe other places as well.
I would say one other thing uhin terms of kind of trends this
year, um, and maybe I'm kind ofgetting ahead, but I'll mention
it.
Kind of the whole like build,operate, transfer model.
A lot of companies are wantingto secure like office uh office
space in certain countries, butthey don't want to handle
compliance, payroll, and techsetup.
(03:45):
That's becoming more popular.
A lot of companies, you know,may you know have a huge
operation, but they might wantan office or something to have
an entity and kind of scale up.
And that's actually kind of anew offering for us, just
because we've seen a lot ofinterest in that area.
SPEAKER_00 (04:05):
Yeah.
Do you see, I mean, theoptionality, I think, of that is
really key for companies.
Do you see that as more of alarger company request or are
small startups looking at thatas well?
SPEAKER_01 (04:19):
Yeah, I think I mean, I think it can be both.
We definitely, we definitely seea lot of for for larger
companies, they may already havean entity.
Or they might have multipleoffices in Latin America or in a
country.
For that small and medium, youknow, they may only have
operated in the US, maybe UK,and they want to build, um,
build out their infrastructureand people in Mexico, for
(04:41):
instance.
So it might make more sense forthem.
Obviously, firms, you know,bigger companies might have
multiple offices in one country.
So, like I said, they might bemore down the path.
SPEAKER_00 (04:51):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And then, you know, we we alsotalked about um, you know, we've
talked about loyalty, we'vetalked about um kind of this
trend towards near shoring.
But let's dig into that a littlebit more.
Um are you seeing certaincountries that are like more
popular than others that arebeing requested and kind of why?
(05:15):
You know, why why is thathappening?
Yeah, for well, not for somereason, but for a good reason.
SPEAKER_01 (05:20):
Yeah.
I've played Mexico and Brazilrecently.
I feel Brazil, I I'm gonna touchon this a little later, but from
Brazil's perspective, you know,seven million people speaking
English, 150 million internetusers, um, I think more than
16,000 startups, you know.
(05:42):
Obviously, they're uh, you know,on a great path to being, you
know, a tech powerhouse ifthey're not already, right?
A lot of roles in Brazil are arebeing, you know, kind of data
cloud AI driven.
So I think a lot of that comesfrom education system.
I would say um, I'll say onemore thing would be um the fact
(06:06):
that um you know companies aredefinitely kind of looking
beyond, let's just say, youknow, India and certain places
in Asia.
Um and uh Brazil also being in asimilar time zone to East Coast
um and just the whole US, um,you know, makes it really
attractive.
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (06:26):
How about how about for Mexico?
SPEAKER_01 (06:28):
Yeah, I think for Mexico similar.
Obviously, Mexico City, 25million people, a really good
education system, uh really gooduniversity in Monterey as well.
Um, definitely makes for kind ofthat that near shore kind of
hub.
Even even in other places inMexico, seeing a lot of talent
in Guadalajara, even in theYucatan, in Merida, good talent
(06:49):
as well.
So yeah, I think that's yeah,we're we're also seeing that.
SPEAKER_00 (06:55):
Yeah, I I wanted to um also dive a little bit into
something that I think is on theminds of a lot of people, you
know, as the Trumpadministration is uh revising
the H1B uh posting fee, which isessentially what it is, three
thousand dollar uh in the past,jumping enormous to a hundred
(07:22):
thousand dollar uh H1B postingfee.
What does that mean?
Like, what does that mean forstaffing companies?
What does that mean for India?
What does that mean for nearshore?
Would love to get your take.
SPEAKER_01 (07:35):
Yeah, no, I think it definitely I think it changes
the game for US companies tolook elsewhere, right?
Where traditionally maybethey're in India, other
countries.
I think it definitely opens thefloodgates for Latin America
because you know, they can beyou can access talent much
quicker, lower cost, same kindof cultural alignment.
(07:57):
And time zone, which I alreadymentioned.
And I think it'll continue tokind of be a big thing,
especially in the AI kind ofdata front, where companies with
the boom of AI is just creatingmore data roles, data data
engineer, cloud engineer typeroles.
Um, so I definitely feel likethat's um gonna become more
prevalent in yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:18):
Well, let's talk about the conversations you're
having with hiring managers.
Uh, you know, first off, kind ofset the stage for us.
Are you talking to startups?
Are you talking to bigcompanies?
Are you talking to engineeringleaders, other roles?
Kind of set the scene a littlebit for us.
(08:40):
And then tell us what's on theirmind.
You know, what are they thinkingabout right now?
Sure.
SPEAKER_01 (08:46):
So yeah, I would say it's yeah, it's a mixture of
small to medium, someenterprises as well.
But yeah, I would say mostlysmall to mid-market.
Yeah, for us, a lot of here,things that I'm hearing are
frustrations with when it comesto vetting taking too long, high
turnover, project delays, thingsof that nature.
(09:07):
Even in several cases, I heardum a head of engineering mention
that he had a quota on hiring.
So again, when you think aboutwhen you think about that, you
know, personal impact, itdefinitely kind of changes the
game.
So yeah, I mostly speak to CIOs,CTOs, head of engineering types
when it comes to softwareengineering jobs.
SPEAKER_00 (09:29):
Yeah, tell us more, like what are they worried
about, what are they excitedabout?
Sure.
SPEAKER_01 (09:35):
Yeah, I think the biggest worry is I would say
wasted wasted time, almost yeah,well, wasted time in terms of
taking away their time fromtechnical uh projects and kind
of critical thinking about thebusiness um and having to spend
you know man hours onrecruiting.
It's not something that maybe ahead of engineering wants to
(09:58):
spend 10 hours a week doing.
So I definitely hear that a lot.
I would say in many cases,companies want kind of the
ability to like plug and play.
So they don't want they wantsomeone that can come in, that
stays, that's loyal, but thatcan also mesh with their team.
So I definitely have seen thatas well.
(10:19):
I would say another one, and wekind of already talked about it,
but a lot of people are gettingfrustrated with time zone issues
with South Asia.
Um, and I keep mentioning itbecause it's probably it's
probably one of the number onethings I hear.
I probably hear it once a week,right?
So from a from a projectstandpoint, you know, you're
missing out on hours and hoursand hours because of misaligned
(10:42):
time, and that's definitely afrustration.
Um I would say another one isnot bad resumes, but resumes
that also waste hiring managers'time.
Yeah.
So um I've seen that be a bigone where again, a head of
engineering doesn't want tospend X hours combing resumes
(11:04):
and then figuring out that evenin some cases like fake resumes.
And so having an extra layer tokind of sift through the
resumes, um save them a lot oftime is definitely something
that I hear about.
SPEAKER_00 (11:18):
Uh yeah, are you s yeah, I I I didn't realize this
trend.
Tell us more about the the fakeresumes.
Is this because of AI or likewhat what's going on with this?
I think so.
SPEAKER_01 (11:30):
I mean, honestly, a client complained to me a couple
weeks ago about it, and theypretty much said that you know
people are even if they don'tlive in the US, they might say
they do.
So it's so it's wasting time.
And then there's all sorts ofyou know job scams and whatnot.
So again, uh using a staffpartner like us, we kind of sift
(11:52):
through that, uh, just make itseamless for a for a hiring
manager to uh bring on talent.
SPEAKER_00 (11:59):
Yeah.
You know, and I think oftencompanies don't calculate the
cost of their hiring manager'stime very, very you know,
correctly.
Um they might just look at itlike the true hourly rate.
Like their hiring manager makes$150,000 a year, so it's$75 an
(12:19):
hour.
But the opportunity cost of thathiring manager directing the
team, moving roadblocks,creating a vision, who ain't,
dealing with executives.
I mean, this is really like athousand dollar an hour type
work, right?
That they're being pulled awayfrom by dealing with fake
(12:41):
resumes and all this otherstuff.
SPEAKER_02 (12:43):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (12:44):
How does how do how do you and the rest of the plug
team um vet out some of the fakeresumes, fake candidates to save
that thousand dollar an hourtime?
SPEAKER_01 (12:56):
Yeah, I think it comes down to attention to
detail, understanding theclient's job description, having
multiple conversations with usbefore they even kind of get to
the client.
Yeah.
So I feel like that definitelyum yeah, that definitely fills
the gap.
SPEAKER_00 (13:10):
Yeah, yeah.
Creates a much tighterconversion, right?
Of candidates that thatinterview are much more aligned.
So then it just becomes aboutculture and domain knowledge,
not is this person in Sri Lankareally?
But they're saying that they'rein, you know, Minnesota or
Mexico.
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (13:30):
Exactly.
And then one other one otherthing, sorry, one other thing I
didn't touch on earlier.
One thing I hear a lot and seena lot uh recently, um with small
to medium companies, evenlarger, is just you know the
cost of an engineer in a majorcity in the US, right?
I mean, on average, probably 150to even 500 uh K a year.
(13:52):
Right.
In obviously in Latin America,it's much less.
But even beyond that, you know,the overall talent in Latin
America is super strong withwith big hubs like I already we
already mentioned, kind ofMexico City, Argentina Argentina
as well, and and Brazil.
So just wanted to mention thatas well.
SPEAKER_00 (14:13):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
For sure.
Well, I mean, you've had uh anice success story um in the
recent months, uh bringing nearshore talent to a client.
Tell us more about that.
Kind of set the scene, what kindof industry were they in?
What kind of size are they?
What were they looking to filland and what you did there?
SPEAKER_01 (14:36):
Yeah, yeah, happy to share one.
Um, of course, I'll keep thename confidential.
Yeah, I recently um worked witha uh cloud-focused tech firm uh
out of the US uh West Coast.
They were kind of building outtheir engineering team.
So full stack, front-end, and uhprincipal engineer.
(14:57):
Some things they were runninginto were kind of regional
hiring blocks, I would say.
So they were open to the idea ofnear shore.
They were also exploring Europeas well, but ultimately decided
with near shore.
Um, a couple things that kind ofstood out for them.
Again, they, you know, werefrustrated with some previous
(15:19):
outsourcing issues, most of themkind of communication in time
zone, I would say.
I would say um, I guess anotherthing was that you know, lost
productivity of you know,waiting too long to hire
somebody.
SPEAKER_00 (15:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (15:34):
Was kind was definitely affecting them.
In terms of the value webrought, in terms of the value,
you know, I would say a kind ofrapid turnaround.
I mean, we quickly quickly madethem a team of two to three in,
you know, a matter of weeks, notmonths.
Another thing that kind of stoodout there, you know, we we kind
of aligned a job descriptionfrom the get-go.
That was really nice to you knownot have any issues in terms of
(15:59):
misalignment.
Um, just kind of workingtogether there.
I would also say, again, somereasons kind of they picked us.
Again, it came down to it camedown to uh the ability to uh you
know build a team quick, findreally good talent.
In this case, you know, we foundtalent in Brazil.
They're very cloud-centric, likeI mentioned.
(16:19):
So they were looking for prettyspecific kind of um technical
requirements.
Again, with plug, we don't wedon't have a bench necessarily,
so we go recruit for each foreach role.
I feel like that stood outbecause we found you know
several excellent people.
I'll say some other things thatkind of stood out were the yeah,
just kind of listening to theclient, right?
For specific traits that theywere looking for.
(16:42):
You know, some things they weretelling me were like someone
that really shows initiative,being able to prioritize system
design, um, you know, otherthings like that, and just kind
of throughout the the processbeing able to um, you know, find
the right people for them andmake them happy with that.
SPEAKER_00 (17:00):
There's something that I wanted to dive deeper
into what you just said, andthat was they wanted engineers
that showed the initiative.
And I think maybe a commonmisnomer is you know, engineers
in the US kind of have the senseof urgency, they're
self-starters.
Once they kind of build thebuild an architect, the code
(17:20):
base, then you throw it over thewall to people to like maintain
it, right?
And um, but maybe maybe that'snot correct.
Uh companies are able to getself-starter, innovative
engineers that can build thingsfrom Latin America.
Tell us tell us about thatperception and you know, myth
(17:40):
versus reality.
SPEAKER_01 (17:43):
Yeah, I think in this case, I think in this case
it was interesting because theyactually ended up going with or
they actually ended up pickingengineers that were, I would
say, you know, pretty young,right?
But they were young, but theywere self-starters, showed that
initiative, serious about theirwork, and I feel like that was
something that they reallyvalued, right?
So again, you know, a lot ofcompanies may have you know 10
(18:08):
years on a on a JD, but um Ifeel like you know, in this
case, they were really theyreally knew what they were
looking for and were open to um,you know, really good young
talent.
SPEAKER_02 (18:23):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (18:24):
Okay, okay, good.
SPEAKER_00 (18:27):
All right, well, let's talk more about uh AI.
It's on everybody's mind, it'snot a new thing anymore.
You know, companies are usingit, and they want to stay, they
want to stay current or maybeeven ahead.
What are they doing to make surethey've got the resources,
they've got the talent, and howdoes nearshoring play into this,
(18:49):
this arms race for AI?
SPEAKER_01 (18:50):
Yeah, no, I think it plays a major role.
Everyone's probably seen theopen AI investment recently in
Argentina, the$25 billion.
I think that will only kind ofincrease the awareness of AI and
kind of data jobs kind of movingto Latin America.
I also think with the boom ofAI, and I kind of mentioned this
earlier, it's leading to a lotof kind of new new titles.
(19:15):
So, like prompt engineer, evenum, there's all sorts of new
titles kind of spinning off fromAI.
Yeah.
I feel like um, yeah, I mean, wesee it, we see it every week in
terms of, you know, I need an AIengineer, I need a data
engineer.
We're also seeing, you know, alot of interest in uh, you know,
(19:37):
data bricks, snowflake typeroles as well.
I mean, that also comes fromkind of the AI boom and just
kind of more, more data, morerise on it.
unknown (19:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:47):
But yeah, with the AI boom, I definitely feel like
it's obviously it does take alot of jobs, but it also creates
a lot of jobs.
SPEAKER_00 (19:55):
Yeah, yeah.
As we talked about, Evan, you'reyou're our returning guest on
the show.
Last time we really dug intoyou're a world traveler.
You've been to a lot ofdifferent places.
Is there any place that wedidn't get into last time you
were here that you'd like toshare more to the listeners and
maybe maybe drive some interestover there?
SPEAKER_01 (20:18):
Yeah, there definitely is.
So I don't I don't think Itouched on this last time.
We we did talk about severalcountries and cities and
whatnot.
I wanted to talk about Oaxaca,actually.
So I went to Oaxaca a coupleyears back before I had a baby,
and it was kind of funny how westumbled upon it, but our we
were supposed to go to MexicoCity and it was during COVID,
(20:39):
and obviously everything shutdown.
Right.
Well, the hotel that I wassupposed to go to shut down and
opened up in Oaxaca.
So I had this credit that I hadto use like in a two-year time
frame or something, right?
But then I started doing moredigging on Oaxaca, and you know,
I'm really into food culture,fan of Mezcau.
Yeah.
So we went to Oaxaca, right?
(21:00):
We went to Oaxaca City.
I just think it's a reallyunderappreciated place.
I think Oaxaca in general hasthey speak like I think they
have 16 different likeindigenous groups in Oaxaca,
which is pretty interesting.
I thought the food culture wasamazing.
When we landed, I mean, I almostfelt like we were in like a
huge, huge city, but it wasreally Oaxaca City and it wasn't
(21:20):
that big.
I almost felt like I was in likea Miami bar, but I was in Oaxaca
City.
So yeah, I definitely,definitely recommend uh Oaxaca
for anyone thinking abouttravel, you know, outside of
Mexico City or Cancun.
It's just a great place, reallygood, really good coffee as
well.
Um yeah, I just wanted to wantedto share that.
SPEAKER_00 (21:40):
Okay.
Cool.
Cool.
Well, hopefully that inspiressome people, maybe myself, to go
check it out.
Yeah, I do recommend it.
Yeah, any any final thoughts,notes that we didn't touch on in
the show that you want ourlisteners to know before we we
wrap up?
SPEAKER_01 (22:00):
I think we I think we touched on a lot.
I mean, again, there's a hugesurge of business kind of moving
to Latin America.
I mean, I've seen it like in myfamily.
My wife works at a at Lenovo,big computer company.
They've had teams in Costa Ricafor years, mostly on the sales
side.
Uh, but even HubSpot.
(22:21):
They've had teams of customersuccess managers, salespeople in
Colombia for a number of yearsas well.
So I think it's no, I think it'sno um, I think it's no surprise
that companies are moving toLatin America, and I do think
we'll see you know more of thatmoving into next year.
SPEAKER_00 (22:39):
Good stuff.
Well, Evan, thanks so much foryour time here on the show.
Summarizing trends, uh,reviewing this 2025, looking
ahead, uh, some really greatstuff.
Thanks again to our sponsor,Plug Technologies, P L U G G dot
tech.
Great way to connect talent allover Latin America with U.S.
(23:03):
companies.
This is the Nearshore CafePodcast.
I'm Brian Sampson.
Thanks for listening.
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