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Fabián Rodríguez for SunDevs

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4 challenges of hiring developers in Latin America

When companies from the United States are looking for a partner for the service of IT Staff Augmentation in Latam, usually have a lot of doubts about how the culture can be a barrier or even the language can be difficult for Latinos.

I work for a company in Latam offering this kind of services, and I've compiled the top concerns of the companies around this topic:

  • Legal aspects of hiring: The legal procedures for hiring foreign people are one of the first questions that come up when trying to build an IT development team. In the case of the United States, it is relatively simple since it is through the W8 form provided by the Internal Revenue Service (whose acronym is IRS) that companies can declare that they are hiring a self-employed person who also lives outside the United States.

  • Time zone: One of the great fears of companies when hiring outside the country is that the time difference will interrupt the flow of work. However, the United States, Canada, and Latin America are very similar in this aspect, as an example, cities like Dallas, New Orleans, or Houston in the United States or Winnipeg and Baker Lake in Canada have exactly the same time zone as Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador.

  • English language: The native language of most of Latin America is Spanish, but government policies in each country make it mandatory to learn English not only in school but also in universities

  • Education: In Latin America as well as in the rest of the world, computer science education is a relevant issue. And this group of countries is home to many renowned universities throughout the continent for the study of engineerings, such as the National University of Colombia or the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

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