Why working for a US company is the next step for Latin American tech professionals

edolopez.io
4 min readFeb 4, 2023

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There has never been a better time to be part of the technology industry. What better than taking advantage of exciting benefits such as remote work to boost productivity while working flexibly?

The benefits of working with an international company while in Latin America are noteworthy. The current market situation is making it favorable for employees and paving the way to a better income and quality of life for thousands.

In this blog post, we highlight some of the main reasons why working for an international company gives skilled individuals the opportunity to grow professionally while significantly improving their quality of life.

Earn in US Dollars

Working with companies in the US makes getting paid in US dollars inevitable. This is because the US dollar remains the most stable and powerful currency on the planet. Compared to the devaluation of other currencies throughout the region, authentically earning in dollars has considerable implications. Still, it is feasible and allows any professional to earn above the industry average annually.

By earning and saving in US dollars, remote workers can increase their salary between 5 to 15% on average versus being paid in their home currency.

More benefits and new opportunities for the entrepreneurial spirit

The number of new companies being created every day is monumental. On average, 4.4M companies are started in the US annually. Of those, close to 1M are created within the technology space, meaning many benefits are on the table for employees.

Challenging the status quo and aspiring to radically change global industries is what makes these companies stand out from the rest and engineering and technological challenges will be up to date. Engineers can also expect to take advantage of a unique component in the US industry — diversity and multicultural collaboration. These enrich professional experiences.

When leaders, founders, and business owners start new companies, facing risks and uncertainty is more than evident. But, there are also attractive benefits for employees jumping on the bandwagon. For example, employees may get special access to incentives such as shares or equity plans, and based on the startup's success, employees can rake in huge benefits.

Investment and capital concentration

The Venture Capital industry was started in the US, and the highest concentration of VC firms is still situated in the US today. Even startups in Latin America raise capital from funds located in the US and worldwide. The same investors in Latin America mobilize their investment vehicles directly from the US.

Today, there is still almost USD 1.5 trillion undeployed in innovation projects waiting to be injected into the following tech teams for promising companies to become unicorns.

This capital backing not only gives strength to the economy as a whole but also to companies to be able to continue innovating and discovering the right path toward profitability and scalability.

Growing talent shortages

The number of job openings in the US technology industry continues to rise at a surprising rate, with an estimated 800,000 open positions. In addition, companies in the US are becoming more and more pressured to continue hiring talent outside national borders as local skills shortages and hiring challenges are at an all-time high. Plus, team and company growth strategies are seeing a steady shift towards a remote and decentralized business operating model.

World-renown teams have confirmed this for many years: top talent can be found anywhere.

Companies need to go where the talent is and connect them with the right opportunities to generate value as individuals and collectively with companies.

Proximity and timezone alignment: much better timing

More teams collaborating remotely are looking for collaboration mechanisms that align with their style and pace of life. Something as simple as the alignment of time zones is of greater interest to US teams as other markets that cannot offer this result in extra complexity and maintenance when managing these teams.

Proximity allows for specific face-to-face meetings that help build trust between leaders and remote members. Access to the Latin American market is very attractive and convenient, in addition to the tourism component that has much more to boast about than other parts of the world.

Lastly, cultural similarities such as shared languages and working cultures between the US and Latin America can boost team collaboration, efficiency, and mutual understanding when working remotely.

Emerging Hispanic leadership

A much more empowered generation of Latinos is coming to the US and will take up important roles in organizations in the years to come. No matter their generation, their bilingual capacity will give them a unique place within companies as they are able to provide access to talent markets for companies to take advantage of.

There hasn't been a better moment for Latin American talent to get connected to opportunities around the world, particularly to the strongest economy in the world. While tech jobs are the main benefactors of the growing remote dynamic, many more disciplines will be benefited thanks to new emerging technology and the flexible mindset of the next generation of leaders.

Thanks to Nic Potgieter for his support, expert review and feedback while creating this post. This was also published in blog.coba.ai

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edolopez.io

Technology, my passion. Software, my career. Optimizing the financial stack for the LatAm remote worker 🌎 via Coba.ai — Bilingual: (EN | ES)