What does Brazil’s tech talent pool look like: numbers, advantages and cultural traits

Brazil offers tech staff by the numbers and here is some data to make it tangible:

Sources vary from Agile Nation, CodeinWP, and HackerRank, all the way to Qubit Labs. If that doesn’t impress you, nothing will. 

Brazil accounts for more than half of Latin America’s Unicorns, including real estate renting platform Loft and fintech Nubank. Yes, we do have tech in our veins! If you want to know each one of them in detail, click the image below. 

Latin American Unicorns

→ If you’re comparing between countries, have a read: Tech talent pools: pros and cons of IT staff augmentation and software outsourcing in Brazil, India, and Ukraine.

2. Highly-adaptable manpower

There’s one more thing to be said about Brazil’s tech talent pool. Brazil is a rather diverse country, and professionals tend to carry a few traits that benefit teams that welcome them:

Moreover, this positive approach to life and career means these software professionals are more than willing to adapt and grow. US companies looking to hire Brazilian IT professionals are not taken for granted.

The best programmers and technologists are eager to engage in international settings. Work abroad, yes. The best professionals are already working remotely, and consider nearshoring a valuable stepping stone. 

Companies willing to take them in as their own are valued as a way to get soft and hard skills up to speed before moving abroad for good. 

Take the word of Alberto Silveira, Vice President of Software Engineering at PowerSchool: 

“We don’t lower the bar to hire anyone, Ubiminds meets expectations or, most likely, exceeds expectations on the talent level that we are looking for.”

3. Let’s talk quality

Ok, so Brazil’s tech talent pool has promising numbers. And Brazilian technological staff have the willpower to build better products and deliver value. But are they any good?

In one word: yes. Brazil has underexplored pools and markets of top-level engineers. Plenty of them have similar (and sometimes higher) profiles as their American counterparts. This is a better value for money: reach pay scales 40-50% lower than in the US, for a top-level engineer.

At a conference at Stanford University, consultant Spencer Stuart highlights it’s much more a matter of brainpower and experience, not pricing. 

“American companies with operations in Brazil are also increasingly searching for local senior leadership talent here instead of bringing “expats” from other countries.”

In this sense, Ubiminds boast many success cases so far. Ubiminders are already leading Mobile Development, Security, and Integrations teams in US-companies.

“The level of maturity and knowledge that the technical staff provides us is very impressive.” 

Says Dave Newman, Director of Engineering at Fundera. 

What are the risks from trying to hire directly, with no assistance, in Brazil?

Hiring Brazilian engineers directly can be cumbersome. Cost and quality covered, one deal-breaker gets in the way: risk.

As experienced as you are, you probably don’t know the local market extensively and comprehensively. But we at Ubiminds do  know, for example: 

So what are the legal liabilities to be aware of?

The most common legal structures used for an outsourcing transaction in Brazil are:

By excluding the first option, then you will have to deal with…

The cost and effort of setting up shop in Brazil

According to TMF Group, on average it takes 11 procedures and around 90 days of work to start a business in Brazil. Construction permits demand an average of 20 procedures and 404 days to finally get authorised. 

And there’s more:

“Brazil’s tax regime is one of the driving forces behind its complexity. More than 90 taxes, duties and contributions are charged in Brazil, and all taxes are based on different government spheres of federal taxes, state taxes and municipal taxes”. 

Sounds like a lot of work, right? But for specialists who actually live and understand the process, this can be done a lot faster. 

And if you’re thinking about hiring people as freelancers in Brazil, watch out: it can turn out more complicated than you imagined. There are laws that can turn this kind of work into permanent work in case the talent feels like being an actual employee of your company – then requiring its benefits and maybe even suing you.

Quality of hire (how can you be sure you’ve got the right person? It takes effort!)

Is your HR ready to verify the tech skill level of candidates, in a foreign country? 

We have a basic step-by-step take on tech recruiting. By doing so, we reach a deep understanding of your company culture. And also work side by side to find talents that have not only the tech skills that you need but also the cultural fit, keeping turnover under control. 

The bar is high: for 1 job position to be filled, we only deliver you the top 1-3% candidates: from 200 sourced candidates or applicants, we only introduce you to one-to-three of them. We spare you at least 25 profile interviews.

→ If you want to know our process in detail, please check our article “Why hire IT staff augmentation with Ubiminds: everything you need to know about how we source, vet, and custom-curate digital product teams”. 

Commitment vs. number of clients (is the engineer full-time dedicated?)

Here we can think of some comparisons. Let’s dive into it:

The analysis of soft-skills is becoming more important by the day. You can teach your engineer a new feature, some hacks, and they may even already have perfect code. However, if they don’t know how to communicate with you, are not problem-solving minded, or even have no empathy with co-workers and leadership, it is all unfortunately worthless.