Navigating the Tech Odyssey: The Unseen Challenges and Triumphs of Directors of Engineering in Mid-Sized Companies

Navigating the Tech Odyssey: The Unseen Challenges and Triumphs of Directors of Engineering in Mid-Sized Companies

Project Management

Written by: Luis Aburto 
Director of Engineering reviewing strategy on laptop in modern office.
For over 20 years at Scio, we’ve partnered with technology companies across the U.S.—from Austin to Dallas and beyond—working closely with Directors of Engineering, CTOs, and VPs of Engineering. What we’ve seen is that this role is far from ordinary. As the architects of product development, Directors of Engineering stand at the crossroads of strategy, creativity, and execution. They’re asked to balance budgets, manage growing teams, deliver under tight deadlines, and still launch products that customers love. It’s one of the most demanding positions in the industry, but also one of the most rewarding. This article explores the unseen challenges and unique satisfactions of being a Director of Engineering in mid-sized companies—an odyssey that defines the future of technology itself.

A Challenging Job

Directors of Engineering at technology companies face a multitude of challenges in their roles. Obviously, these challenges can vary depending on the company’s size, industry, and specific circumstances. However, the path for Directors of Engineering is seldom straightforward. According to the Directors of Engineering that we have worked with, the following are the most common challenges they typically encounter:

1. Team Management

  • Diverse Skill Sets: Managing a team with diverse technical skills and backgrounds can be challenging. Directors need to foster collaboration and effective communication among team members with different expertise.
  • Team Dynamics: Building and maintaining a positive team culture, addressing conflicts, and ensuring team members are motivated and engaged are ongoing challenges.

2. Project Delivery

  • Timely Delivery: Balancing the need for quick product delivery with maintaining high-quality standards is a constant challenge.
  • Scope Management: Managing scope creep and ensuring that teams are focused on delivering key priorities can be difficult, especially in dynamic and evolving project environments.

3. Technology Changes

  • Rapid Technological Advancements: Trying to stay abreast of the latest technologies and trends in the industry to make informed decisions about technology adoption and updates.
  • Legacy Systems: Integrating and modernizing legacy systems without disrupting ongoing operations can be a complex task.
Engineering leader optimizing resources with digital planning tools.
Resource planning is a core challenge for Directors of Engineering.

4. Resource Allocation

  • Resource Constraints: Allocating resources effectively, including balancing workloads, addressing skill gaps, and managing budget constraints.
  • Optimizing Productivity: Ensuring that the engineering team is working efficiently and productively while maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

5. Strategic Planning

  • Aligning with Business Goals: Ensuring that engineering efforts align with overall business objectives and contribute to the company’s strategic goals.
  • Long-Term Planning: Developing and executing long-term engineering strategies to keep the company competitive in the market.

6. Talent Acquisition and Retention

  • Attracting Top Talent: Recruiting skilled professionals and competing for top talent in a competitive market.
  • Employee Retention: Retaining key team members and addressing turnover challenges by providing growth opportunities and a positive work environment.

7. Communication and Collaboration

  • Interdepartmental Communication: Facilitating effective communication between engineering teams and other departments, such as marketing, sales, and customer support.
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Encouraging collaboration between engineering and other departments to ensure a seamless product development lifecycle.
Director addressing compliance and cybersecurity in engineering projects.
Directors must ensure compliance and mitigate cybersecurity risks.

8. Regulatory Compliance and Security

  • Compliance Challenges: Depending on the industry, navigating regulatory requirements and ensuring that products and processes adhere to industry standards and regulations.
  • Cybersecurity Concerns: Addressing and mitigating cybersecurity risks to protect the integrity of systems and data.

9. Scaling Operations

  • Managing Growth: Scaling engineering operations to accommodate company growth while maintaining efficiency and quality.
  • Global Expansion: Handling challenges associated with global expansion, including managing distributed teams and diverse cultural considerations.

10. Innovation and Continuous Improvement

  • Encouraging Innovation: Fostering a culture of innovation within the engineering team to drive continuous improvement.
  • Adapting to Change: Embracing and managing change, especially in dynamic market conditions and evolving customer demands.

Directors of Engineering navigate these challenges by employing effective leadership, communication, and strategic planning to ensure the success of their teams and contribute to the overall success of the company.

Challenges vs Rewards of Directors of Engineering

Key Challenges and Rewards Across Software Dimensions
Dimension
Key Challenges
Key Rewards
Team Management Balancing diverse skills, resolving conflicts Building high-performing, collaborative teams
Project Delivery Managing scope, tight deadlines, limited resources Launching successful products customers love
Technology Shifts Keeping pace with rapid changes and legacy systems Driving adoption of cutting-edge tools and methods
Talent & Retention Competing for skilled engineers, preventing turnover Mentoring and retaining top talent for long-term growth
Strategic Alignment Ensuring engineering supports business objectives Influencing company direction through tech strategy
Director of Engineering celebrating successful project delivery.
The role also brings unique satisfactions and growth.

Rewards make it worthwhile

While being a Director of Engineering at a technology company comes with its share of challenges, there are also numerous rewarding aspects that make the role fulfilling and impactful. Here are some of the key rewarding aspects that have been shared with us:

1. Innovation Leadership

  • Driving Technological Advancements: Directors of Engineering have the opportunity to lead their teams in pushing the boundaries of technology. They play a pivotal role in steering the company towards adopting and implementing cutting-edge technologies to stay ahead of the competition.

2. Product Development and Launch

  • Bringing Ideas to Life: Directing the development of a product from conceptualization to launch is inherently satisfying. Witnessing an idea evolve into a tangible, market-ready product can be immensely rewarding for Directors of Engineering.

3. Team Empowerment

  • Building and Leading High-Performing Teams: The ability to build and lead a high-performing engineering team is a gratifying aspect of the role. Directors get to mentor and empower talented professionals, fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation.

4. Problem-Solving and Challenges

  • Tackling Complex Challenges: Successfully navigating through complex challenges—whether they are technical, operational, or strategic— provides a sense of accomplishment. Directors of Engineering thrive on problem-solving and finding creative solutions to hurdles that arise during product development.

5. Impact on Company Success

  • Contribution to Company Growth: As a key player in the leadership team, Directors directly contribute to the overall success and growth of the company. Their decisions and strategic direction influence not only the engineering department but the whole company.

6. Customer Satisfaction

  • Creating Products Customers Love: The ultimate reward comes when the products developed under the leadership of Directors are embraced by customers. Knowing that the team’s efforts have resulted in a product that meets or exceeds customer expectations is incredibly gratifying.

7. Professional Growth

  • Continuous Learning and Development: The role of a Director of Engineering is a journey of continuous learning. Staying abreast of technological advancements, industry trends, and leadership strategies contributes to professional growth, making the role intellectually stimulating.

8. Cross-Functional Collaboration

  • Collaboration with Diverse Teams: Working closely with cross-functional teams, including marketing, sales, and customer support, fosters a holistic understanding of the business. Directors of Engineering find reward in collaborating with professionals from diverse backgrounds to achieve common goals.

9. Strategic Decision–Making

  • Strategic Impact: Directors have the opportunity to shape the strategic direction of the company. Making impactful decisions that align with long-term goals and drive the company forward is a rewarding aspect of the role.

10. Recognition and Leadership Impact

  • Leadership Recognition: Successfully leading an engineering team and contributing to the company’s success often results in recognition and acknowledgment. Being seen as a leader who makes a meaningful difference across the organization is inherently rewarding.
Symbol of innovation and engineering success with paper plane growth chart.
Directors lead innovation and long-term business success.

Partners Can Lighten the Burden

Fortunately, Directors of Engineering do not have to walk this path alone. They often collaborate with various partners to navigate challenges and enhance the overall effectiveness of their roles. These partners can provide support in different areas, ranging from technical expertise to strategic guidance. Here is a list of common partners for a Director of Engineering:

    1. IT and Technology Consultants

    • Role: External IT and technology consultants can offer specialized expertise and strategic advice on technology adoption, infrastructure optimization, and process improvements.
    • Benefits: Access to external perspectives, industry best practices, and cutting-edge technologies without the need for extensive in-house training.

    2. Nearshore and Offshore Development Teams

    • Role: Nearshore or offshore development teams can serve as an extension of the in-house engineering team, providing additional resources for specific projects or to address skill gaps. Nearshore teams are especially effective because they have greater cultural alignment and can collaborate in real time during regular business hours.
    • Benefits: Scalability, cost-effectiveness, and access to a diverse pool of skilled professionals with various expertise.

    3. Product Management Consultants

    • Role: Product management consultants collaborate with Directors to refine product strategies, enhance development processes, and ensure alignment with market demands.
    • Benefits: Improved product–market fit, streamlined product development processes, and strategic guidance for product roadmaps.

    4. Legal and Compliance Advisors

    • Role: Legal and compliance advisors help Directors navigate regulatory challenges, intellectual property issues, and other legal considerations associated with technology development.
    • Benefits: Mitigation of legal risks, ensuring compliance with industry regulations, and protecting intellectual property.

    5. Industry and Professional Associations

    • Role: Directors benefit from networking with industry associations and professional groups, gaining insights from peers and staying informed about industry trends.
    • Benefits: Access to a professional community, knowledge sharing, and opportunities for collaborative learning and problem-solving.

    6. Cloud Service Providers

    • Role: Cloud providers offer scalable and flexible infrastructure solutions, supporting Directors in optimizing operations and enabling efficient development processes.
    • Benefits: Cost-effective, scalable infrastructure, enhanced security measures, and access to a range of cloud-based tools and services.

    7. Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters

    • Role: Agile coaches and Scrum Masters assist in implementing and optimizing agile methodologies, fostering a culture of continuous improvement within the engineering team.
    • Benefits: Improved project efficiency, faster time-to-market, and increased adaptability to changing project requirements.

These partners act as valuable allies for Directors of Engineering, providing expertise, support, and resources to address specific challenges. The key is to strategically choose partners based on the unique needs and objectives of the engineering team.

Final Thoughts

In today’s technology landscape, where innovation is constant and customer expectations never stop evolving, the role of a Director of Engineering is both a challenge and a privilege. Balancing deadlines, budgets, and talent demands requires resilience, but the rewards—building high-performing teams, shaping product strategy, and seeing innovation come to life—make the journey worth it. At Scio, we’ve seen first-hand how Directors of Engineering thrive when they have the right partners. With our nearshore development teams in Mexico, we help leaders in Austin, Dallas, and across the U.S. extend their capacity, align culturally, and accelerate delivery without compromising quality. Ready to lighten the load and build teams that scale with you? Contact us today and let’s explore how Scio can become your strategic nearshore partner.

FAQs About the Director of Engineering Role

Q1: Why is the Director of Engineering role so challenging?

Because it requires balancing technical innovation, business strategy, and people management simultaneously.

Q2: What makes the role rewarding despite the challenges?

Seeing teams grow, products succeed in the market, and having a direct impact on the company’s innovation and strategy.

Q3: How can nearshore partners support Directors of Engineering?

By providing scalable, culturally aligned teams that extend in-house capacity and reduce the burden of hiring and training.

Luis Aburto_ CEO_Scio

Luis Aburto

CEO
Why do positive corporate cultures matter in FinTech?

Why do positive corporate cultures matter in FinTech?

FinTech

Written by: Monserrat Raya 

FinTech team collaboration in Austin office — nearshore software engineers from Mexico working with U.S. companies

Introduction

FinTech has become one of the most dynamic industries in the software sector, reshaping banking, lending, investments, and payments. From AI-driven fraud detection to blockchain-enabled transactions, the way we interact with money today is faster, safer, and more user-friendly.

But behind every successful FinTech product, there’s something less visible yet equally powerful: corporate culture. In fast-moving hubs like Austin, Dallas, and Silicon Valley, leaders are realizing that culture—how teams collaborate, innovate, and align with customer needs—is often the difference between scaling successfully or falling behind.

Key Drivers of FinTech Growth

How technology and culture drive software outcomes
Driver
Technology Factor
Cultural Factor
Speed Blockchain & AI enable faster transactions Agile teams with open communication accelerate delivery
Security Advanced fraud detection & data encryption A culture of accountability reduces compliance risks
User Experience Mobile-first design & seamless integrations Teams focused on empathy and collaboration design better UX
Scalability Cloud computing supports global reach Shared values help teams adapt quickly to new markets
Talent Retention Access to modern tools and frameworks Positive culture keeps top engineers engaged long-term

Innovation Is Not Enough

Yes, technology drives FinTech growth. Facial recognition payments, instant lending apps, and mobile-first experiences have become everyday conveniences. Lower costs, quicker processes, and strong UX design make FinTech attractive to both individuals and enterprises.

However, innovation alone is not sustainable. Without a positive corporate culture, FinTech companies struggle to retain talent, adapt to regulation, or keep pace with evolving customer expectations. Culture is the glue that ensures ideas move from whiteboard to market effectively.

Hand holding digital network — positive corporate culture driving FinTech innovation in Dallas and Austin
Corporate culture drives innovation in nearshore FinTech projects across Austin and Dallas.

Success comes from everyone

While a lot of focus goes toward the innovation behind the process, one important factor that should not be overlooked is how these organizations are run. Fintech companies that have experienced success understand the importance of having a positive corporate culture at the center of their operations. This approach helps increase morale among employees and drives them to become even more efficient and productive while also thinking creatively and innovatively. They offer great flexibility and freedom when it comes to working styles and encourage collaboration throughout teams, allowing ideas to take form quickly. 

In other words, as technology continues to advance, more and more organizations are utilizing Fintech to provide innovative services, a strong corporate culture creates comfort in knowing where you stand within an organization, improving communication between teams and ensuring everyone is focused on things that matter most: meeting customer needs successfully with quality services.

“For a Fintech organization to reach success, a positive corporate culture must be present”, says Rod Aburto, Partner and Service Delivery Manager at Scio.

“A positive corporate culture is essential because it further develops strong team performance and encourages an environment of trust and integrity that sustainably builds the reputation of the organization. An experienced executive team can help cultivate such an atmosphere by recognizing employee achievements, involving employees in decision-making, and ensuring expectations are met without overworking employees.”

Similarly, positively influencing employee support systems ensures loyalty from employees which can then be translated into customer loyalty. Ultimately, all these qualities are needed for any FinTech organization to have long-lasting success within its domain. And with that in mind, we want to take a look into a company that effectively uses a strong corporate culture to bring innovation in a very complex area of finance that has become more democratized day by day.

Key Drivers for Scio

  • Provide high performing nearshore software engineering teams that are easy to work with
  • Deliver outstanding results and help clients achieve goals with ease and efficiency
  • Earn client trust and build great long-term relationships
  • Grow accounts, receive referrals, improve sales & marketing, and secure new clients
  • Drive healthy finances and sustainable growth
  • Recruit top talent and reinvest in ScioElevate
Growth Mindset vs Corporate Culture in FinTech
Dimension
Positive Culture in FinTech
Lack of Culture in FinTech
Innovation Encourages safe experimentation and new ideas Fear of failure stifles creativity
Talent Attracts and retains top professionals High turnover, loss of expertise
Customer Trust Employees aligned with mission build loyalty Disconnected teams deliver inconsistent service
Scalability Shared values accelerate product delivery Misalignment slows growth

Final Thoughts

For FinTech companies, culture is not a “soft skill.” It’s a strategic enabler. It determines whether innovation sticks, whether teams stay motivated, and whether products build trust with users.

At Scio, we’ve helped U.S. FinTech leaders in Austin, Dallas, and beyond build nearshore teams that combine technical excellence with strong cultural alignment. Since 2003, our mission has been to create high-performing squads that innovate, collaborate, and scale as if they were part of your organization.

Ready to strengthen your FinTech culture with a nearshore partner that understands your business? Contact us today to explore how Scio can help you build the right team.

Business professional analyzing FinTech data — nearshore developers aligned with U.S. corporate culture
Nearshore teams in Mexico aligned with U.S. corporate culture support scalable and secure FinTech development.

FAQs About Corporate Culture in FinTech

Q1: Why is corporate culture more critical in FinTech than other sectors?

Because FinTech combines compliance, security, and innovation. A strong culture ensures teams handle these complexities collaboratively.

Q2: How does culture affect customer experience?

Engaged employees translate into more reliable, customer-centric services, improving trust in financial products.

Q3: Can nearshore partners help U.S. FinTechs build culture?

Yes. With cultural alignment, nearshore teams in Mexico act as extensions of U.S. squads, reducing friction in distributed development.

Q4: What practices strengthen culture in remote FinTech teams?

Clear communication, recognition programs, mentorship, and fostering a growth mindset.

Suggested Resources for Further Reading

If you want to explore more about how culture and team alignment drive success in FinTech and software development, here are some recommended resources:

Internal Links

How Latin American Nearshore Teams Align Culturally with U.S. Companies: Why cultural alignment is a critical factor for U.S. companies working with nearshore software partners.

High-Performing Teams in Software Development: Practical strategies to build resilient, collaborative, and innovation-ready engineering teams.

External Resources

Harvard Business Review – The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures: Why innovative corporate cultures require not just openness and creativity, but also discipline, accountability, and trust.

Harvard Business Review – Does Your Company’s Culture Reinforce Its Strategy and Purpose?: How aligning company culture with strategy and purpose helps organizations scale effectively.

World Economic Forum – The Future of Global FinTech: Towards Resilient and Inclusive Growth: Global insights on why inclusion, trust, and resilient cultures are essential for sustainable FinTech expansion.

What is a growth mindset truly about? 4 myths that you should avoid

What is a growth mindset truly about? 4 myths that you should avoid

Scio, Software Development, Successful Outsourcing

Written by: Scio Team 
Business professional reviewing Agile methodology dashboard while choosing a Lean Product Development partner

Introduction

In software development, the difference between a team that stagnates and one that scales often comes down to mindset. CTOs and VPs of Engineering in hubs like Austin, Dallas, and Silicon Valley know this well: technologies evolve, markets shift, and the pressure to deliver innovation never slows down. This is where the growth mindset comes in. Popularized in education and psychology, it’s now a critical concept for software teams. But despite its popularity, the term is often misunderstood. Let’s clarify what a growth mindset really means for software leaders and explore the myths that can derail your teams if left unchecked.

Why Growth Mindset Matters for U.S. Software Teams

For U.S.-based technology companies, having developers with a growth mindset means more than just a positive attitude—it translates into resilience, adaptability, and faster adoption of new tools and practices. Take, for example, distributed or nearshore teams. Leaders in Austin working with developers in Mexico often highlight how a growth mindset culture reduces friction, accelerates onboarding, and creates an environment where challenges become stepping stones rather than roadblocks. In today’s market—whether you’re scaling SaaS products, integrating AI-driven features, or managing compliance-heavy systems—a growth mindset in your development team is not a “nice to have.” It’s strategic.
Growth mindset in software engineering — continuous learning, feedback and collaboration.
A growth mindset helps developers expand skills, collaborate better, and adapt to new technologies.
And a lot has changed in the software development field over the years. New languages, frameworks, and development practices mean that it’s more important than ever to develop a well-rounded skill set. To become a truly effective software developer, you need to be able to work in a variety of environments and be comfortable with a range of technologies. You also need to have a strong foundation in the basics, including principles of software design, data structures, and algorithms. And finally, it’s important to be able to communicate effectively with other team members, whether it’s working with architects to design a system or collaborating on code reviews. A growth mindset is the best strategy to do so, helping you stretch into other important areas (like teamwork, communication, or leadership) outside of your normal interests. However, getting into a growth mindset is not an easy task. And it isn’t because accomplishing this is singularly hard or demanding, but because there are a lot of myths and misconceptions about what a growth mindset is, or how to effectively harness this way of thinking to become a better developer. So, what are some of the myths about developing a growth mindset, and how to avoid falling into them?

Myth 1: It’s an intrinsic quality to have

We see this kind of thinking all the time, from the “there are two kinds of people in the world” type of mentality, to the idea that natural talent or ability is the most important quality to have (and bad luck to anyone born without it). However, when it comes to a growth mindset, this idea is harmful and simply not true.  After all, a person with a true growth mindset believes that intelligence and talent are not fixed traits; everyone can grow and improve with the necessary effort, and that every challenge is an opportunity to grow. So why isn’t everyone running around with a growth mindset? Well, because a fixed mindset, or the belief that intelligence and talent are fixed traits that cannot be changed, is still very prevalent, and even the default in our current society. This mentality leads people to give up easily, believing that they cannot improve, simply because they are afraid of failing. However, with the right tools and environment, anyone can learn to grow, stop fearing the failures that are necessary to evolve, and better themselves in areas of skill that they thought impossible before.

Myth 2: It’s all about being positive

Being «positive» is often touted as the key to success in life, an antidote of sorts for all kinds of problems, from personal relationships to financial success. Generally, the thinking goes that if you stay positive, good things will happen to you. Although starting with a positive attitude certainly helps, this is not the most important element of a true growth mindset. A growth mindset is about taking risks, learning from failure, and always striving to improve.  In fact, «positive thinking» can be a form of self-deception that can prevent people from achieving their full potential; being successful in any area requires the willingness to face your limitations, recognize them, and make an effort to improve. By pretending that everything is always rosy, people with an uncritically positive outlook may avoid taking risks and miss out on growth opportunities. So, if you want to achieve real growth, you need to have a positive attitude toward failure and a willingness to take risks. Only then will you be able to reach your full potential.
Chess piece symbolizing strategy and growth mindset in software development challenges
A growth mindset in software development helps teams face challenges and improve performance.

Myth 3: A growth mindset guarantees positive results

One of the key elements of a growth mindset is the willingness to take on risks and challenges. Learning and improving on areas we never considered before requires effort, the willingness to hear criticisms and feedback, and committing time and resources to achieve it. But most importantly, anyone who wishes to get into a growth mindset needs to understand that failure is always an option and that a growth mindset does not guarantee positive outcomes all of the time. Instead, it is simply one tool that can help achieve goals.  What matters is how we deal with these challenges and setbacks. If we allow them to defeat us, then our growth mindset won’t matter. But if we use them as opportunities to learn and grow, then we can overcome anything. So yes, a growth mindset is important, but it’s not a silver bullet. It won’t magically make everything better. But it will give us the strength to keep going when times are tough, helping us see failure as a normal part of the learning process, and letting us get ready for the next challenge. As one might say, “you are either learning or winning”.

Myth 4: Absolutely everything is possible

As the saying goes, a “jack-of-all-trades is a master of none”, and the notion that anyone can be an expert at everything is misguided and can set unrealistic expectations when it comes to getting a growth mindset. The core tenet here is that you can develop any skill you want if you put effort into it, and that people in general don’t exist in a static state that is impossible to change. If, as a developer, you want to have skills that go beyond pure technical know-how, like leadership, teamwork, negotiation, or public speaking because you want to become more well-rounded. It could open up opportunities for you and there are techniques and strategies you can try to be more proficient at.  But don’t develop unrealistic expectations about it. If we believe that we should be able to do everything expertly, we’re bound to feel like failures when we inevitably fall short. An average person has affinities and weak spots in different areas, which is fine and normal. This should neither stop you from trying new things nor make you believe that you need to be the best at everything you attempt. What’s more, this belief devalues expertise. If everyone is supposedly an expert, then what’s the point of learning from those who have spent their lives honing a particular skill? Instead of trying to be good at everything, we would be better off accepting that we have our limits and that there are some things we’re simply not cut out for and focusing on becoming the best at what we’re interested in. Only then can we truly excel.

Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset in Software Teams

Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset — Key Dimensions for Software Teams
Dimension
Growth Mindset
Fixed Mindset
Learning Sees mistakes as feedback for improvement Avoids challenges for fear of failure
Collaboration Values feedback and peer reviews Sees feedback as criticism
Innovation Experiments with new tech stacks Sticks only to what already knows
Adaptability Thrives in nearshore and hybrid models Struggles outside comfort zone

How Leaders in Austin and Dallas Apply Growth Mindset

Local tech leaders know that a growth mindset is not just theory—it’s a competitive advantage.

  • Austin startups: invest in continuous learning, sponsoring certifications and training in emerging frameworks.
  • Dallas enterprises: strengthen collaboration by pairing senior engineers with nearshore juniors, creating mentorship loops that benefit both sides.
  • Silicon Valley companies: normalize failure as part of innovation, rewarding teams not only for wins but also for documenting lessons that improve delivery speed.

This approach demonstrates that adopting a growth mindset is not only about individual improvement—it’s about how entire teams adapt, collaborate, and sustain growth across distributed models.

Hand placing wooden blocks with lightbulb icons, symbolizing innovation and growth mindset in software development
Visual representation of growth mindset and continuous learning in software development.

Key Takeaways

  • Growth mindset ≠ positivity only — it’s about resilience, risk-taking, and learning from feedback.
  • Failure is feedback, not the end — the best U.S. tech teams see mistakes as data to improve.
  • Not everything is possible — realistic expectations prevent burnout and value real expertise.
  • Leaders in Austin & Dallas apply it daily — through mentorship, certifications, and cultural alignment with nearshore teams.
  • For U.S. companies, mindset is strategic — it impacts delivery speed, team morale, and long-term innovation.

Final Thoughts: Why It Matters Now

At its core, acquiring a growth mindset should benefit you personally. It’s about believing in your ability to learn, improve, and become a better developer—and a better leader. The payoff? Increased motivation, resilience, and a stronger capacity to see challenges as opportunities instead of setbacks.

But for U.S. tech leaders in Austin, Dallas, and beyond, the stakes are even higher. In today’s competitive market, a growth mindset directly impacts delivery speed, team morale, and innovation. When combined with the right cultural alignment—like what nearshore teams in Mexico can offer—it becomes a driver for real business outcomes.

Let’s talk about nearshoring. At Scio, we’ve been building and mentoring software teams since 2003, helping CTOs and VPs of Engineering create high-performing squads that don’t just code—they adapt, grow, and scale alongside your business.

FAQs About Growth Mindset in Software Teams

Q1: Does a growth mindset really improve developer performance?

Yes. Studies show growth mindset teams adapt faster, handle feedback better, and innovate more effectively.

Q2: How can U.S. companies foster growth mindset in nearshore teams?

By encouraging mentorship, continuous learning, and cross-border collaboration in distributed teams.

Q3: Is growth mindset the same as optimism?

Not quite. It’s about resilience and adaptability, not blind positivity.

Q4: Can developers shift from fixed to growth mindset?

Absolutely — with the right leadership and culture, developers can change how they approach feedback and challenges.

Q5: Why is growth mindset critical for Austin or Dallas tech leaders?

Because adaptability and cultural alignment directly impact delivery speed, product quality, and innovation.

Suggested Resources for Further Reading

To explore more about how mindset and methodology shape software success, here are some recommended resources:

Internal Links

Discover how Latin American nearshore teams align culturally with U.S. companies and why this cultural fit drives stronger outcomes. Read more.

Compare Traditional vs Agile software development methods and see which approach best supports your product strategy. Learn more.

External Links

Harvard Business Review – What Having a Growth Mindset Actually Means: A must-read analysis of how this concept is often misunderstood inside organizations.

McKinsey – Achieving Growth: Putting Leadership Mindsets into Action: Practical insights on how leaders turn growth mindset into behaviors that accelerate business outcomes.

McKinsey – How Top Performers Drive Innovation and Growth: Research on how leading companies foster innovative mindsets to expand within and beyond their core business.

Top Priorities for Software Teams in 2025 

Top Priorities for Software Teams in 2025 

Software Development, Strategic Digital Nearshoring

Written by: Luis Aburto – 

Software team priorities 2025 – digital strategy and performance goals.

As we head into 2025, the landscape for software engineering teams is evolving rapidly. Economic challenges, the rise of generative AI, and shifts in team dynamics are shaping the decisions engineering leaders make daily.

In this blog post, we’ll look at what engineering teams are focusing on for the year ahead, and why understanding these priorities can help guide your own team’s strategy. This information is drawn from many in-depth conversations with our clients complemented with research published in industry publications. The goal is to use awareness of current trends to align our plans with the strategies driving success across the industry.

The Current Landscape for Engineering Teams

Engineering leaders are dealing with multiple external pressures—economic uncertainty, hype around artificial intelligence, and the constant need to maintain momentum in a competitive market. These pressures have led engineering leaders to prioritize optimization, adaptability, and strategic clarity as the key themes for 2025. In response, many teams are reevaluating their processes, leveraging new technologies, and reassessing how best to structure their operations.

Top Priorities for Engineering Teams in 2025

To provide more clarity, we’ve grouped the priorities into four main categories: Product Expansion and Innovation, Operational Efficiency and Developer Enablement, Ensuring Customer Satisfaction, and Leveraging AI & Data.

Top Priorities for Software Teams in 2025
Category
Key Focus Areas
I. Product Expansion and Innovation
  • New features & capabilities (differentiation, growth, alignment with customer needs)
  • New products or services (market expansion, revenue diversification)
  • Performance improvements (architecture, scalability, monitoring)
  • R&D and experimentation (new tech, AI integration, user‑centered design, security testing)
II. Operational Efficiency and Developer Enablement
  • Managing technical debt (code reviews, refactoring, automated testing, incremental improvements)
  • Cost optimization & productivity (lean processes, automation, cloud optimization, nearshore developers)
  • Developer experience (better tools, CI/CD, testing environments, peer reviews)
III. Ensuring Customer Satisfaction
  • Reliability & performance (resilient architecture, monitoring, incident management, chaos engineering)
  • Quality assurance & testing (automation, continuous integration, proactive QA, comprehensive frameworks)
IV. Leveraging AI & Data
  • AI for internal use (automation, predictive maintenance, generative AI, ethical adoption)
  • AI for customer use (personalization, intelligent features, AI‑driven support)
  • Internal data management (data quality, access, utilization, BI alignment)
Software innovation and product expansion for engineering teams in 2025.
Driving growth with new features and capabilities.

Product Expansion and Innovation 

Building New Features and Capabilities

In a market where differentiation is key, new feature development helps companies maintain relevance and offer new value to customers. So, the need to drive growth and meet customer expectations is pushing engineering leaders to prioritize innovation while balancing it with the stability and reliability of their platforms. In this context, well-planned product roadmaps are becoming increasingly important, as leaders aim to keep new features aligned with customer needs, market trends, and technical constraints.

Key focus areas for building new features and capabilities include:

  • Differentiation in the Market: Teams are developing unique features to maintain relevance and stand out among competitors.
  • Driving Growth: Ongoing feature development is directly tied to customer acquisition and retention, leading to revenue growth.
  • Customer Needs Alignment: Ensuring that product roadmaps are in sync with customer expectations (which in part are driven by competing solutions) and evolving market trends.

Adding New Products or Services 

Another major focus area for engineering teams is expanding product offerings. By adding new products or services, teams can target additional market segments and improve the overall value proposition of their companies. This expansion is critical in gaining a competitive edge and diversifying revenue streams.

Performance Improvements 

Optimizing the performance of existing products is a priority to ensure that systems operate effectively and provide a high-quality user experience. Improving performance not only enhances customer satisfaction but also sets the foundation for future scalability.

Key areas of focus for performance improvements include:

  • Architecture, Database, and Code Optimization: Focusing on refining software architecture, optimizing data architecture and database queries, and enhancing code efficiency to improve overall system performance.
  • Performance Testing: carried out under various conditions and scenarios, ensures that the software can handle different types of user behavior and system loads effectively.
  • Scalability Planning: Making sure that systems are ready to scale as demand increases (gradually, cyclically, or event-driven), ensuring a seamless user experience.
  • Real-time Monitoring: Implementing effective monitoring to quickly identify and resolve performance issues.
  • Infrastructure Optimization: Investing in infrastructure enhancements that support consistent performance and reliability.

R&D and Experimentation

This involves experimenting with new ideas and technologies to enhance both the product and the development process. Teams focus on improving product functionality, ease of use, performance, and other user-facing features. Additionally, efforts are made to boost development efficiency by introducing advanced coding tools, leveraging Generative AI, exploring new programming languages, enhancing CI/CD pipelines, and adopting innovative practices that improve efficiency and/or the developer experience.

Key areas of focus for R&D and Experimentation include:

  • New/Different Technologies: Experimenting with technologies outside the current stack to explore opportunities for enhancing functionality, user experience, or performance.
  • Performance Optimization: Testing new approaches to improve system speed and efficiency.
  • Developer Tools: Introducing advanced tools that make the development process more seamless.
  • Generative AI Integration: Leveraging AI to enhance both product functionality and development workflows.
  • User-Centered Design Experiments: Incorporating user feedback during the experimentation phase to iteratively enhance the product’s usability and user experience.
  • Security Testing Innovations: Experimenting with advanced security tools and methods to proactively identify vulnerabilities and enhance product security.
Developers managing technical debt and improving system stability.
Operational efficiency and developer enablement.

Operational Efficiency and Developer Enablement 

Managing Technical Debt and Maintenance 

Technical debt, often neglected during high-growth periods, is now receiving the attention it needs to ensure long-term stability. The priority on managing technical debt is about maintaining a stable and sustainable codebase. Leaders are increasingly aware that maintaining system stability is crucial for long-term success and that ignoring it today only amplifies future risks. Effective technical debt management also frees up resources that would otherwise be tied up in fixing issues, allowing teams to focus on more strategic goals. 

Key areas of focus for managing technical debt include:

  • Code Review Best Practices: Ensuring that code is regularly reviewed to maintain quality and prevent accumulation of technical debt.
  • Refactoring Legacy Systems & Code: Modernizing older systems and codebases to make them more maintainable and efficient.
  • Automated Testing: Investing in automated testing tools to catch defects faster and reduce technical debt.
  • Incremental Improvements: Addressing technical debt in small, manageable increments to avoid overwhelming engineering teams.
  • Long-term Stability: Prioritizing actions that contribute to the long-term stability and sustainability of the codebase.

Cost Optimization, Productivity, and Efficiency 

Economic uncertainty has prompted engineering teams to reassess operations for efficiency and productivity. Many teams are adopting leaner processes, automating repetitive tasks, and aiming to get more output from the same or fewer resources. For engineering leaders, the challenge is creating environments where cost efficiency is achieved without compromising culture and innovation. 

Key strategies for cost optimization include:

  • Improving Productivity: Teams are focusing on maximizing output by streamlining their operations and removing inefficiencies. Examples include fine-tuning agile methodologies to enhance team collaboration, implementing continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) to speed up releases, and using data-driven metrics to identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement.
  • Automation Initiatives: Leveraging automation tools to handle repetitive tasks and remove the potential for human error can free up engineers for more strategic work and improve overall quality.
  • Leveraging Cost-Effective Engineering Teams: Augment in-house engineering teams with engineers from cost-effective regions, particularly nearshore developers, to maintain cost advantages while minimizing collaboration challenges.
  • Cloud Resource Optimization: Reviewing and optimizing cloud infrastructure to control spending and improve cost efficiency.

Developer Experience (DX) 

Enhancing developer experience—by reducing unnecessary friction and improving internal tools—has become a significant focus to ensure effectiveness. This effort is closely related to improving productivity, as they are two sides of the same coin. Many engineering teams are investing in better development tools, streamlined CI/CD pipelines, and robust testing environments to create a seamless workflow. 

Key strategies for improving developer experience include:

  • Reducing Friction: Minimizing obstacles in workflows to ensure developers can focus on coding without unnecessary interruptions.
  • Better Development Tools: Investing in tools that make coding easier and enhance developer productivity.
  • Streamlined CI/CD Pipelines: Ensuring continuous integration and deployment processes are smooth and efficient.
  • Robust Testing Environments: Creating reliable testing frameworks that provide developers with confidence in their changes.
  • Peer Reviews and Pair Programming: Encouraging collaboration to enhance code quality and foster a culture of learning.

Developer experience is now being treated as an essential part of productivity; leaders recognize that developers empowered with intuitive tools and smooth workflows are less prone to burnout and more likely to deliver high-quality code.

Ensuring customer satisfaction with reliable software performance.
Reliability and performance as engineering team priorities.

Ensuring Customer Satisfaction

Reliability and Performance Improvements 

The need for operational resilience has made reliability and uptime key priorities for engineering teams. Ensuring system reliability directly impacts customer satisfaction and remains a key focus. For engineering leaders, it means making investments in infrastructure and system architectures that help minimize downtime and prevent issues before they affect users. This includes improving monitoring capabilities and adopting a proactive approach to incident management. 

Key strategies for reliability and performance improvements include:

  • Operational Resilience: Investing in infrastructure that enhances reliability and minimizes downtime.
  • Resilient System Architecture Design: Designing system architectures with resilience in mind, incorporating redundancy, failover mechanisms, and modular components to minimize the impact of failures.
  • Proactive Monitoring: Improving monitoring capabilities to detect and address issues before they escalate.
  • Incident Management: Adopting a proactive approach to managing incidents to minimize customer impact.
  • Chaos Engineering and Stress Testing: Utilizing these practices to build resilient systems.
  • Team Upskilling: Training teams to respond effectively to incidents and recover gracefully when issues arise.

Quality Assurance and Testing

As customer expectations for software remain high in terms of availability, performance, functional accuracy, and usability, Quality Assurance (QA) continues to be a key priority for 2025. Teams are focusing on building automated testing frameworks to ensure stability and reduce the chances of defects in production. Investing in comprehensive QA practices ensures that systems are reliable and helps in maintaining customer trust.

Key strategies for quality assurance and testing include:

  • Automated Testing Frameworks: Building and implementing automated testing to ensure stability and catch defects early.
  • Continuous Integration: Utilizing continuous integration to maintain code quality and quickly identify issues.
  • Proactive Quality Measures: Adopting proactive QA practices to enhance reliability and robustness.
  • Comprehensive QA Practices: Investing in extensive quality assurance to improve system reliability.
  • Customer Satisfaction and Trust: Prioritizing bugs and improvements that directly enhance the user experience while ensuring quality to maintain and build customer trust by minimizing production issues. This combined focus leads to greater customer loyalty.
Leveraging AI and data to improve engineering team productivity.
Using AI for internal productivity and decision-making.

Leveraging AI & Data 

AI for Internal Use 

Engineering leaders are exploring how AI can improve team productivity and assist in decision-making, bug detection, and predictive maintenance. AI-driven insights enhance decision-making speed and accuracy, providing valuable data-backed support. However, effective adoption requires deliberate prioritization and investment in upskilling teams to understand and work effectively with these tools, while also navigating the risks and ethical implications associated with AI in engineering processes. 

Key strategies for using AI internally include:

  • Automation of Repetitive Tasks: Leveraging AI to handle mundane, repetitive tasks, freeing up team members for more complex work.
  • Decision-making Support: Utilizing AI-driven insights to assist in making faster, data-backed decisions.
    Bug Detection and Predictive
  • Maintenance: Implementing AI to identify bugs and predict potential system failures before they happen.
  • Generative AI for Code Generation: Using Generative AI tools to assist in code generation can significantly enhance developer productivity by automating boilerplate code and suggesting code solutions. However, it is important that generated code is thoroughly reviewed to mitigate risks such as vulnerabilities and technical debt.
  • Team Upskilling: Investing in training to ensure teams understand and work effectively with AI tools.
  • Ethical AI Use: Addressing ethical concerns and ensuring AI is used responsibly within engineering processes.

AI for Customer Use 

AI for customer use targets enhancing products and services. This could involve personalizing user experiences, building intelligent product features, or creating AI-driven support solutions. The value of AI in customer-facing products is increasingly becoming apparent, especially in terms of providing better and more efficient service, though integration hurdles remain significant. 

Key strategies for using AI for customer purposes include:

  • Personalizing User Experiences: Leveraging AI to create tailored experiences that better meet individual customer needs.
  • Intelligent Product Features: Building smart features powered by AI that enhance product functionality and user engagement.
  • AI-driven Customer Service/Support Solutions: Creating automated support systems, such as chatbots, that provide immediate assistance to users.
  • Addressing Integration Challenges: Focusing on overcoming the technical and operational hurdles of integrating AI into customer-facing systems.

Internal Data Management 

Internal data management focuses on leveraging data effectively within the organization to drive better decisions, streamline processes, and enhance operational efficiency.

Key strategies for internal data management include:

  • Improving Data Quality: Investing in solutions that ensure high-quality data, reducing errors and improving the reliability of insights.
  • Enhancing Data Access: Implementing architectures and solutions that allow easier and more secure access to data for teams that need it.
  • Optimizing Data Utilization: Ensuring that data is used effectively across the organization to support AI initiatives and business intelligence.
  • Supporting AI Initiatives: Providing a strong data foundation to enable more effective AI applications.
  • Business Intelligence Alignment: Using data to drive strategic decisions that align with broader organizational goals.
Engineering teams aligning technical goals with business needs.
Balancing delivery speed with long-term sustainability.

Key Insights for Engineering Leaders

Aligning Team Goals with Business Needs

The key to prioritization this year lies in aligning technical work with business outcomes. Engineering teams must not only understand what they are building but also why it matters for the broader organization. This means that leaders must ensure there is transparency about how engineering initiatives tie into company objectives, allowing teams to remain motivated and purpose driven.

Balancing Immediate Delivery with Long-term Sustainability

Engineering leaders are tasked with balancing rapid feature delivery with the need for sustainable codebase health. Investing in the long-term stability of the codebase and reducing technical debt means fewer emergencies, fewer last-minute firefights, and smoother long-term development. A sustainable codebase leads to higher productivity over time, as teams spend less effort on bug fixing and more time on innovation.

Key strategies for balancing immediate delivery with long-term sustainability include:

  • Incremental Technical Debt Reduction: Addressing technical debt in small, manageable increments helps maintain stability without overwhelming the team or stalling new feature development.
  • High-impact Refactoring: Identifying and executing refactoring efforts that provide substantial improvements in system maintainability and scalability.
  • Maintaining Strong QA During Fast Delivery: Ensuring quality assurance processes are not bypassed during rapid feature releases, to prevent accumulating issues that could compromise long-term code health.
  • Stakeholder Communication: Clearly communicating the importance of technical debt reduction and long-term sustainability to stakeholders helps gain their support for initiatives that may not provide immediate visible results but are critical for future growth.
  • Dedicated Maintenance Sprints: Allocating specific sprints for addressing technical debt, system optimization, and maintenance tasks can help strike a balance between adding new features and ensuring stability.
  • Adopting a Sustainable Culture: Promoting a culture that values both speed and long-term sustainability encourages teams to make decisions that support a healthy codebase, reducing rework and boosting efficiency over time.

Conclusion

As we move into 2025, software engineering teams face a mix of opportunities and challenges shaped by economic pressures, advancements in AI, and the continuous demand for customer satisfaction. The ability to balance rapid innovation with long-term stability is more crucial than ever. Teams that prioritize aligning their goals with business outcomes, leveraging new technologies responsibly, and enhancing operational efficiency are best positioned to thrive.

The key insights provided in this blog are intended to guide engineering leaders in making thoughtful, strategic decisions that improve both productivity and resilience. Whether it’s managing technical debt, empowering developers with the right tools, or incorporating AI into both internal processes and customer experiences, every decision should be made with the goal of delivering enduring value to both the organization and its users.

How about you?

What priorities is your engineering team focusing on for 2025? Are your strategies aligned with broader business goals, and are you adopting a balanced approach to innovation and stability?

We’d love to hear your thoughts and insights! Share your experiences and challenges with us by reaching out on LinkedIn or sending us a message through our contact us page to discuss how we can help your team achieve its goals in the upcoming year.

Luis Aburto CEO Scio

Luis Aburto

CEO

“They have programmers in Mexico?”: The story of remote work at Scio with CEO and Founder Luis Aburto (Part 1)

“They have programmers in Mexico?”: The story of remote work at Scio with CEO and Founder Luis Aburto (Part 1)

Interculturality, Latin America Nearshoring, Nearshore Software Development, Outsourced Engineering Team, Scio, Software Development, Strategic Digital Nearshoring, Success Stories

By Scio Team 
Luis Aburto, CEO and Founder of Scio, a nearshore software development company in Mexico, specializing in remote teams for U.S. tech companies.
When it comes to working remotely and managing a hybrid working model, nothing is better than hearing it from someone doing it since 2003. So we sat down with Luis Aburto, CEO and Founder of Scio to find out what worked, what didn’t, what is Nearshore development, and the long road from emails to agile methodologies. Enjoy!
As a potential client, if I wanted to work with Nearshore developers, I would like to know how they can maintain cohesion in the team. Anyone can say “I’ll find you a developer” and then open LinkedIn, but that doesn’t make you a recruiter.

It’s not about just finding resources, it’s about building high-performing teams of people who integrate well, and I’d like to see how they achieve that and motivate their collaborators to strive for a well-done job. That’s what I would look for in a Nearshore company.

Scio started all the way back in 2003, and in the years since, it refined a unique perspective on software development, remote hybrid work, and what’s next for a programmer interested in joining an industry at the forefront of innovation and adaptability. But how did it all begin?

Luis Aburto, CEO and Founder of Scio, a nearshore software development company in Mexico, specializing in remote teams for U.S. tech companies.
Luis Aburto, CEO & Founder of Scio, on building nearshore software teams for U.S. companies—especially in Texas.

Nearshore: A new way to develop software

Well, at the end of the 90s, very few organizations in the US realized that software development could be done in Mexico. Clients had the idea that “IT outsourcing” was something you did in India, and nowhere else you could get these kinds of services.

One of the first companies to talk about “Nearshore development” was Softtek, which started to promote this model around 1998 or so. At the time, the attitude was something like “Seriously? They have programmers in Mexico?”, and certain friction existed towards the idea of outsourcing development here.

Now, since Scio began, our focus has been working with North American clients so, by definition, we have been doing remote work since day one. Sure, we occasionally visited clients to discuss the stages of a project, collect requirements, and present advances, but collaboration has mainly been remote, through conference calls and the like.

Technology wasn’t what it is now. Skype was the most advanced thing then, but Internet speeds gave us barely enough quality to do videoconferences, so we used phone landlines and conference speakers to make calls. It sounds quaint nowadays, I think, but it helped us start developing efficient ways to collaborate remotely.

It all happened exclusively at the office, too. Today it is very common to have a good broadband connection with optical fiber at home, but in ’03, dedicated Internet connections for businesses were barely enough, so if you worked from home, sending your code to a remote server somewhere and trying to integrate it with the code written by the office team was a very slow process, and not efficient at all.

Vintage office desk with a typewriter, invoices, and coins—illustrating the pre-Cloud era of software development and Scio’s early remote-work context serving U.S. clients from Mexico.
Early nearshore realities: collaborating with U.S. clients from Mexico before Cloud DevOps—foundations that shaped Scio’s modern remote delivery.
Also, we didn’t have stuff like GitHub or Azure DevOps, where everybody can send their code to the Cloud and run tests from there, so even if your clients were remote, you needed to be at the office to access your Source Code Repository with reasonable speed.

Internet speeds eventually started to get better and the possibility of working from home became more feasible. Around 2012 we started by implementing a policy where you could choose one day to work remotely per week, so by the time this pandemic got here, everyone already had a computer and good Internet plans, so it wasn’t a very radical change for us. We just leaped from doing it a single day of the week to doing it daily.

And yes, I do mean “this” pandemic because it isn’t the first one Scio has gone through. Back in 2009, we had the Swine Flu (AH1N1) in Mexico, and we had to completely shut down because going home and working from there couldn’t be done by everyone. The infrastructure necessary wasn’t there yet, so you couldn’t ask the team to work remotely overnight, even for a short while.

Other things changed once we could implement this “Home Office Day” policy, mainly realizing this was not a “lost” day of work. The response to it was great, as you could keep in contact with the team without getting lost in a “black hole” of not knowing what was going on, and do other stuff if your tasks allowed it.

Eventually, we had a couple of team members that, for personal reasons, left the office to work remotely full-time. The spouse of one of them got a job in Guadalajara and he didn’t want to leave us, so asked if we would be okay with this arrangement. After some time seeing how well this worked out, we fully opened to the idea of hiring more people remotely, to the point we had four full-time collaborators in Guadalajara on a co-working space we rented so they wouldn’t feel alone.

Computer screens with programming code reflected on eyeglasses, symbolizing Scio’s transition from email-based workflows to agile methodologies for U.S. clients.
Scio’s shift from email-heavy workflows to agile practices transformed collaboration with U.S. tech companies.

A technology leap

For our clients, things worked a little differently too. Back in the early 2000’s, collaboration happened a lot through email, where you had these long chains of messages that contained whole project proposals and development plans.

You can still do that of course, but it’s more common nowadays to just say “hey, let’s have a quick call, I’ll explain this and you can give me your feedback” to arrive at a decision, than having to compose an email, read it, discuss it with every relevant person, take note of all the stuff that wasn’t clear, and respond back and forth during the whole dev cycle.

This was our very early collaboration flow until agile methodologies became the norm. Soon our teams had daily scrum meetings with clients, with the key difference that, instead of a call of 10 or 15 participants joining from home, you had a meeting between two boardrooms: on one side of the call was the team at Scio, and on the other, our counterparts at the client’s office.

Everyone gave their status and comments, and once we finished, further exchanges were done by email or phone calls. We canceled several phone lines last year, by the way, when we realized they hadn’t been used in years. In the beginning, we needed lots of lines for every team to keep in touch with their respective clients, but now Zoom, Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, and Slack offer plenty of more convenient options to do so. Shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, this was still our collaboration dynamic, with two meeting rooms giving their respective status, and anyone working from home for the day joining the call.

Developer working remotely on a laptop during a video call, showing Scio’s bilingual nearshore collaboration with U.S. tech teams.
Scio’s remote-ready developers in Mexico work seamlessly with U.S. teams thanks to strong English skills and cultural alignment.
But now that everyone is working remotely, barriers have started to diminish, both in culture and in attitude. In the US you are probably already working with people in California, Texas, or New York, so working with someone in Mexico doesn’t feel different, as long as the language skills of the person are good.

The newer generations of developers and engineers have a better level of English now than just a few years ago. Maybe because there are more opportunities to get acquainted with the language; earlier you had to go to very specific stores to get books and other materials in English, which wasn’t cheap, and without stuff like YouTube and Netflix, the type of content you could get to practice was very limited.

This evolution of the software developers, when you are not limited to local options as long as you have the necessary skills to collaborate with a remote team, is very notable. The people we used to hire outside of Morelia were the ones willing to move here, and the process of seeking out people to explicitly be remote collaborators was gradual until we developed a whole process to assess which ones fit Scio’s culture the best.

Team meeting in a bright office, illustrating the importance of soft skills in Scio’s nearshore software development teams for U.S. companies.
At Scio, strong communication and collaboration skills are as valuable as technical expertise when working with U.S. clients.

Soft skills: The key to a good team

In that sense, I think soft skills will have more weight in the long run than purely technical skills. Someone with an average technical level, but who is proactive, knows how to communicate, and can identify priorities is someone who brings more value to a team than a technology wizard that doesn’t play along and keeps themself isolated, or assumes stuff instead of validating it.

You would think social skills are irrelevant for someone working remotely when they are actually critical to collaborate effectively. Some people prefer to not interact with others and would rather just get instructions on what to do, but this only works for well-defined tasks in which it is very clear what you are trying to accomplish.

I know this is the optimal way to collaborate for those developers who are less interested in social aspects, but it doesn’t work for projects that require innovation, creativity, and problem solving, with complex workflows involving tons of people whose input is important at every step.

This is why, I think the “introvert programmer” stereotype is something of a myth, at least nowadays. This profession is moving towards a place where the most valuable persons are the ones with a well-rounded profile, capable of communicating with the business sponsors, his or her coworkers, and final users, and not only those who are super-gifted in their programming skills.

People in software, as a whole, are becoming more versatile, and the ones capable of connecting are going to be more visible and be considered more valuable, getting more opportunities in their careers. This is what I can say about the path that the people at Scio have followed so far. From now on, collaboration is a priority because remote work makes it more important than ever, and motivating and stimulating this collaboration, indeed this cohesion, is what will differentiate good Nearshore companies from the best ones.