Nearshore or Offshore? Comparing Latin America and Eastern Europe for Software Projects

Nearshore or Offshore? Comparing Latin America and Eastern Europe for Software Projects

High-Performance Collaboration, Interculturality, Latin America Nearshoring, Nearshore, Nearshore Software Development, Strategic Digital Nearshoring

Written by: Monserrat Raya 

Hand selecting a secure location on a global checklist, representing safe nearshore outsourcing choices for U.S. companies

Introduction

Choosing the right region for software development isn’t just about cost anymore. In 2025, U.S. tech leaders are facing more complex questions: Where will teams communicate better? Which region offers legal security? How fast can new hires ramp up and integrate? While both Latin America and Eastern Europe remain popular destinations, their strengths—and challenges—differ in ways that can make or break a project.

This guide offers a direct comparison between these two regions, helping CTOs and decision-makers evaluate what matters most for long-term delivery success. Whether you’re scaling a startup or optimizing enterprise delivery, the right regional choice can impact everything from product speed to stakeholder trust.

Why This Comparison Matters More Than Ever in 2025

Over the last few years, the global outsourcing landscape has shifted significantly. Eastern Europe—especially countries like Ukraine and Poland—has long been a stronghold for offshore development. But with geopolitical instability, inflation, and shifting workforce trends, many companies are rethinking their exposure.

The war in Ukraine has disrupted delivery for countless teams and brought new risks to IP protection and operational continuity. Additionally, rising costs in cities like Warsaw or Bucharest have narrowed the price advantage many Eastern European teams once held.

Meanwhile, Latin America has quietly risen from a cost-saving option to a nearshore powerhouse. With growing investment in tech education, thriving startup ecosystems, and a deepening relationship with U.S. business culture, LATAM has become more than just “close”—it’s compatible. Countries like Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil are not only turning out more developers than ever, but they’re also aligning with the Agile practices and communication rhythms U.S. companies rely on.

For companies in Austin, Dallas, and other U.S. tech hubs, nearshoring to LATAM offers a strategic alternative with less friction and more collaboration.

Cultural compatibility of Latin American software teams with U.S. companies.
LATAM teams share direct communication and agile-friendly values with U.S. companies.

Developer Talent & Availability

Talent availability is one of the most critical factors when outsourcing software development. Both Latin America and Eastern Europe are known for their deep engineering pools—but how do they truly compare in 2025 in terms of scale, specialization, retention, and readiness to integrate with U.S. teams?

Let’s break it down beyond just numbers.

Developers, Tech Stacks & Annual Attrition by Region
Region
Estimated Developers
Popular Tech Stacks
Annual Attrition Rate
Latin America ~2 million (Statista, 2024) [1] JavaScript, Python, Java, React, AWS 15–20%
Eastern Europe >1.3 million (Stack Overflow, 2023) [2] Java, .NET, C++, Angular, Azure 25–35%
[1] Statista (2024). Estimated number of software developers in Latin America.   [2] Stack Overflow (2023). Global developer population estimates.

Scale vs. Specialization

While Eastern Europe has long been known for deep academic training in disciplines like systems programming, embedded development, and enterprise-level .NET stacks, Latin America’s tech ecosystem has evolved to meet the demands of global startups and product-driven companies. As a result, LATAM developers are more likely to have hands-on experience with: – Agile SaaS delivery models – API-first development – Mobile-first UX – Cloud-native architectures (AWS, GCP, Azure)

In regions like Guadalajara, São Paulo, Medellín, and Buenos Aires, you’ll find engineers accustomed to CI/CD pipelines, version control best practices, and real-world sprint cadences—all things U.S. teams rely on daily.

Education + Workforce Development

LATAM governments and private institutions have heavily invested in workforce digitalization over the last decade. Brazil and Mexico lead in STEM university enrollment, while Argentina and Colombia show significant growth in bootcamp-trained, job-ready developers. For example: – Brazil graduates over 100,000 tech professionals per year – Mexico has launched public-private initiatives like Talent Land and Platzi partnerships – Argentina maintains one of the highest English proficiency levels in the region

By contrast, Eastern Europe continues to benefit from world-class math and engineering programs, especially in Poland, Ukraine, and Romania but many developers are now being pulled into Western European or UK-based contracts, increasing competition and attrition.

Retention + Ramp-Up

Developer attrition is a silent killer in software delivery. LATAM’s average turnover is around 15–20%, thanks in part to stronger retention incentives and better alignment with North American work culture. In contrast, Eastern Europe has seen attrition spike to 25–35%, especially in markets like Ukraine and Belarus due to war and political uncertainty.

Ramp-up time also matters: LATAM developers, used to U.S. time zones and collaboration styles, typically integrate in 2–4 weeks. Eastern European devs, while capable, may need longer onboarding cycles to adapt to communication norms and stakeholder expectations.

Developer Mobility + Market Access

Remote work has become the norm in both regions, but LATAM developers increasingly work with U.S. clients from the start. Many are fluent in async tools (Slack, Jira, GitHub), and familiar with U.S. product-led roadmaps. This reduces the learning curve and accelerates trust.

In short: Latin America is not only growing in numbers; it’s maturing in readiness. The region is producing more developers every year, but more importantly, it’s cultivating talent equipped for Agile delivery, cross-cultural collaboration, and long-term strategic partnerships.”
— Based on insights from Statista, JoinGenius, and The Frontend Company

Cultural Alignment and Communication

Timezone overlap is often underestimated—but it makes or breaks collaboration. LATAM teams typically share 6–8 hours of the U.S. workday, while Eastern Europe only overlaps 2–3 hours for most U.S. teams.

Annual Attrition Rates by Region and Sector (approx.)
Region / Sector
Tech Industry
General Market
Latin America 15–20% 12–15%
Eastern Europe 25–35% 18–22%
India 30–40% 20–25%
U.S. 18–22% 10–12%

Beyond just time zones, cultural fit plays a huge role in software delivery. LATAM teams often share U.S. values around ownership, collaboration, and feedback. Developers in Mexico or Colombia are more likely to speak up in standups, participate in retrospectives, and contribute beyond assigned tasks.

In contrast, Eastern European teams—while highly competent—tend to take a more formal, task-based approach. Feedback may be seen as criticism, and cultural norms can discourage open challenge. This doesn’t mean teams can’t perform—it just means communication expectations need more calibration.

Many U.S. managers worry about cultural friction when outsourcing. Here’s why it matters.

Cost Comparison: Is One Region Actually Cheaper?

At first glance, Eastern Europe may appear slightly cheaper—but total cost of delivery tells a different story. When you factor in handoff delays, rework, and developer turnover, Latin America often provides better value.

Average Hourly Rates by Seniority – LATAM vs Eastern Europe
Seniority
LATAM (USD/hr)
Eastern Europe (USD/hr)
Junior $20–35 $25–40
Mid-Level $35–50 $40–60
Senior $55–75 $60–85

Hidden cost alert: Time zone drag, long feedback loops, and low visibility into progress can add 10–15% more time to offshore sprints. LATAM’s overlap enables same-day iteration, improving velocity and predictability.

Retention also plays a role. High churn in Eastern Europe—driven by startup migration and regional competition—can increase costs related to onboarding, ramp-up, and knowledge loss.

Understand the real cost of hiring developers

Legal, IP, and Risk Factors

In 2025, legal and geopolitical risks are top of mind for CTOs and compliance leaders. LATAM offers growing maturity in contract enforceability, IP protection, and data compliance—especially in Mexico and Colombia.

Legal & Compliance Overview – Latin America vs Eastern Europe
Criteria
Latin America
Eastern Europe
Contract enforceability U.S.-style contracts common Varies (esp. Ukraine, Belarus)
GDPR/Data Compliance Moderate–High High (EU standard)
Political Risk (2025) Low–Moderate Moderate–High
NDA / Work-for-Hire Adoption Common in Mexico/Colombia Varies widely

Eastern Europe’s alignment with EU law is a strength—but also a risk in unstable regions. Countries like Ukraine face real infrastructure risks. LATAM, while still maturing, has shown strong improvements in legal clarity, especially with partners operating under U.S.-compliant models.

Agile Delivery: Who’s Really Built for Speed?

Both regions have adopted Agile, but delivery rhythms and team structures vary.

Latin America tends to: – Prioritize collaboration across roles (QA, DevOps, Product) – Embrace pair programming, async updates, and demos – Match Agile ceremonies to U.S. cadences

Eastern Europe teams are often technically strong but may favor hierarchical structures or less feedback-oriented planning.

Retention & Partnership: Latin America vs Eastern Europe
Criteria
Latin America
Eastern Europe
Average Engagement Length 3–5 years (Scio clients) 1–3 years
Client Retention 95–98% 75–85%
Approach to Partnerships Long-term, integrated, collaborative Transactional, resource-driven

Agile is not just process—it’s participation. LATAM teams often integrate with U.S. product workflows more naturally, enabling smoother iterations and faster course correction.

Choose a nearshore partner that thinks like your team — Latin American software engineers aligned with U.S. culture for faster, low-friction delivery.
Which Region Fits Your Strategy?

Final Verdict: Which Region Fits Your Strategy?

No region is a silver bullet—but for U.S. companies prioritizing collaboration, clarity, and agility, LATAM checks more strategic boxes.

Best Region For… LATAM vs Eastern Europe
Best Region For…
LATAM
Eastern Europe
Timezone Collaboration Strong Weak
Agile Communication Style Strong Moderate
Legal Compatibility (U.S.) High Moderate
Lowest Base Hourly Rate Higher Lower
Retention & Continuity High Low

Ultimately, the right choice comes down to what your team values most: cost, speed, cultural fit, or long-term reliability. If you’re looking for a development partner that operates in your time zone, communicates with clarity, and integrates seamlessly into your Agile workflows, Latin America stands out as a strategic match for U.S. companies in 2025.

Want to explore how a culturally aligned, high-performing LATAM team could support your roadmap?
Let’s connect and talk about how Scio can help you scale with confidence.

1. Is Latin America better than Eastern Europe for software development?

It depends on your priorities. Eastern Europe may offer slightly lower hourly rates and deep technical expertise, but Latin America provides stronger cultural alignment, better timezone overlap, and often faster team integration. For U.S. companies, LATAM is often the better fit for Agile delivery and long-term collaboration.

2. What region offers better legal protection for IP and contracts?

Eastern Europe offers EU-level protections, but enforceability varies by country. In contrast, Latin American countries like Mexico and Colombia offer clear IP clauses, U.S.-style NDAs, and increasing contract transparency through U.S.-based providers.

3. How do communication styles differ between regions?

LATAM teams tend to be more collaborative, proactive, and fluent in Agile ceremonies like standups and retrospectives. Eastern European teams may lean more formal, with less spontaneous feedback. Both can deliver well—if expectations are aligned early.

4. Which region has more developers ready to work with U.S. companies?

Both regions have over 1 million active developers, but Latin America has stronger presence in product-driven roles and startup-ready environments. Developers are often trained with U.S. standards in mind and work on distributed teams from early in their careers.

5. What’s the biggest hidden cost when choosing Eastern Europe?

Time zone drag and turnover. Limited overlap with U.S. hours delays decisions and slows QA cycles. Higher attrition also creates re-onboarding costs and lost domain knowledge over time.

6. Are Latin American software teams ready for enterprise-level projects?

Absolutely. Teams in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia are delivering for fintechs, healthcare, and government clients. They’re using modern stacks, CI/CD pipelines, and Agile practices to support large-scale transformation efforts.

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.
Culture as Code: The Invisible Architecture Behind Great Software Teams 

Culture as Code: The Invisible Architecture Behind Great Software Teams 

Communication & Collaboration, High-Performance Collaboration, Remote Work, Strategic Digital Nearshoring, Team Performance

By Helena Matamoros
U.S. software development team in a strategy meeting, representing Scio’s Culture as Code approach for building high-performing, culturally aligned nearshore teams.
When people ask me what really makes Scio stand out as a strategic digital nearshore partner, I don’t start by listing our tech stack or client portfolio.

I start with our company culture.

Because in software development, culture is the invisible architecture holding everything together. It’s the foundation that helps talented people work like a single, connected team, and it’s the reason some projects last for years, not months.

After more than 20 years building and scaling distributed software teams for U.S. companies, I’ve seen what happens when culture is strong. You get resilient, motivated, high-performing teams that don’t just deliver, they grow together.

And just like good code, culture should be intentional, elegant, and constantly refined.

Culture Is Not a Perk, It’s a System

At Scio, culture isn’t about perks or nice quotes on the wall. It’s a system: a set of shared values, habits, and rituals that shape how we work, communicate, and make decisions.

From day one in our onboarding program, every interaction is built to reinforce what we believe in:

  • Collaboration – solving problems together, not in silos.
  • Curiosity – always asking “what if” and exploring better ways to work.
  • Empathy – understanding teammates, users, and clients.
  • Ownership – taking full responsibility for results, not just tasks.

And these values show up in our daily routines:

  • Daily stand-ups where transparency and psychological safety are a must.
  • Retrospectives that go beyond metrics to check in on how people are actually doing.
  • Peer recognition rituals that celebrate effort, support, and teamwork, not just outcomes.

These aren’t “nice extras.” They’re what allow a distributed nearshore team to stay aligned and deliver even when deadlines are tight.

Perk-Based Culture vs. Culture as Code

Comparison: Perk-Based Culture vs. Systemic Culture (Culture as Code)
Dimension
Perk-Based Culture
Systemic Culture (Scio’s “Culture as Code”)
Purpose Focuses on visible perks (snacks, events) without consistent impact on delivery. System of behaviors, rituals, and values guiding how we work and decide.
Daily Practices Ad-hoc activities with little predictability. Stand-ups with psychological safety, retros with emotional check-ins, peer recognition.
Evolution Static; promoted but not iterated. “Living codebase”: surveys, open forums, continuous process iteration.
Distributed Collaboration Adds more meetings without redesigning communication. Async protocols, virtual lunches, social digital spaces; belonging across LATAM/US.
Trust & Ownership Tendency toward micromanagement and gatekeeping. Clear expectations, autonomy to decide and challenge ideas.
Performance Under Pressure Inconsistency, silos, and friction. Consistent, predictable delivery in distributed nearshore teams.
Retention Impact High turnover; perks lose impact over time. Long-term retention and growth; pride in belonging (“I work at Scio”).
Nearshore software developers collaborating — Scio’s Culture as a Living Codebase for U.S. teams in Austin and Dallas.
We treat culture like a living codebase—reviewed, tested, and improved to build high-performing nearshore teams for U.S. companies.

Our Culture Is a Living Codebase

Like software, culture isn’t something you “set and forget.” At Scio, we treat it like a living codebase, something we review, test, and improve all the time.

We run surveys. We host open forums. We listen. And when something isn’t working, we fix it.

For example, when remote team members told us they felt disconnected, we didn’t just add more Zoom calls. We redesigned our communication playbook:

  • Asynchronous updates so time zones aren’t a barrier.
  • Virtual lunch chats to bring back informal moments.
  • Shared digital spaces for casual, non-work conversations.

The result? A stronger sense of connection, even when we’re spread across Latin America and the U.S.

If you want to dig deeper into this topic, check out: Myths and Realities Behind Creating a Good Corporate Culture for Your Software Development Team.

Wooden blocks spelling TRUST, symbolizing Scio’s approach to scaling trust in nearshore software development teams for U.S. companies.
Trust is the foundation of high-performing nearshore teams—built through clarity, respect, and open feedback.

Culture Is How We Scale Trust

In nearshore software development, trust is everything. Culture is how you scale it.

We trust our people to take ownership, make calls, and challenge ideas. That trust is built on:

  • Clear expectations.
  • Consistent, respectful communication.
  • A culture where feedback is normal and encouraged.

When you get that right, distributed teams can move fast without losing alignment.

Why Culture Is Our Competitive Advantage

The truth is, top developers have options. They can work anywhere. So why do they stay here?

Because at Scio, we don’t just build software.

We build teams that build each other.

And that’s why clients stick around too, because working with a culturally aligned nearshore partner doesn’t just feel easier, it delivers better results.

For CTOs and Engineering Leaders

If you’re exploring a nearshore software partner, don’t just ask about tech stacks or rates. Ask about culture.

It’s what will determine whether your team delivers consistently or struggles to stay on track.

Helena Matamoros

Helena Matamoros

Human Capital Manager

Cost of Software Development in Latin America: Real Numbers, Real Value

Cost of Software Development in Latin America: Real Numbers, Real Value

Data Management Software and Services, Latin America Nearshoring, Nearshore, Nearshore Software Development, Product Development, Strategic Digital Nearshoring

Written by: Monserrat Raya 

Close-up of hands typing on a laptop with data overlay, representing the real cost and value of software development in Latin America for U.S. companies.

Introduction

When it comes to outsourcing software development, cost is often the first thing on the table. But in 2025, the real conversation isn’t just about saving money it’s about getting the most value for your investment. For U.S.-based CTOs, CFOs, and procurement leads, Latin America still represents one of the most strategic regions to build high-performing, collaborative teams that go beyond hourly rates.

This isn’t about bargain hunting. It’s about building sustainable delivery capacity. LATAM offers something that’s increasingly rare in outsourcing: a balance of affordability, skill, and shared context. Developers in countries like Mexico and Colombia aren’t just coding machines, they’re trained professionals who understand product thinking, work well in Agile environments, and value long-term relationships.

Over the past few years, global uncertainty has pushed many tech leaders to reevaluate their sourcing strategies. Rising costs in local markets, geopolitical risks in offshore regions, and the pressure to deliver faster with fewer resources have made nearshoring not just attractive, but necessary. And LATAM, with its timezone alignment, U.S.-friendly culture, and maturing tech ecosystems, has stepped into that gap.

This blog breaks down what you actually pay and what you really get when building nearshore teams in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and Brazil. Spoiler: it’s not just cheaper, t’s smarter.

Hand placing a block with a dollar sign on top of stacked blocks, symbolizing the role of cost in software development decisions alongside value and quality.
Cost is just the start—real value comes from quality, cultural fit, and collaboration.

Why Cost Is Still a Driver, But Not the Only One

Let’s be honest: price matters. No one is approving a vendor partnership without looking at the numbers. But when it comes to software development, the hourly rate only tells part of the story. What really counts is what you get for that rate.

A $40/hour developer who delivers clean, well-documented, testable code in two sprints can easily outperform a $20/hour developer who creates tech debt that takes a team months to untangle. This is why experienced U.S. tech leaders are shifting their mindset from “How much does a developer cost?” to “What’s the cost per sprint delivered? Per successful release? Per retained engineer who sticks with the project long enough to understand the context and drive improvement?”

Cost is just the starting point. The real metric is value—and that’s where Latin America begins to outperform. Because when you factor in delivery speed, cultural fit, and real-time collaboration, the equation changes.

Explore the latest software development trends in Latin America

Developer Salaries Across LATAM: Updated for 2025

To understand the real cost of building software in Latin America, we need to look at the numbers that matter to hiring managers and finance teams alike. Here’s a breakdown of average monthly and hourly salaries for developers in the region, based on experience level. These numbers can vary depending on the specific tech stack and location, but they offer a reliable snapshot of what companies are currently paying.

Monthly salaries (USD) and typical hourly ranges for LATAM developers
Country
Junior (USD/mo)
Mid-Level (USD/mo)
Senior (USD/mo)
Hourly Range (USD)
Mexico $2,000 $3,500 $5,500 $25–$65
Colombia $1,800 $3,000 $4,800 $22–$60
Brazil $1,700 $3,200 $5,000 $20–$58
Argentina $1,500 $2,800 $4,200 $18–$55

According to Huntly’s LATAM developer compensation overview, senior software engineers in Mexico earn between $48,000 and $66,000 USD per year, while in Colombia the average ranges from $29,500 to $63,600 depending on experience and tech stack.

What these numbers don’t tell you—but you should always consider—is what’s included in the rate. Many nearshore providers handle benefits, equipment, and taxes, while others work under dedicated or staff augmentation models where your team retains more control. Either way, the flexibility of engagement options in Latin America adds another layer of cost efficiency that’s not always available in other regions.

Business professional pointing at a virtual graph highlighting cost, quality, and speed, symbolizing the total cost of engagement in software development.
Beyond hourly rates: factoring in outcomes, retention, and delivery speed when evaluating software vendors.

Total Cost of Engagement: Beyond Hourly Rates

It’s tempting to stop at the hourly rate when evaluating vendors—but the actual cost of getting work done includes far more. Think of it like this: you’re not just paying for time; you’re paying for outcomes, team continuity, and delivery speed.

What often gets overlooked in budgeting discussions are the long-tail costs: the extra time your in-house team spends clarifying unclear requirements, the hours lost in miscommunications, the rework triggered by poor documentation. These are the things that don’t show up in an invoice, but they do show up in missed deadlines and rising backlog.

What should you be measuring?
  • Retention & Turnover: High attrition means more training cycles, more context lost, and delays in delivery. In many offshore locations, developer turnover can be above 40% annually. Nearshore partners in LATAM often maintain much lower attrition—sometimes under 15%—thanks to stronger work culture alignment and growth paths.
  • Ramp-Up Time: Every day your team spends onboarding is a day without product movement. LATAM teams tend to ramp up faster due to timezone alignment, cultural fluency, and previous experience with U.S. companies. Faster ramp-up means shorter time-to-value.
  • Communication & Proactivity: Effective communication is not just about language; it’s about context, clarity, and ownership. A team that asks the right questions early will save weeks of rework. LATAM developers are used to participating actively in standups, retros, and sprint planning sessions—they’re not just waiting for tickets to arrive.
  • Delivery Velocity: Teams that align with your sprint rhythm, product goals, and architectural standards deliver not only faster—but more predictably. That predictability is what allows your product roadmap to move forward without constant re-adjustment.

Comparison of hidden cost areas between Offshore (Asia, EE) and Nearshore (LATAM)
Hidden Cost Area
Offshore (Asia, EE)
Nearshore (LATAM)
Timezone Collaboration Low High
Ramp-Up Time Slower Faster
Attrition Risk High Medium/Low
Legal & IP Risk Higher Lower (U.S.-aligned)
You wouldn’t measure your in-house team by hourly cost alone—so why do it with nearshore teams?

What You Lose When You Only Chase the Lowest Price

There’s a point at which cost-cutting stops being efficient and starts being expensive. Companies that chase the lowest rate often end up paying more through poor quality, missed deadlines, and the cost of context-switching when developers leave mid-project.

We’ve seen this play out many times. A team that looks great on paper because they’re charging $18/hour turns into a bottleneck because they can’t deliver without constant supervision. Deadlines slip. Technical debt creeps in. Your senior product owner ends up spending more time fixing issues than moving forward with strategy.

There’s also the emotional cost on your internal team. When developers have to work nights to accommodate timezones or clean up poorly written handoffs, morale drops. That leads to disengagement, turnover, and eventually burnout.

One CTO we spoke with shared that their “affordable” offshore team cost them nearly three months of rework because of missed requirements and a lack of architectural alignment. When they switched to a LATAM team that was only 25% more expensive per hour, they were shipping features faster and reducing internal support tickets. That’s ROI.

“We realized cheap wasn’t cheap. What we needed was reliable, not risky.” — Scio client, Fintech VP of Product (Austin, TX)

Hand holding a glowing map of Latin America with rising financial graph overlay, symbolizing the strategic investment value of LATAM in 2025.
LATAM offers stable costs, deep talent pools, and strong U.S. business alignment, making it a smart investment choice in 2025.

Is LATAM Still a Smart Investment in 2025?

Yes. And the reasons are stacking up.

  • Stable Exchange Rates: Countries like Mexico and Brazil have stabilized their FX rates and use the U.S. dollar as a reference point. That gives U.S. companies predictability when forecasting costs.
  • Deep Talent Pools: LATAM now produces over 1 million new tech graduates per year across universities and bootcamps. That’s not just scale—it’s sustainability.
  • U.S. Business Alignment: From legal frameworks and IP protection to Agile ceremonies and Git workflows, LATAM teams are already working like U.S.-based teams do. No need to explain what a sprint review is.
  • Strategic Rebalancing: Many tech companies are shifting away from traditional offshore models (India, Ukraine, Philippines) and using LATAM to diversify their delivery risk while improving collaboration.

According to the World Bank’s 2025 economic outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean, the region is expected to grow at a steady pace, with digital infrastructure and services leading transformation efforts.

Final Thoughts: Think ROI, Not Just Budget

At the end of the day, what you really want from your development team is not cheaper hours it’s consistent delivery, smart execution, and progress you can see.

As shown in the Index.dev LATAM salary report, LATAM remains one of the few regions where cost, delivery value, and alignment converge to offer U.S. companies a true nearshore advantage.

Latin America is still one of the few regions where you can balance cost, quality, and cultural fit. And partners like Scio make that balance even easier. With over 20 years helping U.S.-based companies scale their teams, we understand that development is more than code it’s collaboration, velocity, and trust.

In the meantime, see how Scio compares to other LATAM partners and get in touch for a custom cost breakdown.

1. How much does it cost to hire a senior software developer in Latin America in 2025?

On average, hiring a senior developer in Latin America costs between $4,200 and $5,500 per month, depending on the country. In Mexico, for example, that’s around $65/hour, which is significantly more affordable than hiring a developer with similar skills in the U.S., where salaries can exceed $150,000/year.

2. Are nearshore developers in LATAM worth the price compared to offshore alternatives?

Yes—while offshore vendors may offer lower hourly rates, nearshore developers in Latin America often outperform in delivery speed, retention, communication, and timezone overlap. The result? Fewer delays, fewer mistakes, and a better total cost of ownership for your projects.

3. What hidden costs should I consider when outsourcing software development?

Hourly rates are just the surface. Hidden costs include high attrition, long onboarding times, communication delays, poor documentation, and misalignment in working styles. These factors can increase your true cost significantly if overlooked.

4. Is Latin America still a cost-effective region for software development in 2025?

Absolutely. Even with inflation in some countries, most rates in LATAM remain stable and competitive—especially since many contracts are tied to the U.S. dollar. When you consider quality, retention, and collaboration, LATAM continues to offer strong value.

5. What makes LATAM more strategic than just cost savings?

Beyond affordability, LATAM offers cultural compatibility, Agile fluency, legal clarity, and better alignment with U.S. product development rhythms. You’re not just saving money—you’re improving how fast and how well your teams can deliver.

Software Development Trends in Latin America: What U.S. Tech Leaders Should Know 

Software Development Trends in Latin America: What U.S. Tech Leaders Should Know 

Latin America Nearshoring, Nearshore, Nearshore Software Development, Product Development, Strategic Digital Nearshoring

Written by: Monserrat Raya 

Businessman using a digital tablet with holographic tech icons, symbolizing software development trends in Latin America.

Introduction

Latin America is no longer just an option for outsourcing it’s becoming a serious strategic choice for U.S. tech leaders aiming to build high-performing development teams. Over the past decade, the region has steadily transformed from a cost-cutting destination to a key player in the global tech landscape. Today, Latin America stands out not only because of its growing pool of skilled software engineers but also for its cultural alignment with U.S. companies, its geographic proximity, and its readiness to embrace modern development practices.

Whether you’re a CTO evaluating your next move, or a VP of Engineering thinking about scaling, understanding what’s happening in LATAM isn’t just useful it’s essential. In this blog, we’ll explore the most important software development trends in Latin America for 2025, what they mean for your business, and how you can leverage this momentum to build stronger, smarter dev teams.

Latin America’s Tech Ecosystem Is Maturing

Ten years ago, most people looked at Latin America as a place to outsource low-risk tasks. Fast forward to today, and you’ll find thriving tech ecosystems supported by government programs, foreign investment, and a new generation of startup founders. Latin America has moved beyond «emerging» and is now carving out its place as a serious player in the global tech conversation.

Countries like Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia have taken intentional steps to foster innovation, from tech-focused education programs to tax incentives for startups. These initiatives, combined with increased foreign investment and support from global tech companies, are creating a feedback loop of growth and innovation.

Key Drivers of Growth:
  • Public-private partnerships fueling innovation hubs
  • National investments in STEM and English education
  • Expansion of accelerator programs and VC funding
  • Tech giants like Google, Amazon, and IBM setting up regional hubs

According to the World Bank, LATAM’s digital economy is expanding at nearly double the rate of other industries, signaling long-term, sustainable momentum.

Latin American software developers collaborating on laptops in a modern office, symbolizing remote-ready, multilingual tech talent in 2025.
Latin America’s tech talent is experienced, bilingual, and ready to support distributed U.S. teams.

Talent Trends: What the Developer Workforce Looks Like in 2025

The real story of Latin America’s tech growth lies in its people. Developers across the region are increasingly experienced, multilingual, and comfortable with distributed, asynchronous work environments. Many have years of experience working with U.S. companies remotely, which means they’re not just technically skilled—they’re operationally ready.

Country
Devs in 2023 (est.)
Key Strengths
English Proficiency
Mexico 700,000+ Web, Cloud, Embedded High (B2+)
Colombia 600,000+ Mobile, AI, Agile Dev Medium–High
Brazil 1.5M+ Full-stack, Fintech, DevOps Variable (regional)
Argentina 500,000+ Blockchain, Data Science, Python High (esp. in urban areas)
What’s changing?
  • Developers are specializing in high-demand areas like AI, data science, and DevOps.
  • Many are already working with tools like GitHub Copilot, Azure, and AWS.
  • LATAM professionals have strong soft skills—they communicate well, adapt quickly, and are used to Agile environments.

Stack Overflow’s latest Developer Survey confirms that participation in open-source and cloud-native projects is on the rise across Latin America.

Nearshoring Momentum: U.S. Companies Are Rebalancing Risk

More and more U.S. companies are reconsidering their reliance on offshore destinations like India or Eastern Europe. Not because those regions are failing, but because the challenges—like time zone differences, cultural disconnects, and legal complexity—are adding friction.

Nearshoring to Latin America offers an appealing alternative. Teams are in the same time zones, speak the same languages (literally and culturally), and can collaborate in real time. Especially in a world where agility and speed matter more than ever, those advantages can be game-changers.

Why are U.S. companies shifting?

Factor
Offshore (India/Eastern Europe)
Nearshore (LATAM)
Time Zone Overlap Limited Strong (CST, EST)
Cultural Alignment Medium High (shared values/work culture)
Legal Compatibility Complex U.S.-aligned contracts
Political Stability Variable Improving in key countries
Communication Latency High Low

If you’re currently working with offshore teams and dealing with delays, friction, or late-night standups, nearshoring may offer the agility you need.

Business person pointing at icons representing communication and collaboration in global teams

Understanding how different cultures handle the word “no” can turn misalignment into momentum—especially in nearshore software partnerships.

Tech Hubs to Watch: More Than Just Capital Cities

One of the most exciting developments in the LATAM tech scene is how innovation is spreading beyond traditional capital cities. Places like Guadalajara, Medellín, and Córdoba are emerging as serious tech hubs with deep talent pools, strong university ecosystems, and lower operating costs.

These cities aren’t just cheaper alternatives. They’re strategic choices for companies that want to build long-term, sustainable partnerships in regions with lower attrition, stable infrastructure, and a focus on quality over quantity.

🌎 Emerging Tech Cities in LATAM

  • 🇲🇽 Guadalajara, Mexico: Great for embedded systems, design, and hardware-software integration
  • 🇨🇴 Medellín, Colombia: Strong in AI and urban innovation; supported by government funding
  • 🇦🇷 Córdoba, Argentina: Known for backend development and AI research
  • 🇧🇷 Florianópolis, Brazil: Startup-friendly coastal city with fintech strengths

🌱 Up-and-coming Tech Hubs

  • 🇲🇽 Morelia, Mexico: A rising city with growing investment in software talent and academic partnerships, ideal for long-term, cost-effective collaborations.
The decentralization of talent is a hidden gem for U.S. companies looking to tap into underutilized talent pools without competing in saturated metros.

The Role of Agile, AI, and Modern Dev Practices in LATAM

Latin America is not just following global trends—in some areas, it’s leading the way. Agile is no longer «nice to have» but table stakes. Cloud-native development is expected. And AI is being integrated into dev cycles faster than many expect.

This rapid adoption is fueled by the region’s startup ecosystem and the global experience of its devs. Many have worked across time zones, industries, and disciplines, making them adaptable and strategic collaborators.

What does this look like in practice?
  • Teams start every project with Agile ceremonies—standups, retros, planning
  • DevOps is embedded, with CI/CD pipelines and automation from day one
  • AI tools like GitHub Copilot are used daily, not as experiments but as standard tools
  • LATAM engineers are experimenting with LLMs to improve QA, documentation, and architecture design

According to IDC, over 65% of software teams in LATAM now operate with Agile methodologies, and AI tool usage has jumped 70% in just the past year.

Scio, for example, integrates AI and modern tooling into its engagements without losing sight of code quality, security, and long-term maintainability—something that resonates deeply with U.S. tech leaders.

Developer using tablet with digital icons symbolizing LATAM software ecosystem

Latin America's software ecosystem is growing fast—driven by innovation, scalability, and global collaboration.

Final Thoughts: Latin America’s Trends Point to Strategic Growth

Latin America is more than a cost-effective outsourcing option. It’s a region rich with opportunity, backed by real data, serious talent, and a growing ecosystem of innovation.

For U.S. companies seeking speed, alignment, and sustainable growth, LATAM offers not just proximity, but partnership. It’s no longer about «can we find cheaper devs?» but rather, «can we find the right partners who help us move faster and smarter?»

Recommended Reading:

If you’re planning your next phase of growth, take a moment to explore how a partner like Scio can help you build a trusted, skilled, and easy-to-work-with team.
Contact Scio to evaluate your nearshore options today.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Why are U.S. companies choosing Latin America for software development in 2025?

U.S. tech leaders are increasingly turning to LATAM because of its time zone alignment, strong English proficiency, modern dev practices, and rising developer talent pools. Compared to offshore regions, LATAM offers real-time collaboration, cultural compatibility, and better legal alignment with the U.S.

2. Which countries in Latin America have the best software developers?

Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina are currently leading in terms of software development talent. Mexico and Colombia stand out for their remote work readiness and high English proficiency, while Brazil and Argentina offer strong specialization in DevOps, data science, and AI.

3. Is nearshoring to Latin America cheaper than hiring in the U.S.?

Yes. Nearshoring can reduce development costs by 30–50% compared to hiring full-time developers in the U.S., without sacrificing quality. It also lowers hidden costs related to timezone lags, project delays, and communication overhead common in offshore models.

4. What are the top tech hubs in Latin America in 2025?

Cities like Guadalajara (Mexico), Medellín (Colombia), Córdoba (Argentina), and Florianópolis (Brazil) are emerging as innovation hotspots. These cities offer strong university ecosystems, lower attrition, and cost-effective environments for building long-term partnerships.

5. Are Latin American developers familiar with Agile and AI tools like GitHub Copilot?

Absolutely. Over 65% of dev teams in LATAM use Agile as their default methodology, and AI adoption (including tools like Copilot and LangChain) is growing rapidly. Many teams are integrating LLMs and AI copilots into daily workflows for better productivity and documentation.

6. How does outsourcing to Latin America compare with Eastern Europe or India?

While all three regions offer tech talent, LATAM has a distinct advantage for U.S. companies: same or similar time zones, fewer legal complications, and cultural alignment that improves collaboration. Eastern Europe and India may offer cost benefits but often involve timezone friction and more complex contracts.

7. What are the risks of outsourcing software development to Latin America?

While the risks are fewer than offshore regions, they still exist—such as inflation in some economies or political shifts. However, these are increasingly mitigated through stable legal frameworks, USD-based contracts, and nearshore partners with U.S. operational experience like Scio.