Lina Paola Duarte, Client Recruitment Director at Biz Latin Hub, discusses hiring tech talent in Mexico/hiring developers in Mexico

In our latest Q&A, Biz Latin Hub’s Client Recruitment Director, Lina Paola Duarte, discusses hiring tech talent in Mexico/hiring developers in Mexico and answers some questions about this trending subject.

Lina Duarte is a bilingual (Spanish/English) Colombian national. She is a qualified lawyer, having earned her undergraduate degree at Colombia’s prestigious Universidad de los Andes as well as completing a master’s in international law (LLM) at Australia’s highly-regarded University of Technology Sydney. She has also completed additional certifications covering talent acquisition, team leadership, risk management, and legal investigations. 

Lina has an extensive professional history, including 18 years working with multinationals in Latin America, Australia, and the United States. Lina’s professional history has covered corporate law, HR strategies, outsourcing management, negotiation, organizational development, change culture, and talent management. Lina is a member of our senior leadership team.

What are the advantages of hiring tech talent in Mexico/hiring developers in Mexico? 

• Hiring tech talent in Mexico is not too costly because Mexican outsourcing offers competitive labor rates;
• The ability to work in real-time and in proximity with companies in Canada and the US due to similar time zones;
• The technological market in Mexico has recently developed; the country sees modernization as cultivating a skilled I.T. workforce who can work remotely and bring home foreign currency;
• Hiring developers in Mexico makes sense when you know that the government recently invested in stable internet connections to strengthen the capacity of remote workers;
• There are similar cultural backgrounds between US and Mexican nationals;
• Mexico and America have trade agreements that protect intellectual property and companies can share software development information freely with remote developers in Mexico.

As everything is evolving so quickly, what are the current hiring trends in Mexico?

Mexico’s technology industry registered a 7.9% drop in IT hiring activity in August 2022 when compared with the previous month. A total of 3,989 new Technology related jobs were posted in October 2022, witnessing a decrease of 25.09% as compared to the previous month. 

On the other hand, 5,327 Technology related jobs were closed in the same month implying that companies took out 6.03% fewer jobs than the month earlier. For the period from July 2022 to October 2022, the number of new tech related jobs posted decreased by 22.9% and the number of tech related jobs closed increased by 10.75% according to GlobalData’s Job Analytics database.

Has Mexico become a tech hub in Latin America?

From Monterrey to Porto Alegre, remote working has created technology and innovation hubs across LATAM, and beyond the capitals of its countries.  The fintech sector proliferated after the pandemic, especially at the beginning of 2021. Mexico received more than $5 billion USD in private equity investment according to data from the Latin American Association for Private Equity. 

According to articles listed on Bloomberg online, there are three key cities that are home to a significant number of startups: 232 in Mexico City, 46 in Monterrey, and 36 in Guadalajara (commonly referred to as the Mexican Silicon Valley). The biggest global IT companies also have offices located in Monterrey. Hiring tech talent in Mexico gets easier nowadays.

If you are interested in establishing a company in Mexico, you should first know more about Legal Representation in Mexico.

Could you tell us some interesting tech facts about Hiring tech talent in Mexico/hiring developers in Mexico? 

Coursera Global Skills report 2022 mentions that in México – technology skills proficiency levels are up. With more than 600 technology companies in Guadalajara, skilled workers do not lack job opportunities. The good news for employers is that skill levels are rising. In last year’s Global Skills Report, learners in Mexico scored at a 10% proficiency level in technology skills. You can be more confident if you are thinking about hiring developers in Mexico as, In this year’s report, they scored at a 52% proficiency level. Education leaders should continue to find ways to build on this improvement.  

Tech talents are extremely important to the evolution of a company, but what are the top skills of a tech talent/developer?

• Experience abroad: candidates who have studied or worked abroad are usually more qualified to work in global/international markets because of their education, training and exposure to varied cultures and backgrounds;
• Programming: coding skills, experience with some programming languages are required by most of the employers. If you are considering hiring developers in Mexico, you should make sure they have good programming skills;
• Data science knowledge in order  to make better business decisions;
• Analytical skills to implement a quality strategy;
• Ability to do manual and automation testing;
• Passion: someone passionate about the work is always more efficient;
• Problem-solving skills: a tech talent should be able to identify problems quickly and provide an effective solution. A good software developer needs to be able to think outside the box;
• Multitasking: tech talent usually have to work on multiple projects with deadlines, therefore, it is essential to prioritize and be organized.

What should the recruiters know before hiring tech talent in Mexico/hiring developers in Mexico?

• Have a hiring strategy before approaching candidates;
• Identify competitor’s companies and discover what type of talent is already hired in a particular IT job;
• If hiring for English speaker companies, always focus on recruiting candidates with minimum B2 or C1 English proficiency;
• Define the type of contract and work modality;
• Always negotiate NET salaries – Mexicans don’t want to know how many taxes they pay, they just want to be sure of how much net they will get in their accounts;
• Before hiring tech talent in Mexico, choose the city or destination where employees will work diligently even if they will be fully remote workers;
• Know the territory where you will recruit and the local professional associations and platforms;
• Use different platforms to source candidates and avoid recruiting from platforms where everybody is recruiting;
• If interviewing by video call, turn on the video and request candidates to also do so, it is the only opportunity you will have when recruiting virtually and it is important to see the appearance of the candidate and determine if the person looks professional.

Biz Latin Hub can help you with hiring tech talent in Mexico/hiring developers in Mexico

At Biz Latin Hub, we provide integrated market entry and back-office services throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, with offices in Mexico City, as well as over a dozen other major cities in the region. We also have trusted partners in many other markets.

Our unrivaled reach means we are ideally placed to support multi-jurisdiction market entries and cross border operations.

As well as knowledge about hiring tech talent in Mexico, our portfolio of services includes accounting & taxation, company formation, hiring & PEO, bank account opening, and corporate legal services.

Contact us today to find out more about how we can assist you in finding top talent, or otherwise do business in Latin America and the Caribbean.

If this article on hiring tech talent in Mexico was of interest to you, check out the rest of our coverage of the region. Or read about our team and expert authors.