U.S. tech firms are replacing workers with cheaper talent in Latin America
I&#x27;ve been on sales calls and in PoCs with a couple major Mexican conglomerates (think Cemex, Pemex, or Azteca level or the MX operations for BBVA or Santander) so I&#x27;ve had the chance to interact with a number of Mexican software engineers, plus I have a couple Mexican diaspora SWE friends and honestly the talent is there, but it won&#x27;t really be the next &quot;Poland&quot; or &quot;India&quot; like how the article portraies it.<p>The issue I&#x27;ve seen is you&#x27;re going to be paying Austin in the 2010s level salaries ($60-70k base plus stock) for competitive talent due to remote work or Central Europe salaries at the lower end ($30-40k base), plus the added salary pressure of MX nationals being able to move to the Bay Area, Austin, NYC, or Seattle via the TN visa (most undocumented immigration coming from MX are not MX nationals - they&#x27;re primarily Honduran, El Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, or Guatemalan nationals).<p>With that level of salaries, you aren&#x27;t getting a significant discount compared to other locations nor the ability to run 24 hour operations. American companies are fine paying MX level salaries if not higher when you factor in equity in India, Romania, and Poland or pay US level salaries in Israel because it gives them the ability to have continuous 24&#x2F;7 operations and a level of redundancy from a risk planning standpoint.<p>None of this is to say MX ain&#x27;t a bad spot to develop talent - anything but given the free trade agreements with the US, South America, and the EU and the very American-esque regulatory system making it a great hub for American companies to expand within the Hispanoblante world - but the scene is similar to Germany or France&#x27;s in the sense that the dev industry seems heavily Finance, Manufacturing, Defense, or Conglomerate driven and treats it as a cost center.