[HN Gopher] Launch HN: Astro (YC W21) - Build your own dev teams...
___________________________________________________________________
Launch HN: Astro (YC W21) - Build your own dev teams in Latin
America
Howdy HN! We're Jacqueline and Frank from Astro
(https://www.tryastro.com/). We're a platform that gives you access
to engineering talent in Latin America and lets you build teams
there. We take care of the sourcing, payroll, HR, benefits, local
procurement, and equipment, all from an easy-to-use dashboard.
(Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmiVOVfbHFI) Before
starting Astro, we worked as leaders at the same company,
Jacqueline in sales and Frank in engineering. As we built our
teams, we found it was very hard to compete against top tech
companies for talent. Therefore, we broadened our search beyond
Austin, Texas. We ended up working with various partners in Latin
America because of the strong talent pool, great English, and US
friendly time zones. However, finding and retaining engineering
teams in Latin America was a challenge. We loved our teammates, but
were never thrilled about the outsourcing firms they worked for.
Because they weren't our employees, we couldn't control what they
were being paid, couldn't give them benefits and perks, and the
only visibility we had was the $150/hr bill we got from the
outsourcing company. How much of that actually went to the team?
Because traditional outsourcing firms tend to attract non-tech
clients and their culture revolves around billable hours, our team
members were also unsatisfied with the outsourcing company that
they worked for. Freelancing could be an alternative, but is also
difficult for teams in Latin America due to its inherent risk and
likelihood of being treated as a second class contractor on a
foreign team rather than a first-class stakeholder. We were stuck
with three uncomfortable options: outsource the entire product,
manage a large team of independent freelancers, or rely on an
outsourcing company to create our engineering culture. What we
really wanted were our own teams, including our own offices,
equipment, salaries, benefits, etc. But setting up a foreign entity
and knowing how to hire in foreign markets was a distraction and
difficult--not to mention payroll, benefits, procurement, legal
compliance, etc. We ultimately went to work at different
companies, but continued to experience the same pain points at our
new companies. Finally, in 2018, after commiserating many times
over beers, we decided to build the company we kept looking for, a
company to automatically handle all of these international
complexities. We originally called ourselves Austin Software and
we started by building teams by hand for startups in Austin, Texas.
Then, we started to realize we had gotten good at solving lots of
problems on behalf of teams in the US: sourcing Macbooks, finding
competitive local benefits and perks, legal compliance, even
organizing happy hours, travel and SWAG. Our idea was to productize
what we'd learned and make it available to other companies. We got
tired of explaining that we build teams, not bill project hours! So
we built Astro ("Austin Software Tool for Recommendations and
Opportunities" :) You can think of Astro as something like a love
child between Toptal + Gusto + WeWork + Amazon (the latter because
of the logistics we do -- more on that below), tailored
specifically for software engineering teams in LATAM. Unlike Toptal
or Turing, we fulfill local benefits, equipment, even team-building
events. Our pricing is also transparent, in contrast to companies
that charge by the hour, upfront fees, or handcuff you to long-term
contracts. Customers review and pay for 1) the developer's desired
salary, 2) benefits and taxes, and 3) our 15% management fee on a
week-to-week basis. Here's one example of the kind of thing we
take care of. A 16 inch M1 Macbook Pro is not just a perk in Latin
America, they actually save countless hours when dealing with heavy
dev environments. But they're difficult to source in Latin America,
especially outside of the handful of major cities. And even if they
are sourced, they're extremely expensive, especially if they know
you're an American company, and getting them to teammates across
South America runs the risk of theft or damage. We solve this by
having local entities, local logistics, local distribution and
secure local offices. We're proud of the fact that developers in
Latin America have a much better experience working with us. That's
because our customers (i.e. the companies using Astro) are looking
to scale their engineering departments with long-term stakeholders,
not temporary "horsepower", and also because real tech culture (the
sort of thing devs in Silicon Valley take for granted) is a huge
draw for developers, but nearly impossible to find via outsourcing
shops, and very hit-and-miss on Toptal/Turing. We hope you'll try
us out! Visit https://www.TryAstro.com, and configure your desired
team (See video tutorial and screenshots below if you're just
curious). Astro will source, pre-vet, schedule interviews, send
offer letters, manage employment contracts, and coordinate
equipment, office space, and SWAG. Once that's set up, you can use
Astro to manage your team on an ongoing basis: salaries, bonuses,
additional benefits, perks, equipment, etc. Check out some
screenshots here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17qYsZLKrhPdE1Ud1LA5A... and
a video tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmiVOVfbHFI
We'd love to hear your feedback and we're excited to answer any
questions!
Author : FrankLicea
Score : 87 points
Date : 2022-06-22 17:07 UTC (5 hours ago)
| ivanmontillam wrote:
| Venezuela and Argentina have vibrant software development
| community, but have challenges in terms of payment methods,
| specifically about local currencies.
|
| How'd you deal with that?
|
| The challenge with Venezuela and Argentina is that you cannot pay
| developers in local currency, otherwise they'd be losing a
| truckload of revenue (e.g. Argentina is heavily taxed for remote
| workers and the official exchange rate for foreign money received
| is too low compared to the parallel/blackmarket exchange rate).
|
| I'm happy to discuss specific problems (my Twitter handle is open
| to DMs).
| rootsudo wrote:
| The easiest way is to pay in dollars and advise them to not use
| the Government rate/bank rate to convert. There is a market
| rate and government rate - and there are services that will
| just pay out in Dollars in those countries.
|
| Also, cryptocurrency. Ironically enough.
| wefarrell wrote:
| I am 100% your target market as I've built several teams in Latin
| America mostly by finding developers directly and paying them as
| C2C. Sometimes when I need talent immediately I'll use Toptal.
|
| Is it possible to use your logistics without your sourcing?
| Frankly I think I'm better at finding the best combination of
| skillset and personalities for the project I want to use than you
| or any other staffing service. However a lot of the developers I
| find are hesitant to jump through the hoops to start their own
| company and receive international payments.
| jacsamira wrote:
| Thanks for the note! We have one team we do this with. Email me
| and we can discuss offline j@austinsoftware.com
| darau1 wrote:
| I've been in contact with 3 different firms like Astro in the
| past 3 months, and now you guys pop up. Did something happen
| somewhere in the American job market? Or have I just been
| discovered to be living under a rock?
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Ha! I can't say why of course, but our bet is that more
| companies are open to expanding their engineering departments
| to other parts of the world. Keyword being "departments" with
| strategies for benefits, perks, equipment, etc. and they need a
| logistics partner on the ground to help, etc.
|
| That's our hope anyway!
| darau1 wrote:
| Well I'm happy to see opportunities coming our way. Best of
| luck to you guys. Maybe I'll hear from an Astro rep one of
| these days :)
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| It's not super clear to me, or maybe I don't have deep enough
| knowledge here and that's why it's not obvious. Are the people
| that Company A hires through this service direct employees of
| Company A, or are they C2C paid hourly from Company A to Astro
| who then has their own C2C with the developer?
| FrankLicea wrote:
| We love this question. We become the employer of record,
| similar model to a Professional Employer Organization (Think
| Tri-Net). We'll handle all the international legal HR stuff.
| Then Company A signs a contract with us to work with the
| teammate full-time and transfer all the IP, etc.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| Excelente! En cuales paises eran la gran parte de sus
| trabajadores?
| probably_wrong wrote:
| Small friendly correction: ?En cuales paises _esta_ la _mayor_
| parte de sus trabajadores?
|
| "Ser" vs "estar" is one of those hair-pulling verbs with one
| "simple" rule and a hundred exceptions.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| You're probably correct, I have no good excuses for my
| Spanish other than that I learned it by immersion over years
| instead of taking a class or something
| FrankLicea wrote:
| We operate in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru,
| Uruguay!
|
| Gracias!
| 01acheru wrote:
| Is there a reason why you don't operate in Brazil? Language
| maybe?
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Just haven't gotten there yet!
|
| One of the founders speaks Spanish and the other previously
| worked with teams in Colombia and Uruguay, so the Spanish
| speaking parts of South America came naturally to us. That
| said, we've got big plans for expansion!
| setgree wrote:
| This seems like a great idea and I'm glad to see you working on
| it!
|
| Just curious, of all the ways you might get this off the ground,
| what tipped the scales in favor of VC funding? Personally, it's
| hard for me to imagine this becoming a Reddit-sized operation
| (perhaps I lack imagination) and really easy to imagine your
| funders pushing you to pivot when you're not growing 10X YoY or
| whatever.
|
| Did you think about incorporating as a non-profit?
| jacsamira wrote:
| Thanks so much! We grew like crazy last year (over 400%). Do I
| think we can do the same this year, not sure, but definitely
| 100 times again this year and 100 times again next year.
|
| The company is only as big as the need for employing great devs
| worldwide. We may not be a consumer known product, but we hope
| to help lots of companies and devs for many years to come!
| Also, we've been very careful to not give up control so the
| company would never be forced into pivoting against our
| mission!
| csmpltn wrote:
| > "We grew like crazy last year (over 400%)"
|
| You went from 0 to 4 paying customers?
| jacsamira wrote:
| lol! The HN I know and love. We started in 2018 :) So not
| 0, but I do agree, percentages can be bullshit.
| [deleted]
| karaterobot wrote:
| Do Astro developers sign any kind of exclusivity or non-compete
| contract that would make it harder for them to leave to work for
| another company?
|
| A former company I worked for hired some excellent Central
| American developers through a company, and I later learned those
| guys had all signed contracts that made them give more than half
| their salary to the outsourcing company for two years, and if
| they wanted to leave before the end of two years, they had to pay
| a lump sum that was about a year's salary.
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Yikes! half the salary to an outsourcing company for two years?
| That's nuts, and those are exactly the kind of horror stories
| that made us want to build Astro, as U.S. devs, we often take
| for granted the "Silicon Valley" engineering culture we enjoy
| (vague I know, but roughly captures what i mean)
|
| All we ask is that if a company builds a team using Astro, they
| don't try to cut us out, similar to the terms that other
| platforms have.
| jeanlucas wrote:
| Sr dev from Brazil, was a hiring and devrel for a (good) software
| house that hired a lot in Latin America.
|
| How does this differ from companies like remote.com? Does it work
| in Brazil?
|
| Will you focus on "teaching" companies that it is OK to hire in
| Latin America? I feel that besides payment the biggest struggles
| are:
|
| * Trust - the distrust was clear about several things from people
| "disappearing" to legal fears of hiring in Latin America
|
| * Language - also a trust issue,
|
| * Technical proficiency, companies treat developers as if they
| are less efficient or less informed (even if you show cases).
|
| How are you going to work on these issues to convince companies
| to start hiring and using your platform?
|
| I ask this because the hardest part was not finding devs, but all
| points above. With several clients even vetting developers from
| Latin America just because they prefer if they were in Canada
| and/or Mexico.
|
| It is a real barrier I dealt with several times.
| FrankLicea wrote:
| We actually do everything that remote does plus a few other
| things: We have local fulfillment teams that can actually do
| things on the ground like help with local recruiting, finding
| meaningful local benefits, provide local equipment like
| Macbooks, Airpods, even treat teams to local team building
| events, etc.
|
| Our best shot at convincing companies to use us is to point to
| the large engineering departments that are already trusting us
| to expand their engineering departments in Latam.
| jeanlucas wrote:
| I see, I think you will have to spend a lot of energy on
| creating that trust to make them want to hire before they are
| convinced to use your platform. Otherwise they won't be
| interested in just using it.
|
| Or... They will already have developers in Latin America and
| already have a solution to hiring here overall.
| FrankLicea wrote:
| martinpg wrote:
| Seems like a great idea! How do you keep the engineers feeling
| engaged to the team and the company after they are hired?
| Especially now with remote work as the main option.
| jacsamira wrote:
| This is tricky indeed, but something we keep at the front of
| mind and is very important to us. We have local offices and
| local teams solely focused on team engagement and happiness. We
| even have a community happiness manager. We have spent the last
| 4 years creating a community in every location we have an
| office with the sole focus of offering support, friendship,
| guidance, and mentors. Our goal is to help each team member
| feel like a core stakeholder on their US team. Another way of
| doing this is we're not afraid of firing customers. We don't
| let our customers treat our developers like second-class
| contractors. If that happens, we have a clause in our contract
| that we can terminate the relationship.
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Hi Martinpg,
|
| Companies have a few avenues to help with this. The Astro
| dashboard lets the US company sponsor meaningful perks that
| value teammates and really make a difference with retention and
| wellbeing; Bonuses, health insurance, gym memberships,
| education resources, access to co-working or offices for the
| team, even coordinate hard to get equipment like Macbooks,
| Airpods.
|
| We can even coordinate travel and off site retreats to really
| help the team feel like one. Finally, our platform keeps US
| companies accountable for things like regular salary reviews
| and career paths. All the perks in the world won't matter if
| that's not in place.
| smallerfish wrote:
| Not to be a downer, but that's pretty expensive. I spent last
| week in [latam capital city] and met with 3 local outsourcing
| firms, down from 6 that I'd pre-screened by Zoom. I then reduced
| the list to 2 based on the co-founders of each being technical,
| and their solid recruiting practices. Both have offices which
| devs are free to come into (or work remotely), both pay salaries
| and offer benefits, both provide embedded developers with project
| managers in the background, both provide in house training and
| skills development. One charges $30/hr-$45/hr, one $40-$55, with
| the rate difference being based on the location of the devs (the
| cheaper range is 2 hours north of the metro area).
|
| Both have accounts in the US which you can pay directly if you
| don't want to deal with wire transfers (though those also are
| easy). Both handle taxes.
| woleium wrote:
| Would you be willing to share your research? my email is on my
| profile if you are.
| smallerfish wrote:
| Sure, emailed.
| jacsamira wrote:
| Not a downer at all! We're not a fit for everyone. We totally
| get that. We let the devs set their prices, and then have a
| standard premium benefits package because we believe everyone
| should have silicon valley level perks. We're definitely not
| the cheapest, but we're invested in a long-term relationship
| for both parties and not just a cost-savings play. In our
| experience, turnover ends up being super high with low rates.
| But maybe you found some gems! I hope it works out. I really
| believe there is a need and an opportunity for everyone. We're
| just trying to do our part to help in any way we can.
| rocker3011 wrote:
| Now this is what I call an idea, its like building your dream
| team in a game but in real life!
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Thank you Rocker! We really appreciate it!
| andrew_ wrote:
| > Our pricing is also transparent
|
| I'm sure there are reasons, but your pricing isn't _truly_
| transparent until I can find it from the homepage, without
| signing up for an account. Should I have to sign up with my
| burner /spam email address just to access that?
|
| Edit: I'm not able to find the pricing even after creating an
| account. This isn't a great user experience for someone trying to
| figure out how much the platform might cost (and I'm actually in
| the market for this kind of thing)
| jacsamira wrote:
| Andrew, thank you for the feedback. This is something we'd love
| to be able to be better at and would love any advice you may
| have.
|
| We send the rate with each developer. We don't have a flat
| rate; otherwise, that means we set the rate. The developers set
| their own rate and we send that over with their profiles after
| you state what you're looking for and who in our platform is a
| match.
|
| What's a better way of going about this?
| andrew_ wrote:
| I'd recommend some document that outlines the fees Astro
| charges based on selections for the teams. Any AWS pricing
| calculator is a decent model to use.
| jacsamira wrote:
| amazing suggestion, seems so obvious but we had never
| considered - thank you! <3
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Hi Andrew,
|
| Thanks for the feedback, I see your point! That's on oversight
| on our side, nothing nefarious intended, we'll have to figure
| how to best spell out the pricing.
|
| Pricing-wise, I'd say the all-in fees on a per dev basis are
| comparable to a developer's salary here in the US (Austin, TX),
| the fees are all inclusive of benefits, tech equipment,
| offices, perks, etc...
|
| When you decide to make an offer to someone, you'll get a break
| down of 1) the teammates's personal salary requirement), 2) the
| benefits and taxes and, 3) our management fee.
|
| Because we don't set the rates, the candidates do (just like in
| the US), it's hard to say exactly what the price will be, it
| depends on the individual's requirements.
|
| That said, we can def offer guidance on what the market tends
| to be!
| rootsudo wrote:
| "Pricing-wise, I'd say the all-in fees on a per dev basis are
| comparable to a developer's salary here in the US, the fees
| are all inclusive of benefits, tech equipment, offices,
| perks, etc..."
|
| Well, then as a USA based org, I'd have to say - what's the
| point? If it's comparable to a USA dev Salary, what
| savings/arbitrage/win a I achieving here? Wouldn't it be
| easier for a USA based company to just corp 2 corp/1099 or
| such someone onshore, then offshore and have a middle man?
| FrankLicea wrote:
| So for us, hiring domestically (either 1099 or FTE) vs
| internationally, wasn't a mutually exclusive decision.
| Finding good people was a real risk to our growth. So we
| expanded the top of our funnel to more locations
| simultaneously.
|
| However, we weren't just interested in salary arbitrage, we
| really did need to attract good people with premium
| benefits. Good international teammates aren't going to
| leave their team only to risk being a second class
| contractor on a foreign team. So we found that by offering
| our teammates a premium experience: health insurance, gym
| perks, education resources, Macbooks, and other apple
| products, career paths and salary reviews, we expanded the
| pool of people that were interested in working with us
| beyond the pool of people on Toptal/Turing and other
| platforms with no fulfillment on the ground.
|
| Not all teams are interested in that philosophy in hiring
| but we've had the most success with it.
| causality0 wrote:
| That's nice but would you mind actually answering his
| question? Why should he pay comparable rates to someone
| residing where the cost of living is a fraction of the
| US? There are concrete benefits to having dev teams
| composed of people who share a common culture. What's on
| the other end of the scales to balance out losing that if
| it isn't money?
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| I'm not in this space at all, but my reading of OP's
| comment was that the _total_ cost of a dev from their
| service is comparable to just the _salary_ (excluding
| benefits and other overhead) of a US developer.
| FrankLicea wrote:
| I believe I did answer the question, but let me try
| rephrase!
|
| First, the rates tend to be comparable to _just_ the
| salary component of a US teammate (Austin, Texas). The US
| salary component doesn't include insurance, taxes, and
| other perks, which could add another 30-50% to the cost
| of employment. With Astro all those items are included in
| the rate.
|
| Second, and hopefully I answer the question, the reason
| you would pay for those benefits for an international
| teammate (and not just an arbitrage play), is because we
| believe that it allows companies to recruit and retain a
| different pool of teammates not accessible on the other
| platforms like Toptal/Turing/Outsourcing, etc.
|
| I hope that's better! Let me know.
| andrew_ wrote:
| What percentage does Astro charge on top of that (e.g.
| management fee)? Where's the breakdown? You're claiming
| transparency but it looks fairly opaque. I'm not trying to be
| combative, merely pointing out the marketing pitch is at odds
| with the data available.
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Oops, forgot to mention that. The management fee is 15%.
| You would get a break down for any teammate that you want
| to interview for your team. It would look something like:
|
| 1) The teammate's desired salary 2) Benefits and taxes 3)
| 15% management fee
|
| I see you point about this not being spelled out on our
| landing page! Good catch!
| davemty wrote:
| seems great!!
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Thank you Davemty!
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| There is nothing stopping companies from hiring freelancers from
| Latin America, without adding another middleman (like your
| service) which will, of course, cost something.
|
| Having tried this setup and having dealt with middlemen (eg.
| Pilot) and not, I can't say I noticed much difference with
| dealing with self employed.
|
| Especially if the team members are senior, they're likely to know
| the ropes of setting up business in their country.
|
| That said, hiring from Latin American has its challenges - the
| language barrier is not easy to overcome and the political
| instability can take a toll on your friends and coworkers
| (especially in these trying times).
| neolander wrote:
| This looks cool! I've been bullish on Latin America since remote
| became more popular. It's natural that people in the US would
| want to hire someone in more similar timezone and culture than
| people on the other side of the world.
|
| There are great people everywhere, but in my view, it's been much
| harder to source good people from Latam than it is from Eastern
| Europe or South Asia.
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Hey Neo,
|
| Would love to hear more about your experience finding people in
| Latam vs Eastern Europe or South Asia.
|
| In my experience the real risk with remote teams isn't really
| technical, it's possible to find great people everywhere. The
| real risk is human: communication, courage, culture, yes even
| timezones. And you mentioned that Latam overlaps more in
| culture!
| lloydarmbrust wrote:
| That's because the rails didn't really exist for hiring the
| kind of talent modern startups needed until recently. We've had
| about 10 developers in LATAM for 3-4 years and it's been a game
| changer for my companies.
| bberenberg wrote:
| Seems cool. How much coaching do you have for US companies to
| better understand the team's local culture issues?
|
| For example, I worked with teams in Brazil in the past and while
| they were smart, kind, etc they were slow in every sense of the
| word. They didn't have the US culture of respond quickly, unblock
| people, get shit done, etc. This isn't necessarily a bad thing,
| in fact working slower may be a benefit, but the US company needs
| to understand this as they establish the relationship.
|
| Your pricing makes sense, but I would like to understand some
| kind of ballpark numbers based on role title. Can you share that?
| wefarrell wrote:
| Brazilians tend to take two hour lunches without work
| interruptions. Outside of that time, the ones I have worked
| with have been fast and responsive. Had I not known that I too
| probably would have thought they were slow and unresponsive. I
| figured that out by actually going down there and working with
| them for a week.
|
| As far as the "unlbock people, get shit done, etc..." I think
| that's the case with a lot of outsourced work in general and I
| don't think it has anything to do with Brazilian culture.
| Outsourced labor are used to being treated like cogs in a
| machine so they are less likely to take the initiative or speak
| up when they see something that doesn't make sense.
| CodeBeater wrote:
| I wholeheartedly second this. I have an unique lens on this
| issue as I'm in a unique spot. Despite being Brazilian
| myself, for most of my career I worked and managed US based
| developers, and just very very recently shifted to working
| directly with Brazilians. I saw no major difference in
| responsiveness and "get shit done" (aka initiative) between
| those two cohorts.
|
| The only thing that took me by surprise is that Brazilians DO
| NOT take well to getting busy outside of working hours. If
| you text someone during their lunch break, expect to hear a
| complaint along with your response.
| jacsamira wrote:
| We work very closely with our devs and US partners. We have
| intermediaries to help with these cultural blockers. We believe
| it's never a technical bar that are misses, but a cultural one.
| We've designed our entire support system around this to help
| both our US companies and our LATAM devs. And our support
| system aren't 20 year old CS reps with no knowledge of
| anything, our support system are seasoned Engineering Managers
| with former experience working on US teams and local to our
| LATAM offices.
| jacsamira wrote:
| Pricing-wise, I'd say our all-in fees on a per dev basis are
| comparable to a developer's salary here in the US, but our fees
| are inclusive of benefits, tech, offices, etc... and the US
| salary is not.
| runako wrote:
| Thanks for this. Could you expand on this a bit, given
| "developer salary" in e.g. the Bay Area/NYC means wildly
| different things from (say) Houston or Pittsburgh?
|
| Were you indexing against Bay salaries or US median/average?
| jacsamira wrote:
| Austin, TX :) Thanks for pointing that out
| fatskier wrote:
| The future of distributed teams. I think this model works well
| when executed well by partners like Astro.
| edferda wrote:
| Hey this looks pretty awesome. Currently I work in LATAM for
| international corporations and it is also hard for us,
| developers, to find a good fit. Dealing with Latin American
| agencies is always a pain, it seems Astro might attract companies
| that care more about their people and building quality, long term
| relationships. What are you doing to treat candidates like human
| beings? How do developers join your roster?
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Hey Edferda,
|
| Thank you for the kind words! Your experience is exactly why we
| built Astro!
|
| We do a few things 1) Astro provides a standard set of benefits
| and perks, this tends to attract companies with great culture,
| 2) Because Astro isn't a project-for-hire platform, this also
| attracts companies that need long-term teammates, and 3) the
| Astro team isn't scared to provide insight to companies on how
| to best retain their international teammates; salary reviews,
| career paths, meaningful local perks, and time off. We know
| that professionals in LATAM have lots of options.
|
| See my email in my profile so I can tell you more about how to
| join the platform!
| samstave wrote:
| Looking at your screenshots, suggest you provide definitions...
|
| You have a screen: https://i.imgur.com/dRVwqZ2.png
|
| What if a profile doesn't match that?
|
| --
|
| When looking for a "scrum master" <--- Define Scum Master?
|
| How am I to then evaluate who ends up in said bucket... but If I
| select a bucket, how can I be known to the guy who heavily sides
| on scrum master (in your bucket) but they are really a talented
| [OTHER] bucket that doesnt show up with my check-box clicks?
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Hey Samstave,
|
| Thanks for the feedback! Yes good catch. We chose the roles we
| see most often requested, but when you scroll a little further
| down, you'd see a field where you can just type the role you're
| looking for! Thanks!
| samstave wrote:
| OH... I have an idea:
|
| If one selects a bucket chexBox: HIGHLIGHT they other check
| boxes where a candidate is ALSO purview of
|
| So if I have a realtion to X, but I also have a weight to XYZ
| then show that...
|
| Inversely correlating me:
|
| I know X and I also know Y. but my affinity is more to Y than
| X, but I still know Y.
|
| The Bill Hicks Algo.
|
| _I used to do C, but I now know Java, But I still used to do
| C also...._
| samstave wrote:
| May you please make the titles a link to your typical job
| desc/min quals that one in a title may have?
|
| This should be an open repo for job descriptions....
| santiagoep wrote:
| In my previous company they used the strategy of hiring employees
| directly and through Astro. The truth is that Astro's experience
| is very noticeable when it comes to hiring quality talent. I
| think it ends up being more economical to have Astro, because of
| all the headaches they solve.
| jacsamira wrote:
| <3 <3 <3
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Thank you Santi!
| swatcoder wrote:
| If Astro is providing ongoing "local fulfillment" to make
| "teammates" feel like first class workers on an international
| stage, what happens to my team in XYZ when Astro makes a radical
| business decision (closing offices in that city, pivoting to
| court a next funding round, etc) as VC-funded startups often need
| to do?
|
| Aren't I making my business extraordinarily vulnerable to an
| unpredictable early-stage startup? How is that better than
| hiring/contracting through a mature overseas staffing agency in
| Mumbai, Kviv, or Buenos Aires? I mean, there are thousands of the
| latter, many with great history and references, and I don't see
| what you're adding besides risk and branding.
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Hey Swatcoder! Fair question.
|
| Regarding VC influence, we actually bootstrapped the company in
| 2018, and we've had to build a profitable self sustaining
| business from the get-go. So we don't have the "court the next
| VC round" problem and given that we've built a sustainable and
| growing business, we're don't want pivot away from that either,
| but I see where you are coming from.
|
| And yes, there are plenty of international staffing agencies to
| choose from, but keep in mind that their reputation in the US
| is only part of the equation. Among international developers,
| these staffing agencies may have a different reputation. We
| believe that by using us, companies can provide their teammates
| with the kinds of experiences that attract a different pool of
| professionals otherwise unreachable through overseas staffing
| agencies.
| mwcampbell wrote:
| > We ended up working with various partners in Latin America
| because of the strong talent pool, great English, and US friendly
| time zones.
|
| I'm curious about whether you tried to find developers in the US
| but not in Austin or one of the big tech hubs. Or have you found
| that most of the good US-based developers head for the tech hubs?
| (Even if that were true before, surely it's different post-
| pandemic.)
|
| I'm not opposed to hiring good people wherever they are. But some
| of the challenges discussed above go away when hiring
| domestically. And, based on the comment elsewhere on this thread
| about working with companies that recognize the value of good
| people and are willing to pay above market rate, I gather that
| the point of hiring in Latam wasn't to be cheap.
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Hi there mwcampbell,
|
| Good question!
|
| At the time, hiring domestically vs internationally, wasn't a
| mutually exclusive decision. A team that really needs to hire
| fast to, say, launch a new revenue feature, needs to be
| expanding the top of the funnel of good people in all locations
| simultaneously.
|
| So we ended up with a mix of teammates in Austin and in
| Colombia, and crucially, we did our best to make us all feel
| like one product team working for one company.
| mwcampbell wrote:
| Fair enough. But why not, say, Austin and Wichita, Kansas? Is
| it too hard to find people outside the big cities?
|
| When you hired in Colombia, and when you hire in Latam now
| for Astro customers, do you bring a bunch of people together
| in a physical office, or do they work from home?
| Marcelovk wrote:
| I think that this is a fantastic idea.
|
| Before the pandemic, all the good software development jobs were
| attached to big cities, and hardly any company accepted remote
| work. What would happen in many instances, is that companies from
| outside latam would pay a lot for relocating them (and their
| families) to other countries, commonly to US, Canada, Spain,
| Germany and UK - however a portion of those devs come back
| because there is a lot of value living in the countryside/smaller
| cities of latam when you have kids, it ends up with a better
| quality of life overall.
|
| In the end those professionals (usually already seniors) open
| local companies to work as a contractor for their previous
| employer or any other company that accepts remote work and can
| pay invoices overseas, this way they end up keeping a high salary
| (especially when you consider the exchange rates) and the perks
| of working from home.
|
| How would you hire/contact those professionals? Usually I get a
| lot of local agencies trying to contact me to work for outside,
| but offering local salaries, which makes absolutely no sense. In
| other words, how do you differentiate from Accenture/Thoughtworks
| or any other consultancy to hire the engineers?
| FrankLicea wrote:
| Hey Marcelovk,
|
| Sure, because we're not a consulting agency, Astro is designed
| for teams that know finding good talent wherever they are
| located is a real risk to growth. Typically these kinds of
| companies are true technology companies and know the value of
| good people, so they often pay above market rates whenever they
| find the right person.
|
| These kinds of companies don't typically use Thoughworks to
| develop their own product, but are willing to accept
| international logistical help to find and manage their own
| teammates.
| jacsamira wrote:
| Yes, we couldn't agree more! People shouldn't have to uproot
| their life. My mom moved half-way around the world for work and
| building a family away from your family, while professionally
| necessary, was very hard on her and us. In today's modern
| society, it's simply not necessary anymore.
|
| And to answer your question, top tech companies aren't usually
| price sensitive and are willing to pay for top talent. Because
| of our transparency in our fees, everyone knows what everyone
| is making and it's the developer who sets their own rate.
| rafaelero wrote:
| Please come to Brazil!
| zebulonevans wrote:
| I have experience with teams in different time zones. Years ago,
| I used oDesk which became Upwork which was just a payment and
| sourcing platform. The heavy lifting was on me.
|
| The extras provided here in Astro with the office, swag, perks,
| and vetting is very intriguing and certainly puts this a couple
| up in my book.
| jacsamira wrote:
| Thank you, zebulonevans! Yes, upwork is great, but we really
| needed help with all the other logistical stuff that really
| makes a difference in being able to treat teammates like core
| members of the team! We hope to hear from you :)
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-06-22 23:00 UTC)