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> 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 wh

> 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 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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?
  - FrankLicea 4y ago
    You know, if I could do it over, we would have also considered Wichita, Kansas or El Paso, TX (my home town) but unfortunately we didn't do it for no other reason than it just didn't cross our minds at the time. I speak Spanish and I had experience working with a team in Colombia, so we naturally gravitated in that direction! Regarding office or work from home, it's up to the team! We have local offices in 6 different cities. in places where we don't have offices, a quiet co-working location with great internet and office perks is built in when building a team with Astro.

FrankLicea 4y ago

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 4y ago
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?
- FrankLicea 4y ago
  You know, if I could do it over, we would have also considered Wichita, Kansas or El Paso, TX (my home town) but unfortunately we didn't do it for no other reason than it just didn't cross our minds at the time. I speak Spanish and I had experience working with a team in Colombia, so we naturally gravitated in that direction! Regarding office or work from home, it's up to the team! We have local offices in 6 different cities. in places where we don't have offices, a quiet co-working location with great internet and office perks is built in when building a team with Astro.