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1. I don't think there would be an intention to move folks from MX to the bay area, Austin, etc. so not sure why you mentioned that. 2. I think having folks "n

1. I don't think there would be an intention to move folks from MX to the bay area, Austin, etc. so not sure why you mentioned that. 2. I think having folks "near shore" makes it far easier to train, mentor, manage, etc. when there is a lot of overlap in time zones. When I had a team in India that was THE major challenge. The speed of iteration was abysmal. 3. I may be wrong but I have some nephews by marriage getting STEM degrees in Tijuana (TJ) and salaries for a new mechanical engineer hire are terrible IIUC. Per https://www.salary.com/research/mx-salary/benchmark/mechanical-engineer-i-salary/mx/tijuana https://www.salary.com/research/mx-salary/benchmark/mechanic... average annual salary is 324,000 MX Pesos which is < $17000 USD. Software is similar: https://www.salary.com/research/mx-salary/benchmark/mechanical-engineer-i-salary/mx/tijuana https://www.salary.com/research/mx-salary/benchmark/mechanic... . And TJ has a higher cost of living than other cities in MX and thus salaries due to proximity to the US. It will take years for supply to meet demand but I can see Mexico and South America being good sources of talent in the future. To me it's just a marketing, education and pipeline problem.

908B64B197 4y ago
> 1. I don't think there would be an intention to move folks from MX to the bay area, Austin, etc. so not sure why you mentioned that. It's actually quite easy to do it. For real engineers at least.
alephnerd 4y ago
1. It isn't companies moving employees - it's Mexican nationals applying to jobs in the US and then moving. So long as you have working English fluency and a relevant degree, it's pretty trivial to get a TN, H1-B, or EB-1 as a Mexican national. 2. Training and mentoring is a reflection of your company's Engineering Management. My employer has had an easy time offshoring development to Slovakia and Bangalore because we had Tech Leads and Engineering Management make the initiative to mentor, train, and onboard offshore team employees as we would domestic employees. I've seen similar examples occur across the industry (eg. Google Pay's dev team in Hyderabad, DE Shaw's dev team in Gurgaon, Motive/KeepTruckin dev teams in Lahore & Islamabad). If Management views Engineering as a cost center (which, it pains for me to say as an ex-cybersecurity engineer, at times it can be), that's where you tend to see the relationship between offshore and onshore teams collapse, because the relationship is based on the implicit arbitrage of labor. 3. Tijuana is not a software hub. It is a medical device manufacturing hub though (all the design and R&D is done across the border in San Diego and manufacturing is done in Baja California). Also the MechE salary in MX is apparently higher than it is in Poland (~$13k/yr - https://www.salary.com/research/pl-salary/benchmark/mechanical-engineer-i-salary/pl/warsaw https://www.salary.com/research/pl-salary/benchmark/mechanic...), Romania (~$4k/yr - https://www.payscale.com/research/RO/Job=Mechanical_Engineer/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/RO/Job=Mechanical_Engineer...), or China (~$15k - https://www.salary.com/research/cn-salary/benchmark/mechanical-engineer-i-salary/cn https://www.salary.com/research/cn-salary/benchmark/mechanic...). In fact, I think the Poland salary is overestimated as I know for a fact starting salaries for new grad SWEs in Poland (not working at MNCs) is around $7-8k/yr. Most of the software roles in MX are in CDMX, Monterrey, or Guadalajara. So in fact devs in MX might be earning more than in Eastern Europe. I know for a fact McKinsey pays Associates 33% more in Mexico ($127k) than they do in Poland ($96k) for the exact same role, and generally McKinsey salaries take regional job markets into account when setting salaries, so I guess it shouldn't surprise me that Dev salaries might be higher in MX than PL or RO (and they 100% are higher than in UA or RU)

908B64B197 4y ago

> 1. I don't think there would be an intention to move folks from MX to the bay area, Austin, etc. so not sure why you mentioned that. It's actually quite easy to do it. For real engineers at least.

alephnerd 4y ago

1. It isn't companies moving employees - it's Mexican nationals applying to jobs in the US and then moving. So long as you have working English fluency and a relevant degree, it's pretty trivial to get a TN, H1-B, or EB-1 as a Mexican national. 2. Training and mentoring is a reflection of your company's Engineering Management. My employer has had an easy time offshoring development to Slovakia and Bangalore because we had Tech Leads and Engineering Management make the initiative to mentor, train, and onboard offshore team employees as we would domestic employees. I've seen similar examples occur across the industry (eg. Google Pay's dev team in Hyderabad, DE Shaw's dev team in Gurgaon, Motive/KeepTruckin dev teams in Lahore & Islamabad). If Management views Engineering as a cost center (which, it pains for me to say as an ex-cybersecurity engineer, at times it can be), that's where you tend to see the relationship between offshore and onshore teams collapse, because the relationship is based on the implicit arbitrage of labor. 3. Tijuana is not a software hub. It is a medical device manufacturing hub though (all the design and R&D is done across the border in San Diego and manufacturing is done in Baja California). Also the MechE salary in MX is apparently higher than it is in Poland (~$13k/yr - https://www.salary.com/research/pl-salary/benchmark/mechanical-engineer-i-salary/pl/warsaw https://www.salary.com/research/pl-salary/benchmark/mechanic...), Romania (~$4k/yr - https://www.payscale.com/research/RO/Job=Mechanical_Engineer/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/RO/Job=Mechanical_Engineer...), or China (~$15k - https://www.salary.com/research/cn-salary/benchmark/mechanical-engineer-i-salary/cn https://www.salary.com/research/cn-salary/benchmark/mechanic...). In fact, I think the Poland salary is overestimated as I know for a fact starting salaries for new grad SWEs in Poland (not working at MNCs) is around $7-8k/yr. Most of the software roles in MX are in CDMX, Monterrey, or Guadalajara. So in fact devs in MX might be earning more than in Eastern Europe. I know for a fact McKinsey pays Associates 33% more in Mexico ($127k) than they do in Poland ($96k) for the exact same role, and generally McKinsey salaries take regional job markets into account when setting salaries, so I guess it shouldn't surprise me that Dev salaries might be higher in MX than PL or RO (and they 100% are higher than in UA or RU)