Expanding your engineering capacity doesn’t have to break the bank. Nearshore hiring through Perform lets you scale your team faster and more affordably than hiring solely in the U.S., all without compromising on quality. This consultative guide explains how nearshore talent in Latin America can help you add skilled developers at a fraction of the cost, while maintaining high standards and seamless collaboration.
In the U.S., hiring a software engineer can take months and over $30,000 in recruiting costs per role. Nearshore staffing dramatically shortens this timeline. With Perform’s extensive talent network, you can see pre-vetted candidates within days and have a new developer started in just a few weeks.
This speed is crucial when you need to hit product deadlines or rapidly staff a project. It’s one reason Forbes reported a 156% increase in U.S. businesses looking to hire in LATAM – companies need talent fast and are finding it faster abroad
Economic ups and downs force companies to do more with less. When budgets tighten or headcount is frozen, nearshoring becomes a lifeline to continue product development affordably. Rather than paying premium salaries for local hires (or overworking a small team), you can maintain velocity by augmenting with lower-cost nearshore engineers.
During growth phases, nearshore hiring also lets you scale up quickly without ballooning your burn rate. It’s a flexible valve – you can increase capacity while keeping costs predictable, and dial back when needed without layoffs or sunk costs.
In downturns or recessions, outsourcing is often a smarter alternative to cutting core staff. Nearshore contractors allow you to preserve your momentum on key projects, even if you implement a hiring freeze domestically. Conversely, in booming times or rapid product launches, nearshore teams let you seize opportunities faster. You’re not constrained by the local talent shortage or lengthy hiring processes.
This agility explains why 43% of U.S. SMBs plan to increase nearshore outsourcing in the near term - it’s a strategic tool to navigate both lean and high-growth periods.
One of the biggest advantages of nearshore hiring is significantly lower labor cost. By recruiting skilled developers in Latin America (LATAM) instead of exclusively in the U.S., companies typically save 50–70% on development costs. That gap translates to huge budget relief – effectively doubling your engineering output for the same spend.
These savings aren’t only from lower salaries. With Perform’s nearshore staff augmentation, you avoid expenses like benefits, payroll taxes, and office space for additional hires. The engineers are contracted through Perform, meaning your company isn’t shouldering healthcare, 401k matches, expensive equipment, or physical workspace costs. The result is a leaner cost structure for scaling up your team.
Importantly, cost-effective doesn’t mean “cheap” in a negative sense. LATAM developer rates are lower primarily due to differing economies, not due to inferior talent. You still get top-tier expertise – just at a market rate that favors your budget. In fact, many businesses find nearshoring so cost-efficient that it routinely cuts their development spend nearly in half. In a time when every dollar counts, nearshore hiring offers a strategic way to stretch budgets without sacrificing progress.
An IT staff augmentation company in the USA helps U.S. organizations add skilled developers and specialists while avoiding the high cost and delays of local hiring. By using nearshore talent in aligned time zones, you can save significantly on labor costs versus U.S. hires and still maintain quality and real‑time collaboration.
A top IT staff augmentation company combines cost savings with high‑caliber talent and reliable delivery. Look for nearshore teams in aligned time zones, rigorous technical and communication vetting, transparent pricing, strong security and IP protections, and a governance model that keeps augmented staff fully aligned with your in‑house team.
To hire a top IT staff augmentation company, start by defining your roles and budget, then shortlist vendors that use nearshore talent in aligned time zones. Compare their vetting process, pricing transparency, security posture, and client references, and always run a small pilot engagement before scaling your augmented team.
Let us help you define the nearshore roles you actually need, match them to U.S. time zones, and align on budget before you commit.
SCHEDULE A CALLCost savings aside, nearshoring is only valuable if the talent quality meets your standards. The good news: Perform ensures you get high-caliber engineers who rival those found in Silicon Valley. Latin America’s tech workforce is highly skilled and well-educated, with many engineers holding advanced degrees and experience at global companies. In fact, Latin American developers provide comparable expertise to U.S. talent – “no drop in quality” despite costing 30–50% less.
English proficiency and communication are also strong. Countries like Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia have large pools of developers fluent in English and familiar with U.S. business culture. This means you won’t be constantly repeating yourself or struggling with language barriers – nearshore engineers can participate in meetings, code reviews, and slack chats just like your in-house team.
Perform adds an extra layer of quality control through rigorous vetting. Every engineer presented to you is handpicked and thoroughly tested – we evaluate coding skills, problem-solving ability, and English communication before you ever interview them. We also emphasize culture fit: does the developer take initiative? Communicate proactively? We only recommend talent we’d hire ourselves. This careful screening ensures that even as you save money, you aren’t trading away quality or reliability. You’ll be working with engineers who have technical depth and professional work habits, not unproven beginners.
Equally important, nearshore teams operate in aligned time zones, which elevates quality of collaboration. Your LATAM engineers work the same hours as your U.S. team, enabling real-time interaction and agile workflows. This means no more overnight delays or disjointed hand-offs that can occur with far-off offshore teams. Problems can be addressed immediately during the workday, and code can be shipped faster thanks to continuous feedback loops. In short, you gain cost-effective talent without missing a beat on performance or communication.
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Much faster than traditional hiring. We can typically present you with qualified candidates within 48–72 hours after our initial discussion. Because we maintain a pipeline of vetted talent, we often have people ready to interview on short notice. Once you choose a candidate, they can usually start within a couple of weeks (after any notice period). In total, you can have a new engineer onboarded in a few weeks, not the 2-3+ months a domestic search might take. Our record speed comes from an extensive talent network and efficient process that compresses the timeline without skipping quality checks.
Absolutely. Perform’s nearshore engineers work in your time zone and align to your working hours, so they collaborate in real time with your in-house team – joining daily stand-ups, design reviews, and Slack conversations just like any other team member. All our candidates speak fluent English and are used to U.S. business culture, so communication is smooth. We encourage you to treat nearshore developers as a direct extension of your team. Many clients even have nearshore and onshore engineers paired on tasks or rotating on support duty seamlessly. In short, your distributed team will function as one unit, without late-night calls or language barriers. Perform also supports the integration by ensuring the engineers are familiar with agile processes and your toolchain, making the onboarding very easy.
Yes – in fact, many have equivalent or superior experience. Latin America has a large and growing pool of tech talent, including developers who have worked for major global companies or startups just like those in the U.S. Education in STEM fields is strong (for example, Argentina offers free university education in engineering and produces tens of thousands of IT graduates a year). The result is a talent pool of highly skilled, well-trained developers. Studies show you can hire LATAM engineers at half the cost with no drop in quality of work. Perform’s vetting further ensures any engineer we place meets top-tier standards for coding ability, problem-solving, and communication. In short, you’re getting the same quality of talent, just based in a different location.
Yes, flexibility is a key benefit of this model. With Perform’s nearshore staff augmentation, you aren’t locked into long-term contracts for specific headcount. If you need to scale up, we can quickly add more engineers – tapping into deep talent pools to find the right skills. Conversely, if a project ends or budgets shift, you can scale down by rolling engineers off with appropriate notice. There’s no costly severance or wasted overhead like there might be with direct hires. Many companies use nearshore teams to handle surge capacity or cyclical needs for this reason. You maintain control and agility – ramp the team up or down as needed, and we handle the logistics. This flexible approach ensures you always have the right-sized team for your current workload, optimizing both productivity and cost.
Nearshore teams that onboard fast, collaborate deeply, and build better products.
