Let’s not sugarcoat it: hiring developers in the US has become a budget killer.
If you’re a CTO, COO, or Head of Engineering at a Series A+ company trying to scale product velocity, you’ve likely already felt it. You’re burning cash on top-tier salaries, fighting for engineers in the most competitive market on earth, and watching costs pile up in ways your board didn’t sign up for.
And yet quality still matters. You can’t just hire cheaper and hope for the best, or settle cheap with the idea that you can build a product over 2-3X to hopefully get it right. So let’s break it down.
The Rising Cost of Hiring in the US
You already know the salaries. Senior full-stack dev in SF or NYC? $180k to $220k easy. Add in equity and bonuses, and you’re flirting with $300k.
But even if you’re remote-first and hiring across the US, it’s not a whole lot better. The new “remote salary floor” for high-caliber engineers is now well into six figures and it’s rising. Great devs in Kansas City or Denver know what their peers in the Bay are making, and they expect alignment.
Meanwhile, salary inflation hasn’t exactly translated to more loyalty or faster shipping. It’s just the cost of staying in the race.
The Hidden Costs No One Talks About
The obvious numbers aren’t even the worst part.
Here’s where your budget silently bleeds:
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Turnover: The average tenure for engineers in growth-stage companies is 1.3 years. Every time someone walks, you lose velocity and institutional memory.
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Recruiting Fees: Internal or external, you’re spending ~25–30% of first-year salary just to fill the seat (not to mention if that candidate doesn’t work out, then you need to start all over again).
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Benefits Load: Think healthcare, 401k match, PTO, equipment, onboarding costs. Add ~25–30% on top of salary.
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Slow Ramps — Time-to-impact for new devs is 2–3 months, minimum. If they leave in a year, half that time was warm-up.
You’re not just paying for code. You’re paying for retention, ramp, and replacement cycles — over and over again.
Why Traditional Outsourcing Doesn’t Actually Solve It
So what about outsourcing?
Plenty of companies go the offshore route. India, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia — they promise deep benches and lower costs. And they can work… sometimes.
But here’s the reality most leaders won’t say out loud until it’s too late:
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Time zone friction kills iteration speed. You’re chasing asynchronous updates, late-night standups, and 24-hour feedback loops. There are barely any working hours overlapped in the US, if any at all.
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Quality is inconsistent. Great engineers exist everywhere — but vetting at scale is hard. You often get B-teams behind A-team promises.
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Cultural mismatch leads to rework. Nuance gets lost. Specs aren’t clarified. You spend more time managing than building.
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You still need PMs and architects in-house just to translate and manage handoffs.
Suddenly, that “50% cheaper” engagement isn’t looking so cheap when you factor in misalignment, scope creep, and missed deadlines.
The Nearshore Advantage: Same Time Zone, Better ROI
Enter nearshoring.
Think: Latin America: Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico. It’s not new, but the game has changed. Here’s why it’s working now more than ever:
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Time zone overlap. You can run real-time standups with teams in Bogotá or Buenos Aires. No more 12-hour lag.
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Highly skilled talent. LatAm engineers are building products for unicorns, contributing to open-source, and competing globally.
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Lower cost, without low quality. You’re not hiring juniors for half the price — you’re hiring seniors for ~40–60% less than US rates and not to mention that you don’t need to add all the perks and benefits.
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English fluency + cultural proximity. Especially in product-led teams, the ability to collaborate naturally matters more than raw code.
Even better? Many LatAm devs see working with US companies as a long-term career step — not just a stepping stone. That means higher retention and stronger team glue.
Case Studies: Scaling with Nearshore Teams at 60% Cost Savings
Let’s get real.
Here are a few anonymized but real-world examples from companies we’ve seen shift strategy:
Series B Fintech (New York): Built a 5-person LatAm pod to support core product dev. Saved $480K/year vs. hiring US-based equivalents — and reduced bug rates by 30%.
Series A Healthtech (SF): Replaced an underperforming offshore team with a nearshore squad in Colombia. Went from 3-week delivery cycles to 6-day iterations. Devs onboarded in half the time.
Growth-Stage SaaS (Austin): Staffed an AI pod (ML engineer, data eng, PM) in Colombia and Argentina. Cut delivery costs by 58%, launched their LLM-powered feature 2 months faster than projected.
None of these teams sacrificed quality. In fact, most found more ownership, faster feedback, and better alignment than their US-based peers.
Final Take
If you’re scaling a product org and trying to manage a runway, nearshoring isn’t a compromise, it’s a smart play. You’re not offloading risk. You’re building leverage.
In a market where every dollar matters and every sprint window is tight, teams that shift smart, not just cheap, will win.
The dev cost crisis in the US is real. But the solution isn’t to cut corners. It’s to change the map.
This is where Ideaware comes in.
We’ve helped U.S.-based tech companies embed technical talent directly into their growth teams, engineers who get it. They understand revenue. They know how to wire up tools, launch systems fast, and build scalable engines for growth.
Whether you’re looking to test faster, personalize smarter, or close deals more efficiently, we can help you find someone who can build that with you.
Why Ideaware?
Since 2010, we’ve helped US companies scale with top-tier tech talent, not just by filling roles, but by becoming long-term partners in growth.
- We handle sourcing, hiring, onboarding, and retention.
- Start receiving CVs as soon as 48 hours.
- You could meet your new teammate in as little as 6–10 days.
- Our retention rates are 2x the industry average.
Contact us here to discuss your hiring strategy, and we will get in touch with you within 24 hours or less.
