FrankLicea

How relevant is this when AI has the ability to both write and debug massive code bases?

I imagine a future world where 100% of coding and debugging is done by prompt not by editing code.

Cool!

Still worth thinking through the application, it's a great way to think critically about your business.

When we first applied with Howdy.com, we didn't get in, but the process of filling out our application gave us some insights and clarity.

Second time we applied, we got in.

Sincere question, why do you think HN tends to down weight discussion on Visas or immigration?

In the last 4 years of operations in Latam we saw it a handful of times, all during the last 1.5 years of the Covid hiring mania. Mostly by big companies.

What’s telling is that we haven’t seen those offers since.

In fact we’ve seen rates negotiated down unfortunately.

- US companies are less likely to offer 15K/month, whereas before it wasn't uncommon

- Local Latam companies are having an easier time retaining talent

- Devs in Latam have lowered their salary expectations and often are putting regular salary increases on pause

- There's less job hopping between firms now

I co-founded Howdy.com (YC W21) about 3 years ago. It's a platform for building your own dev teams in Latin America; automate vetting, payroll, offices, equipment, etc. We're profitable and just closed a series-A.

Here's the kicker: My co-founder and I both have kids, family, mortgages. Here's how I did it in the years leading up to and during:

- I saved for years with the idea that I was going to use that money for entrepreneurship

- I was upfront with my spouse and kids about the amount of effort, risk and potential rewards; i could point to a successful dev/PM career as evidence that I could succeed

- Keeping the same standard of living was impossible, we had to budget for a new level of comfort

- We had runway timetable in mind to show some progress

- Our business approach had to be profitable from the start

Your business failure rate doesn't need to be 90% if you're flexible about the problem you're pursuing. We chose an idea that allowed us to bring in at least a little money to lengthen our personal runway. Once we had a sustainable business, it was easier to approach investors and pivot slightly to the market dominating, high risk/high reward version of our idea.

Hope this helps! Happy to chat about this with anyone who's interested in doing the same! f at howdy.com

Thank you Shorel! I think many people that object to the model haven't experienced these pain points themselves, either in the US or in Latam. But we recognize the model is not for everyone.

I had worked with a team in Colombia before and I speak Spanish, so we initially gravitated towards hiring people both in the Austin, TX and Colombia.

We found really great teammates, who spoke great english. We also loved the US timezones, it was possible to be more responsive to our US customers.

And finally, I was surprised at how much overlap in culture we had as software deveopers. For example pop culture like movies, shows, video games, anime, music, etc.

It was a really good fit!

Oops, updated!

Happy to jump on a chat on work through this together, I hope i can be helpful! Checkout my profile to see my email address and send me a DM! we'll get in touch.

Thanks for letting us know stg. Sorry about that, we'll look into it immediately.

In the mean time, I'm happy to setup you up on my end. Would you mind emailing me? You can find my email in my profile.

Yeah, we get the concern that Astro is just a middle man. Let me give a concrete example for why we think we provide more value than that.

We work with a few companies, whose names people would recognize, that feel more comfortable using a US business entity that they can sign contracts with to move specialized equipment, like locked down macbooks, installing special software on work equipment, or installing specialized local network equipment, etc..

These companies have physical security requirements that makes it tough for them to directly hire freelancers. Through our platform we bring those kinds of opportunities to our teammates that would be otherwise localized only certain US cities.

It's also common for freelancers to come onto our platform for various reason, 1) they didn't get paid by the customer or the customer withheld payment for onerous project tweaks 2) "contractors" were the first to get fired when times got tough, 3) "contractors" didn't get access to certain dev environments thus limiting their growth, etc.

We understand it's not a solution for everyone, that's why we describe our business model clearly, and people can decide if what Astro brings to the table is worth it!

Yeah, good point, of course direct freelancing is always on option. We believe that we provide enough info so that everyone can make a rational economic decision.

For example, the way customers pay is : 1) Customers pay for the developer's salary "en mano", which is specified by the developer, not us, 2) Customers pay for a standard benefits package and taxes (Health insurance, education, equipment etc.) and 3) Customers pay our 15% management fee (charged to the customer, not the developer)

That setup, of course, may not work for everyone, but we do have great companies, companies whose names we would recognize, that feel more comfortable using a US business entity that they can sign contracts with to move specialized equipment, like locked down macbooks, installing special software on work equipment, or specialized local network equipment, etc.. These companies have physical security requirements that makes it tough for them to directly hire freelancers. Thus we bring those kinds of opportunities to our teammates that would be otherwise localized only certain US cities.

Interesting experience! Would love to know more, if that's okay. How many freelancers did you manage? and how big was your team?

I think that a few freelancers are manageable (not sure if that applies to you!) But we've noticed companies that are managing engineering departments with ~50 or more and growing quickly really benefit. At that point both the HR and engineering department need something like logistics partner on the ground to coordinate meaningful benefits, specialized equipment (test devices, locked down laptops), help with company events, etc.

I understand the frustration and I'll try to explain a bit more.

Candidate salaries tend to vary based on country, experience, skillset, etc. People on the platform set their personal salary requirements and it's up to companies to provide a compelling offer.

Astro itself doesn't have a fixed rate card or salary bands. Our concern is that we could unintentionally anchor or band someone's salary. That said, we do see trends in the market and we're happy to provide guidance on what's considered above or below market.

Someone earlier recommended we setup something like a AWS cost estimator, i think that's a great idea, so long as we can figure out a way to do it without undercutting people on the platform.

More ideas, do you have former colleagues you can reach to? Can your colleagues introduce you to new people? Getting a personal warm introduction has been the best route for us.

We kept encountering the same issues you mention.

Our teammates weren't satisfied with the outsourcing company and didn't like being interleaved between projects (formally or informally). And with negotiating down lower rates, the clients they tended to attract weren't exactly tech companies, which was uninspiring for our latam teammates.

We believe that by providing a platform that lets tech companies provide a premium developer experience, similar to the "Silicon Valley engineering culture", we can provide access to teammates that aren't typically found on Toptal/Turing nor at the typical outsourcing firm.

Send me an email and I'll get you setup. See my email in my profile!

Really good question. Honestly, it was word of mouth and referrals. I had a successful career as a software developer and product manager for various startups and large companies in the Austin area. Eventually I had colleagues that went off to leadership positions at other companies. Jacqueline was similar but on the sales side.

The biggest advantage we had in getting started was trust. Also in the beginning, we didn't quite start out with our grand vision. We picked up PM work and projects and miscellaneous things here and there, but slowly that expanded our network of people who previously worked with us. We asked all these early customers for introductions to other teams. Overall it took us 3 years.

Is there something you could do to generate a working relationship with your prospects that leads to trust?

Thank you! You're obviously a smart person! :)

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.

Astro is by Austin Software! It's a productized version of what we do.

People kept thinking that Austin Software was a product outsourcing firm, i.e. they kept asking us for quotes or rate cards, etc. So to avoid confusion we built Astro, which is a UX over our team building infrastructure.

It's up the companies to make compelling offers to candidates if they want to find good people. What I can tell you is that this is more common now then when we first started, which we're very glad about!

In fact, on our platform we've seen some companies not only provide stock options but some even pay US level wages, or significantly above local market to entice professionals to join their teams.

The companies that provide these kinds of offers don't fit in the traditional outsourcing models. We believe Astro fits them better to attract talent that isn't accessible with the more traditional channels.

As mentioned above, you can think of Astro as something like a love child between Toptal + Gusto + WeWork + Amazon. Unlike Toptal or Turing, etc, we fulfill local benefits, equipment, even team-building events.

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 believe our approach gives teams access to teammates that are otherwise unreachable on platforms like Toptal, etc. and traditional outsourcing/staffing firms.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!