Discover how nearshore hiring is evolving in 2026 | 🎙 The Nearshore Cafe Podcast

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Nearshore Cafe podcast. This is the final episode of 2025. What a year it's been. I'm your host, Brian Samson, as you know, and we're sponsored by Plug Technologies, WGG.tech. Great way to connect talent all over Latin America with US companies. And who better to talk about that than my partner in crime, the president of Plug Technologies, Ruben Santana. We're going to talk all about what 2025 looked like and what's to come in 2026. Ruben, always great to have you.

Thank you. Thank you, Brian. Great to be here.

So let's start maybe looking forward for a second. Are you optimistic or pessimistic heading into 2026?

Very, very optimistic. Very, very optimistic. And then, you know, the people that we're talking to, that we have been talking to, the people that are reaching out to us, clients, I mean, we're seeing some optimism in terms of building teams and wanting talent in Latin America, for sure.

Yeah. For the audience's sake, tell us more about maybe like the types of companies, the types of clients that you you've been working with over the last year and like what are they thinking about?

Yeah, so I mean, I think a lot of it, you know, in terms of clients and industries we're working with, you know, across different, many different industries, it's, you know, healthcare. A lot of our clients are in healthcare and in fintech or insurance. And so we have a number of different clients, but I think people are definitely considering cost. There's no doubt about that, that they're looking for lower cost, in being able to address their IT needs at these companies. But even a bigger one than that, I'm seeing a lot of companies that have done in the past, have done business offshore. They've been in India, they've been in maybe Manila, the Philippines, and other places. And they're hearing this whole nearshore idea that's become more and more popular. And now companies are considering like, What is, what is this and how can we be a part of it? I just spoke to somebody yesterday that it was, you know, very excited to number one, not have people talking to folks offshore at 3 o'clock in the morning where they can address their issues, their problems. They can move things faster through the cycle in terms of, you know, producing systems on their own time zone. Those are the kinds of things that I'm, I'm seeing a lot every single day. And it's becoming more and more popular with companies today, for sure.

Yeah, you mentioned cost, which I hear a lot about too, but it sounds like maybe the conversation has shifted from what the hourly cost is to what the project bottom line cost is. And the project bottom line cost is impacted by how work is done, time zones, alignment. Are you seeing that? Can you talk more about that?

Yeah, there's no doubt that, you know, having, having these projects done On time is critical. It's critical. Some of these, some of these projects need to be done on time and the delays that maybe they've experienced before, you know, offshore is, is something, another good reason to be able to want to do this nearshore where they can move things along a little bit quicker. And again, you know, cost isn't, I mean, nearshore is, is never going to be as cheap as offshore, right? That's, that's a fact. We know that. And cost, while it may be a factor, it's, it's, it's overridden by The ability of the ability to get good talent, the ability to get people that can speak English, the ability to be able to turn projects and get them done quickly on time and get them done well with quality work. And I think, I think a lot of the IT community at companies are seeing that they're dipping their toes, if you will, and trying to figure that out. Can I, can I get that kind of quality? And they're seeing that they can, and we've seen it over and over and over again over the last, you know, 3 years now.

I think there's always in the staffing world, a push-pull of cost and quality. From what I've seen, nearshore is kind of like this, like right in the middle balance. Onshore, it's high cost, you know, and you'd expect high quality. Maybe Asia is low cost, but, you know, in relation, the quality is a little bit lower. Is that, is that what your conversations are leading to, that nearshore is kind of right in the middle, or maybe even the quality is surprising people?

I think the quality is surprising people. There's no doubt. I hear that a lot. They're like, wow, I'm getting good quality work here, these guys. And they're a part of their teams. It just, you know, you can have— I love this conversation I had yesterday because we were talking about, you know, the water cooler conversations you have with your team right here in the US, that you can have that with people if they're working in Mexico because they're watching the same shows you are. They know about the same food. They've even worked, some of them, many of them have worked in the US before and gone back to their home in Mexico. And so that conversation becomes a lot easier, which of course builds camaraderie, builds that team spirit and makes them more efficient and effective in their jobs.

Yeah. As you're having more conversations with companies that are, would you call them nearshore curious or are they even beyond that? Like they're kind of nearshore ready. What are they thinking about and what are some of the most important things to them heading into next year?

Yeah, again, like 2 years ago, I would say that there's so many that that were nearshore curious. These days, there's very few that are nearshore curious. They're nearshore ready. They want to be a part of this. And whether it's, you know, I'm seeing even, okay, we wanna split a team. We have a team offshore, but we also want a team nearshore. So they're seeing the ability of being able to pass along work from offshore to nearshore to be able to keep things moving. And that's seen where before it was pass it off from offshore to onshore. And now they're seeing I can scale nearshore a lot easier and be able to do that same kind of work. So we're seeing a lot of that. We're seeing a lot of that. And those are the kinds of conversations I'm having. I mean, again, going back to '26, the optimism's there. I think they're wanting to build small teams and then be able to scale from there after they've had the experience and had this and seen the kinds of talent that there is nearshore. Yeah.

Are companies doing like a bake-off nearshore versus offshore and testing, or do you see more of the follow the sun model and let's, let's try to have global teams and the work is passed off?

Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both, but, but I do feel like some of them are just done with offshore. They're done. They're wanting to just move their teams to nearshore. We've, we've had a number of companies that we've worked with that have done that. And it's not just in India. We've, we've moved. Several teams from Manila to Mexico where a company just wanted the whole team in Mexico because of time zone, because of the talent, because of the English. For all those reasons, they made that decision.

Yeah. Off the top of your head, I know you're doing lots of placements all across the board. Off the top of your head, what are some of the more recent placements, like job titles that you guys have done?

Yeah. So interestingly, you know, of course, you know, everybody's talking about AI. You hear a lot about AI audit and there's no secret everywhere you turn. It's all about AI. But what I'm seeing is not as many AI-related jobs. What I'm seeing are a lot of data jobs. It's data engineers, data analysts, data, you know, all different types of data-related positions that are leading towards being able to develop more AI-related type functionality, if you will. So we're seeing a lot of that. We've seen a lot of that these past 6 months. We've also done over the last 2 years, we've built several Salesforce teams.

Teams.

So we, we've done, we've done that many times, and, and the, the client that we work with has— we've been doing that in Mexico, so we've had good talent in, in Mexico to be able to build those teams.

Yeah. Are there roles where maybe nearshore is not quite the right fit and they should consider Asia, or they should consider onshore?

It's a great question. I, I keep waiting for that, but I haven't seen it yet, Brian, to be honest. I haven't seen it. I mean, We've had some very difficult roles, you know, some tough ones where the talent pool is not so great. Maybe some backend developers with some specialized type, you know, things that they're doing that's not as plentiful, but we've been able to find good talent still. It's there. It's there. So I keep waiting for it, but it doesn't seem there's plenty of talent. And I think that goes to the education. I mean, these guys that didn't just start working in IT with US-based companies, this has been going on for a long time. It just so happens that, you know, US companies are starting to figure it out, figure that out, that wow, there's people that know, you know, that are good software engineers that have been doing it for 10 years, 12 years or more. So they're there, they're good, and they're talented.

Yeah. You know, with the, uh, H-1B pressures and dramatic cost rising in India, are you starting to see more momentum for Latin America and certain types of roles? Are going to, say, Mexico or Brazil where they used to, think about having an Indian in that seat?

Yeah, I mean, I haven't had anybody come to me and tell me that's the reason, it's because of the H-1 cost or— but you gotta know that from a high level, from that C-suite, that's gotta be something that's being talked about, especially if you are, you know, getting ready to build out some type of project and you're ready to spend some money. I know that there's some concern about that for sure. I've heard that. So yeah, I think it's part of the equation, but I think it really goes back to the idea that nearshore is here. It's here. Companies are doing it. Even some of the consulting companies in India have established themselves and they have been for a while, but even more so today, they're establishing themselves in Latin America to be able to also offer that service to their clients. Yeah.

What should companies that are, again, not, not nearshore curious anymore, they're nearshore ready, and I'm sure they're, they're gonna want to talk to a couple different nearshore agencies. What are some things that they should be asking to these potential vendors to make sure that they, they make the right choice?

Yeah, that's a great question. And there's, there's two types of companies and, you know, just to be, to be transparent, I mean, we here at Plug, we are really a staff augmentation company. Right? There are some companies we speak to that maybe we're not the perfect fit because they're looking for a project-based company that they're just, that's going to be responsible for all the deliverables. And that's not something that, that we do. But, but certainly what we do well is find the talent in these different companies. I think one of the things that we do really well is educate our clients as to where can you find the talent? We do the research. We give them the ideas of You know, for this particular software engineer you're looking for, this is where the talent exists. These are the numbers and these are the costs associated with it in different countries and where you can, you know, so a lot of that education is really important. The other thing I think that's, uh, well, a couple other things is we deliver on time. So, you know, within 24, 48 hours, unless it's something very, very, very difficult, we're going to have 2 or 3 really good candidates in front of our client. And we should be ready to move toward, you know, to an interview. So our recruiters are trained well. They have the experience. They know how to find the talent that our clients are looking for. We rely heavily and we've been very successful at referrals. So we've worked with so many good people. And I think everybody knows that is, you know, if you're able to get a referral from a good software engineer, generally they're going to refer someone that's good. They're not going to refer someone that's no good. So, so a lot of our, a lot of our business has come from referrals and that's, that's really helped us and made a big difference. The other area that I really think that companies don't think about is retention. And I'm so proud of our work that we do on that side of the business. You know, while we, you know, we work hard at educating clients, our recruiters work hard at finding the talent. But it's what happens after that person is sitting in the seat. And what we do at Plug in that arena is, I think, really special. And I think it's a— well, it's a testament to our person that does that work for us, our operations area. But it's also our people have told us that. They comment on it. So everything from onboarding to background checks to distributing laptops to these individuals wherever they are in whatever country they're at. We make it happen. We make it all happen seamlessly. And on day one, they're, they're, they're ready to be ready to start working. And that's what the client really is expecting. And we all know that that first week or two is critical to getting somebody onboarded well to be able to be successful in that project. So we do as much as we can to make sure that that happens really, really efficiently for our clients. And again, it's an area that I think A lot of companies will— I'll get on a call and they'll say, you know, okay, what's the cost of this and what's the cost of that? But when I tell them about the retention piece, that's when they're like, wow, that's really special. That sounds really great because that is a part of the equation. No sense having somebody on for 3 or 4 months and then they leave for whatever reason. So we make sure that we do a good job on that side.

Yeah. Again, for, I guess, the new vocabulary we're using this year is nearshore ready. So for those that are nearshore ready, but you know, we also have to be realistic. 25% of Americans have a passport and even the ones that have traveled Mexico or Latin America have probably been to Cancún, right? So there are a whole world and I'm sure you have a lot of educational conversations. Can you give just kind of like a broad macro understanding of Latin America? And maybe like what countries you like for what skill sets and how you might generally advise customers?

Yeah, I mean, when it comes to software development, we can find the talent almost in every country. It exists, okay? So we're able to find the talent. Where it begins to separate is when, you know, a client perhaps is thinking more than just one person. They're thinking about a team. Ruben, we want to build a team, maybe 3 start out with, and then we want to go to 5, and then maybe later on we'll expand that team. That's when it gets a little bit more interesting because the pool of talent isn't as great in every country. So then we recommend some of the larger type countries, maybe a Mexico or Argentina or Brazil certainly are the 3 that come to mind that have great pools of talent. But then there are some other countries as well. I mean, Colombia certainly has some great talent as well. We've placed some people in Chile. So, so there's other places, but When you're thinking about a team, that's when we start to really, really narrow down the countries that are better for that. The other thing I'll mention, and it came up yesterday and it comes up more often, is we have clients that also are thinking about visiting their people that they're bringing on contract. Hey, Ruben, we want to spend some time maybe once a quarter and go see them and go. So then it becomes, okay, now we got to locate them maybe in one city and so that the client can come visit. So again, that starts to narrow down some of the countries or places where we might find some of that talent. But again, in terms of technology, I will say, I will say that for like what we've seen this year for data, data engineers, as I mentioned earlier, Brazil has been a great place to find that type of talent. We found some really, really good, good talent in Brazil there. As I mentioned, Salesforce, we've, we probably have, you know, 20 Salesforce people working working for us today that are in Mexico. So again, software engineers, we can find those almost in every country.

Yeah. Yeah. Can you talk about hardware for a second? You know, it's something that we usually don't think about until the placement and that, or if I'm a customer, I don't think about and then, oh, well, I have a really important MacBook that I need them to have or something. Is it as easy as doing this in the States? Is it harder? You know, what, what should people know?

Yeah, it's, you know, when we started this, it was interesting and it became a little bit of a challenge and a logistical nightmare really, to be honest. But we figured it out. We've got it down now. We've been doing this for, you know, 3 years, 3 and a half years. And we understand which countries are great for getting hardware in and getting out. And even if we can't, we've established some centers. So for instance, we have a center in Monterrey, Mexico for all of Mexico where We can bring in hardware, we can refurbish it, we can wipe it clean, we can do all those things to be able to redeploy that machine to somebody else if it's in good working condition. The same in Brazil, we can do the same in Brazil. So understanding some of these rules, laws, and then even establishing some connections with providers has been really, really important for us. And it works great. I'm happy with what we're doing in that arena. And clients think that's important because, and you're right, Brian, they don't really think about it at first, but then they think, well, I don't want this guy on his personal laptop. I would much rather have him on another secure laptop. So we don't only just give them a laptop, we also have security software that we put on that we can, if need be, we can terminate their session and lock down the computer. We do, it involves moving computers, DHL, moving things all over. So it is a logistical area that we have figured out quite well, and I'm proud of the team doing it.

Yeah. You know, you mentioned Monterey, and for those that don't know, you were an expat and lived in Monterey for a couple years. And I think that's a huge advantage because you can talk where you can walk the talk, so to speak, and share your personal experiences with customers. When that comes up, what do you, what do you tell them? What do you, what do you tell customers about Monterrey and good, bad, ugly? You know, what, what should they think about if they were to put a team there?

Yeah, I mean, good. I mean, when I was there, one of the things that our clients that used to visit us really enjoyed was the fact of, you know, I mean, the, how far it was from the US. I mean, here where I'm sitting right now in Atlanta, It's a 2-hour and 40-minute flight, which is beautiful, and you can fly in and go see the people. It's safe. It's wonderful. So that's what I tell people. But of course, again, when it comes down to building teams and the talent, you know, there's 3 major cities in Mexico, which are going to be Mexico City, Guadalajara, and then Monterrey. Those are the 3 major cities where there is great pools of talent. That said, There's talent all over the country that we've been able to employ and have working with us today. But, but yeah, Monterey is a great place to put a team. Certainly there's plenty of talented folks there. There's a great, great university that's very well known. Uh, Tech de Monterrey is very well known. There's some great talent that's coming out of that school for sure.

Yeah. Can you talk about a few success stories from this past year that you're really proud of and would be great for people to know and maybe even talk about like how they came about and, you know, the steps or the process from, you know, first call until they've got a happy team.

Yeah, I think, I think, you know, one of the, there's a couple of them that come to mind that to me are really, really, that stand out. I alluded to earlier our being able to get, you know, referrals and You know, I think that's so key and something that may be overlooked by— you mentioned companies that are looking for partners because we've seen that happen over and over again where these referrals have made such a big difference and the clients come back and say, hey, he's doing such a great job. We're so, so thankful. And that's because of that referral network that after 3.5, 4 years now we have going on in Latin America that makes a tremendous difference. We're not always starting from scratch. We're not always finding somebody that we've never talked to or that's that somebody else doesn't know. So we're always looking for that to help us and give us an edge, if you will. We've built, I mentioned earlier, the Salesforce teams and we've done that. And that's been tremendous. It's a healthcare client again that wanted to move from Manila to Mexico. And we continue to build these teams that we're up to 5 teams now that we've built in Mexico. And that's been a real good experience for us. We're also working with some small clients, you know, startups, if you will, that are really looking for that expert. They're looking for somebody that has worked at a startup, understands US culture, that can wear many hats. And those are challenging to find people that have all that skill set, but yet we've been able to do that for a number of clients. And that's been also very gratifying. And I know for the client, it certainly has been gratifying as well.

Yeah. Can you talk about the sequence of steps? So maybe Customer talks to you first, you give some advice and get the job description. Can you talk about sequence of steps from there to the person starting?

Sure. So, I mean, typically we have a conversation with a client and we'll talk about their needs and why the need exists and all those things. Their tech stack, what that looks like, a little bit about their culture, what's the kind of culture that they have there, and that's all great, great information. Information for us to have. So, so we try to go beyond just a job description. What are the, you know, what are the 3 or 4 things that are going to make this person successful in the job and getting that information. Once we have that, then we're prepared to turn it over to our recruiting team. And usually we'll assign that to somebody that will start recruiting for that, for that talent, for that particular person. And again, usually within, you know, 24, 48 hours, we have 2 or 3 good, good candidates. Of course, we're screening every candidate. We're speaking to every one of them. We put them through, you know, go through the understanding, you know, what their background is, how does it fit in with the job description, how does it fit in with those 2 or 3 things that our clients said are key, understanding how many years of experience they have. So all those things that are important to qualifying a person for that job is what the recruiter is doing. Once we, once we have that information, then we're ready to go to the client with that and and present 2 or 3 folks that hopefully they'll want to talk to and interview. It's rare that we're off, but in the case that we are, that just means that we may have to just tweak our search a little bit to find something a little bit different. It's never totally off. And then we go to interviews. And once those interviews are beginning, we'll schedule the interviews for the client. We'll make sure that the candidate's prepared for the interview. They're always video-on interviews. The candidates are— I should have mentioned they all speak English. We make sure— I get that question all the time. Ruben, do they speak English? Yeah, they all speak English. They all speak English. We screen for that. We make sure that they're at least an 8 or 9 out of 10 in terms of their level of English. So we're always looking for that. Schedule interviews. And usually, you know, for some of these, there could be, you know, 2, 3 interview process. And so we're talking to the candidate all the way through the process. And once that happens and there's a selection or we like this person, then we, and they're prepared for us to make an offer, we'll make an offer to that individual. And once they sign that offer, it kicks off a bunch of other things such as background checks, you know, ordering equipment, getting them all ready, setting an onboarding date for them, all those things that have to happen before that person starts. So, yeah, that's, that's really the process. It's not, it's not complicated. It's really starts from that first meeting, making sure that we truly understand what the client is, is really looking for.

Sounds like there's really not a whole lot of difference from them, from the client hiring somebody locally versus hiring somebody nearshore. It's the same process, it sounds like.

Yeah, it's, it's pretty much if they've got internal recruiters, they're probably going through the same process that we are. But, um, yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And then just for, for clarity for our audience, they don't have to payroll anybody. Plug handles all that.

Plug handles all of that. Yes. We take care of paying them. We pay them all in USD. Which is competitive, right? It's good because there are so many companies that are maybe paying them in their local currency and they prefer being paid in USD. So that helps us a lot. And then also many of them are very interested in the contractor model as opposed to being a full-time employee. So that is also something, an advantage for us.

Yeah. As we start to wind down, if anybody wants to contact you directly, get some advice, have a conversation, talk through a job description, what's the best way to do that?

Uh, ruben@plug.tech is my email. Um, and you know, that's all it would take. Just, just let me know. And I'm happy to be able to jump on a call and, and, and talk to, uh, to anybody about what we do, our services, our team, and even the success stories. I think that's a big part of it. People want to hear, you know, Brian, I mean, I, you know, As we look about, look back here at 25, today we've come a long way. Currently today have over 60 folks that are on contract with US-based clients in Mexico. We have another 20 or 20 plus that are in Brazil, and then we have another 20 or so that are around different countries in South America. We have a great little call center team in Nicaragua, another great place to find good English-speaking talent. So, so really it's, uh, we've had a great year. It's been fun. We're really excited and going into '26, I think it's going to be another great year.

Yeah, me too. Well, Reuben, uh, as always, thanks so much for your, uh, insight into 2025 and heading into 2026. This podcast is sponsored by Plug Technologies, L-U-G-G. And we will see you in the new year. Happy holidays, everybody.

Happy holidays. Thank you.