U.S. companies are shifting engineering hires from offshore to Latin America

Hire With Near says U.S. companies hiring software engineers in Latin America are increasingly moving away from offshore teams and outsourcing firms. The findings suggest a broader push to bring engineering work closer to U.S. time zones and in-house control.

Why it matters: - U.S. companies are rethinking where engineering work gets done, with nearshore hiring in Latin America emerging as a practical alternative to offshore teams. - The shift reflects pressure to solve time-zone delays, improve ownership, and keep core software capability closer to the business.

What happened: - Hire With Near released research on Oct. 9, 2026, showing that many U.S. companies hiring software engineers in Latin America are moving away from offshore models. - The analysis used 300 calls with U.S. companies hiring for IT and engineering roles in Latin America, plus more than 400 job descriptions sent to Hire With Near. - Offshore teams usually operate in Asia or Eastern Europe, about eight to 12 hours away from U.S. offices. - Nearshore engineers in Latin America typically work within zero to three hours of most U.S. time zones.

The details: - In the 300-call sample, the most common reason for hiring in Latin America was moving engineering work off an offshore team, cited in 30% of calls. - Another 15% said they were leaving a development outsourcing firm. - Together, about 45% of companies were changing the model behind their engineering work. - Cost savings ranked second at 26% among engineering hires. - Across non-technical roles, cost savings was the top reason. - 10% of engineering companies said they cannot find the engineers they need in the U.S., double the rate for non-technical roles. - 19% already have developers in Latin America and are expanding the team. - 51% of job descriptions ask for ownership. - 56% ask for autonomy. - 76% ask for communication skills, more than any technical practice in the data. - Full stack was the largest single role family at 17% of job descriptions. - Companies leaving offshore teams described a working-hours problem, where a decision that can take 20 minutes in a shared afternoon may take three days across a time-zone gap. - Companies leaving outsourcing firms described an ownership problem, preferring engineers who join standups and customer calls directly without an agency layer. - The report is titled “Why US Companies Are Switching Engineering Models to Hire in Latin America.” - The full report is available here. - U.S. companies looking to hire software engineers in Latin America can find more information here.

Between the lines: - The research points to a broader preference for speed, control and collaboration over purely labor-arbitrage hiring. - Hire With Near CEO Hayden Cohen said companies often like offshore work quality, but the time difference creates compounding friction over time. - Cohen said companies using development agencies increasingly want to build core engineering capacity in-house because it is central to long-term growth. - Cohen cited ParkMobile as an example of a company that replaced agency developers with its own engineers in Latin America, and that team is still growing. - The pattern aligns with McKinsey's Global Tech Agenda 2026 survey, which found nearly half of top-performing companies plan to bring strategic technology expertise in-house over the next two years, versus 37% of other companies. - The methodology excluded calls with no determinable reason and reflects companies that came to Hire With Near, not the broader U.S. market.

What's next: - Hire With Near expects continued demand from companies that want engineering teams closer to U.S. working hours and more directly tied to product ownership. - The company is positioning Latin America as a long-term hiring market for software engineering and broader remote talent.

The bottom line: - The headline shift is not just from offshore to nearshore. It is from distance and delegation toward closer collaboration and in-house control.