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Going Global: How & Why To Hire Remotely

There is a movement happening. You know it, I know it, we all know it. Remote work is eating the world. From New York to New Delhi, Hamburg to Hyderabad, the people have spoken—they want remote. But what of companies? Is it good business or bad business to be build global, remote, nearshore, offshore?

The answer is nuanced. And in some cases very much philosophical. Today my aim is to provide you with a very bias, one-eyed view of remote work and why it’s awesome, with a tiny smattering of steelmanning the argument for the other side. So borrow my rose-tinted glasses for a moment, and come with me for a wonderful stroll into a fantasy world we like to call the world of remote.

_{*Note: My company, Athyna, helps companies hire remote talent, mainly in Latam, so a lot of this will have a South American angle. Same rules apply mostly in other regions too though.}

A short history of ‘remote’

The term ‘telecommuting’ was coined by NASA engineer Jack Nilles in 1973. He was the first NASA employee to work remotely.

Companies like JCPenney began allowed call center employees to work remotely. ‘Flexplace’ started trending. The ide allowed employees to work from different locations.

BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) begins to take off throughout South East Asia. Enter call centers. Enter terms like outsourcing, offshoring.

High-speed internet became more widely available, facilitating better remote connections. Skype (2003) and Google Docs (2006) land. Collaboration improves wildly.

GitLab, founded in 2011, scaled to over 1,000 employees across 65 countries with no physical offices. They still have the best remote handbook you can find on the internet today.

The full timeline is simple: Man eats bat, bat makes man sick, man makes many other humans sick, world shits the bed, remote work takes off. 

The pros of going global

High quality talent

Winning in business is about surrounding yourself with superstars, and then going out and executing. Let’s take a look at Latin America, for example, as tech ecosystem. When we are placing talent with our clients at Athyna, we will often place people from Mercado Libre, Nubank, Uala etc. Mercado Libre and Uala have market caps of $86B and $62B, respectively. Imagine bringing someone into your company with that experience for 25% of what you would pay locally.

The ability to bring talent into your org with that level of experience is not something most companies can do locally due to a number of factors.

Less competitive pressure

By 2030 there is projected to be 85 million less tech workers than the industry needs to be able to thrive. To fulfill its potential. This puts incredible pressure on most organisations because of the war for talent fought against the Magnificent Seven, every well funded AI startup and whoever else can out muscle you for San Francisco, Sydney or London’s best talent.

Super recently some salary data was released that claimed the average engineer for OpenAI was earning above $900k. This puts incredible pressure on even the most successful young companies out there trying to win market share.

Cost efficiency

Since time immemorial business owners have been trying to save a buck. Not because they are jerks, because business is damn hard. This is why people are more and more heading to hiring hubs like Latin America to find exceptional talent at a fraction of the cost.

And it makes sense. I always view things through a very clear frame. If I look at a new hire, I ask myself, will this person add four times the amount of value by being in San Francisco, New York, Sydney or London. Because that’s how much salary you will pay in comparison to hiring the best talent in Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Bangalore or Cape Town. The answer is always, almost certainly no.

Acting as a fiduciary to all our shareholders, I can’t justify hiring in places like the United States. It would be acting recklessly and stunting the companies growth.

_{*Caveat: This does not mean you should try to have your cake and eat it too. We pay well at Athyna but we also make sure that we employ local salaries so everybody wins. We give equity in the company to everyone from executive to intern. RSUs too, not options (they don’t have to pay a cent). This way we are all in it together and if I win, if Athyna wins, then we all win.}

Cultural fit

The cultural fit in South America for companies in the US and across the globe is very strong. The Latin culture permeates all through large parts of the US as it is. I believe (no citation here) that there are more Spanish speakers in the US than there are in Spain.

Add to the fact that the time zone overlaps nearly perfectly when the US and you have people earning incredible wages comparatively for working locally, it really does foster a great work environment.

The cons of going global

*Jokes, here are some cons

Harder to build culture

I don’t think culture and in-office and linked. I never have. At Athyna we have 93% engagement, fully remote. But it’s possible that we are the exception, not the rule. What I will say, is that if you struggle building culture as a general rule, it will likely be harder to do so remote. But if you struggle to build culture your whole organisation is on borrowed time anyway.

Turnover, productivity, buy in issues

Studies have shown that people are happier working from home, and some say more productive. But to our last point, if you struggle with culture, you will start to see issues with buy-in from your team, which will lead to lower productivity and eventually high employee turnover. Lose, lose.

Athyna’s talent — internal and external

I am going to take a moment here to sell to you. In an educational way. I want to tell you why we will outcompete companies due to the talent we have at Athyna. Both internally, and externally, aka, working with our clients.

Our team internally

Take a look at the talent that is working or has worked at Athyna in our very short history.

Anyway, you get the point. People have often thought because of the carryover that the BPO industry left—think Philippines and India call centres—that global talent is lesser quality, it’s not.

The Latam ecosystem for example is as strong as any tech ecosystem in the world that is not the US. And even there most of big tech are in Latam. Salesforce, Carta, Uber, Oracle. You name it.

Our talent with our clients

I won’t bludgeon you over the head with the talent we have placed with our clients but it’s the same. We have placed Content Assistants like we have with friend of the newsletter, Tom Alder, here. To teams of cloud engineers from Series B to enterprise.

There are really two ways in which you can get out and start building a global team today. Internally, or through partners like Athyna. I’ll give you the full rundown of how it works.

How you can apply this

Option #1 - Go it on your own

The first, and most obvious option is to get out and hunt the best global talent internally, with your existing team. This is a good option, and can work well if you have: a) the recruitment talent and b) the boots on the ground. You don’t need to have boots on the ground, but you probably would be the exception not the rule to be successful without said boots.

The obvious win here is that you don’t need to pay a partner. Sure you will need to pay your in-house recruiter, but if you’re recruitment team can stay busy this is your cheapest option.

Option #2 - Employ a partner

The second option is much safer, but you will also pay for it. Typically recruitment partners will charge between 20-40% margins, sometimes more, for managing your talent. This is because they wear the risk of the talent leaving on week one and getting paid nothing for what a headhunter would charge $15k for.

The general rule here is if the margins are less than 30% run for the hills. The company is likely shit. And then again, if the margins are over 50% it’s like to be a bit rich. For context: Athyna has blended margins are 37%. That’s what I’d consider the top of end of the bottom of the low end of the top. Somewhere a bit higher than average.

Athyna also does a recruitment fee model where will charge ~$8-10k, depending on the role. If it’s a really bespoke engineer sometimes a bit more. This is pretty standard now for remote, global hires.

Option #💩 - Upwork, Fiverr, freelancer marketplaces

You’ll notice I haven’t really made much mention here of the freelancer marketplaces of the world. And for good reason. This is a terrible way to hire and you will get poor results. If you need to get a 5 page PDF made, one time, then sure. Otherwise steer clear.

The call-to-action

It’s rare that I use this newsletter of mine for evil, or for selling. Today, I blended some edu-tainment in with some good old fashion shilling of my own company. And you know what? It felt good. It felt so good that I am offering a $1,000 discount if you do want to hire from Athyna.

And if you do get into a call with the team, tell them “Doc sent you” … I have always wanted to say that.

Further study

TWEET WRAP 🐣

TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week we highlight tools we actually use inside of our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Attio—powerful, flexible and data-driven, the exact CRM your business needs.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

HOW I CAN HELP👋