When a $50M Series A startup in Atlanta needed senior full-stack engineers, they had every option available — and chose Latin America over Silicon Valley. Brian Samson shares this Plugg Technologies case study: the decision logic, the talent quality from Brazil and Argentina, and what the results looked like over time.
Key topics: nearshore case study Series A startup, Latin American engineers vs Silicon Valley, $50M startup LATAM hiring, Brazil Argentina full-stack developers, nearshore talent quality cost comparison.
Brian Samson’s case study of a $50M Series A startup in Atlanta illustrates the core reasoning: Silicon Valley engineering talent in 2022 was expensive, competitive to recruit, and increasingly remote anyway — meaning the premium paid for a Bay Area address bought no meaningful collaboration advantage. LATAM senior engineers at 40–60% lower cost, with strong English, time zone alignment, and comparable technical depth, delivered better ROI on the same hiring budget.
Brian Samson, who has made 500+ nearshore placements, consistently describes senior engineers from Brazil and Argentina as competitive with U.S. equivalents on technical depth — particularly for full-stack, backend, and data engineering roles. Both countries have strong computer science university traditions and a generation of engineers who have worked on globally deployed products. The Series A case study he shares resulted in long-term hires that remained with the company well past the initial engagement.
Hi, I’m Brian Samson, founder of Plugg Technologies. And in addition to hosting the Nearshore Cafe podcast, I work with a lot of customers. I want to share a success story of a fast-growing Series A tech company in Atlanta that raised a huge round—much bigger than most Series A. This one was over $50 million, and they had budget to work with. They probably could have hired anywhere. But this particular VP of Engineering that we were working with had worked with talent all over the world and was already open to working with Latin America. So, they had the funds; it wasn’t even a matter of budget. They wanted access to the best talent that they could find.
Now, this happened in 2022 when there was an arms race for talent, and companies couldn’t get engineers. They had massive recruiting teams. Sourcing was arduous. Every engineer had seven other offers. So, rather than get into this arms race with Google, Meta, and Amazon, we helped them understand the dynamics of Latin America where, even though wages were going up there too, not nearly at the rate of the US and these hot tech markets. We introduced this VP of Engineering to engineers from Brazil and Argentina. These were full-stack developers. They had experience with React, JavaScript—really strong, savvy, creative thinkers, problem-solvers.
And time and time again, this VP of Engineering sang their praises: “I almost forgot that they were in Latin America. They moved our product forward. They were able to hit their milestones. All their code was clean, high quality, and I like them as people. They fit right into the team.” They were on Slack, daily stand-ups—all the things you’d expect from high-quality senior developers. So, we’re very proud to call this customer a reference account for Plugg.
Brian Samson
Founder at Plugg Technologies
Brian Samson is the founder of Plugg Technologies and a veteran tech entrepreneur, with 10 years building successful nearshoring companies. Brian has helped to grow Plugg into one of the leading nearshoring agencies, connecting technical talent in Latin America; including Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua and Colombia with top U.S. companies. Plugg consistently hires and places over 100 LATAM resources each year.
Plugg sponsors and Brian Samson hosts the leading podcast about doing business in Latin America with 70+ episodes, The Nearshore Cafe Podcast. In addition, Plugg brings insight and clarity to clients by supporting them with the details, big and small, to set their team up for success. Everything from currency, customs, hardware, and culture, Plugg provides advice and guidance based on first-hand expat experiences living and doing business across multiple Latin American countries. Plugg Technologies is a trusted partner for businesses seeking future-ready tech solutions including cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, and digital operations positions
Brian holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson and prior, was an expat in Argentina and a VP of Talent for several San Francisco startups with multiple successful exits (IPO & acquisitions). In his free time he supports foster kids and is a dedicated family man.
