Before starting Astro, we worked as leaders at the same company, Jacqueline in sales and Frank in engineering. As we built our teams, we found it was very hard to compete against top tech companies for talent. Therefore, we broadened our search beyond Austin, Texas.
We ended up working with various partners in Latin America because of the strong talent pool, great English, and US friendly time zones. However, finding and retaining engineering teams in Latin America was a challenge. We loved our teammates, but were never thrilled about the outsourcing firms they worked for. Because they weren’t our employees, we couldn’t control what they were being paid, couldn’t give them benefits and perks, and the only visibility we had was the $150/hr bill we got from the outsourcing company. How much of that actually went to the team?
Because traditional outsourcing firms tend to attract non-tech clients and their culture revolves around billable hours, our team members were also unsatisfied with the outsourcing company that they worked for. Freelancing could be an alternative, but is also difficult for teams in Latin America due to its inherent risk and likelihood of being treated as a second-class contractor on a foreign team rather than a first-class stakeholder.
We were stuck with three uncomfortable options: outsource the entire product, manage a large team of independent freelancers, or rely on an outsourcing company to create our engineering culture.
What we really wanted were our own teams, including our own offices, equipment, salaries, benefits, etc. But setting up a foreign entity and knowing how to hire in foreign markets was a distraction and difficult—not to mention payroll, benefits, procurement, legal compliance, etc.
We ultimately went to work at different companies, but continued to experience the same pain points at our new companies. Finally, in 2018, after commiserating many times over beers, we decided to build the company we kept looking for, a company to automatically handle all of these international complexities.
We originally called ourselves Austin Software and we started by building teams by hand for startups in Austin, Texas. Then, we started to realize we had gotten good at solving lots of problems on behalf of teams in the US: sourcing Macbooks, finding competitive local benefits and perks, legal compliance, even organizing happy hours, travel and SWAG. Our idea was to productize what we’d learned and make it available to other companies. We got tired of explaining that we build teams, not bill project hours! So we built Astro (“Austin Software Tool for Recommendations and Opportunities” :))
You can think of Astro as something like a love child between Toptal + Gusto + WeWork + Amazon (the latter because of the logistics we do — more on that below), tailored specifically for software engineering teams in LATAM. Unlike Toptal or Turing, we fulfill local benefits, equipment, even team-building events. Our pricing is also transparent, in contrast to companies that charge by the hour, upfront fees, or handcuff you to long-term contracts. Customers review and pay for 1) the developer’s desired salary, 2) benefits and taxes, and 3) our 15% management fee on a week-to-week basis.
Here’s one example of the kind of thing we take care of. A 16 inch M1 Macbook Pro is not just a perk in Latin America, they actually save countless hours when dealing with heavy dev environments. But they’re difficult to source in Latin America, especially outside of the handful of major cities. And even if they are sourced, they’re extremely expensive, especially if they know you’re an American company, and getting them to teammates across South America runs the risk of theft or damage. We solve this by having local entities, local logistics, local distribution and secure local offices.
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 hope you’ll try us out! Visit https://www.TryAstro.com, and configure your desired team (See video tutorial and screenshots below if you're just curious). Astro will source, pre-vet, schedule interviews, send offer letters, manage employment contracts, and coordinate equipment, office space, and SWAG. Once that’s set up, you can use Astro to manage your team on an ongoing basis: salaries, bonuses, additional benefits, perks, equipment, etc.
Check out some screenshots here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17qYsZLKrhPdE1Ud1LA5A... and a video tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmiVOVfbHFI
We’d love to hear your feedback and we’re excited to answer any questions!
Before the pandemic, all the good software development jobs were attached to big cities, and hardly any company accepted remote work. What would happen in many instances, is that companies from outside latam would pay a lot for relocating them (and their families) to other countries, commonly to US, Canada, Spain, Germany and UK - however a portion of those devs come back because there is a lot of value living in the countryside/smaller cities of latam when you have kids, it ends up with a better quality of life overall.
In the end those professionals (usually already seniors) open local companies to work as a contractor for their previous employer or any other company that accepts remote work and can pay invoices overseas, this way they end up keeping a high salary (especially when you consider the exchange rates) and the perks of working from home.
How would you hire/contact those professionals? Usually I get a lot of local agencies trying to contact me to work for outside, but offering local salaries, which makes absolutely no sense. In other words, how do you differentiate from Accenture/Thoughtworks or any other consultancy to hire the engineers?
These kinds of companies don't typically use Thoughworks to develop their own product, but are willing to accept international logistical help to find and manage their own teammates.
And to answer your question, top tech companies aren't usually price sensitive and are willing to pay for top talent. Because of our transparency in our fees, everyone knows what everyone is making and it's the developer who sets their own rate.
Both have accounts in the US which you can pay directly if you don't want to deal with wire transfers (though those also are easy). Both handle taxes.
Basically that's the price range a senior developer can make on his own remoting on platforms like toptal - there's no buffer there for the agency cut unless they are some partnership or losing money to catch clients.
And best case scenario - they have decent devs available at those prices right now - it's likely they will figure out what I've said and cut out the middle man/work for some US client directly and get a 30% bump for little effort.
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.
While the others seem to care about cost-cutting to catering to their customers, you seem to also care about the developers, and this is a breath of fresh air. I hope many of my friends in Colombia will benefit from your initiative.
The idea of extending Silicon Valley level perks is the one that works in the long term. I wish you and the developers all the success.
Coming from eastern europe, such sweatshops usually pay local salaries and attract junior people. If you have experience and ain't afraid of talking to clients... You cut the middleman and work with foreign clients directly.
I'm sure there are reasons, but your pricing isn't truly transparent until I can find it from the homepage, without signing up for an account. Should I have to sign up with my burner/spam email address just to access that?
Edit: I'm not able to find the pricing even after creating an account. This isn't a great user experience for someone trying to figure out how much the platform might cost (and I'm actually in the market for this kind of thing)
Pricing-wise, I'd say the all-in fees on a per dev basis are comparable to a developer's salary here in the US (Austin, TX), the fees are all inclusive of benefits, tech equipment, offices, perks, etc...
When you decide to make an offer to someone, you'll get a break down of 1) the teammates's personal salary requirement), 2) the benefits and taxes and, 3) our management fee.
Because we don't set the rates, the candidates do (just like in the US), it's hard to say exactly what the price will be, it depends on the individual's requirements.
That said, we can def offer guidance on what the market tends to be!
Well, then as a USA based org, I'd have to say - what's the point? If it's comparable to a USA dev Salary, what savings/arbitrage/win a I achieving here? Wouldn't it be easier for a USA based company to just corp 2 corp/1099 or such someone onshore, then offshore and have a middle man?
We send the rate with each developer. We don't have a flat rate; otherwise, that means we set the rate. The developers set their own rate and we send that over with their profiles after you state what you're looking for and who in our platform is a match.
What's a better way of going about this?
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!
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.
For example, I worked with teams in Brazil in the past and while they were smart, kind, etc they were slow in every sense of the word. They didn't have the US culture of respond quickly, unblock people, get shit done, etc. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact working slower may be a benefit, but the US company needs to understand this as they establish the relationship.
Your pricing makes sense, but I would like to understand some kind of ballpark numbers based on role title. Can you share that?
As far as the "unlbock people, get shit done, etc..." I think that's the case with a lot of outsourced work in general and I don't think it has anything to do with Brazilian culture. Outsourced labor are used to being treated like cogs in a machine so they are less likely to take the initiative or speak up when they see something that doesn't make sense.
The only thing that took me by surprise is that Brazilians DO NOT take well to getting busy outside of working hours. If you text someone during their lunch break, expect to hear a complaint along with your response.
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Were you indexing against Bay salaries or US median/average?
There are great people everywhere, but in my view, it's been much harder to source good people from Latam than it is from Eastern Europe or South Asia.
In my experience the real risk with remote teams isn't really technical, it's possible to find great people everywhere. The real risk is human: communication, courage, culture, yes even timezones. And you mentioned that Latam overlaps more in culture!
That being said there's a lot of amazing developers in India that are open to working US-work hours for max collaboration
Is it possible to use your logistics without your sourcing? Frankly I think I'm better at finding the best combination of skillset and personalities for the project I want to use than you or any other staffing service. However a lot of the developers I find are hesitant to jump through the hoops to start their own company and receive international payments.
Aren’t I making my business extraordinarily vulnerable to an unpredictable early-stage startup? How is that better than hiring/contracting through a mature overseas staffing agency in Mumbai, Kviv, or Buenos Aires? I mean, there are thousands of the latter, many with great history and references, and I don’t see what you’re adding besides risk and branding.
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.