My back-end developer writes Serverless IaC with Python Lambdas for $40/HR. Our app developer writes Swift for $25/HR.
We manufacture a proprietary IoT sensor. I pay $30/HR for an embedded developer to write C in TI CCS. I pay a fixed rate for board layout / schematic / BOM edits.
A hard truth is coding skills are commodity if you know how to modularize and write spec. You don't need perfect English to write beautiful Python / Swift / C. I don't need you in the same timezone because you're pushing to a git repo and we review it when we wake up.
For permanent talent, they're more than happy with $40/HR. They like working with people who know what they're doing, they like that I write a PRD and leave them alone until deadline, and they believe in what we're doing.
How do you get your BOM to production? I've always wanted to create my own circuit boards but have no idea where to start or how the process works.
Absolutely incredible the information I'm walking away here. I'm definitely going to look into outsourcing on Upwork now, especially I'm hearing you are actually having consistent success.
I also think that the barrier to entry is so low that anybody that can read English documentation, have intermediate-senior level experience, can get the job done. It's just that in some cultures, there is clearly some effort to make themselves indispensable by increasing technical debt and not caring about security with the end goal of they being the only devs who can keep the lights on at your company.
Curious as to what part of Latin America has the talent, in my experience of hiring Brazilian developers, they've been just awful, much more so than Indian devs but they've also been known to play "games". I don't know who to trust right now.