Recruiting talent from Latin America has never been more attractive to international companies. But in reality, managing talent – contracts, salaries, compliance, benefits, culture – can be incredibly difficult.
Headquartered in Bogota, Remoti is convinced that the solution is not just recruitment, but infrastructure. The company unveiled its “Workforce-as-a-Service” (WaaS) model and new app at a private event in the Colombian capital today. It has positioned itself as the operational backbone of a company that builds geographically distributed teams, rather than a staffing company.
This is a significant repositioning for a company that has been around for nearly a decade, and comes at a moment when its underlying markets have shifted significantly in its favor.
Why now?
The macro case for Latin American talent has become indisputable. According to a project by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Latin America’s IT market will reach $140 billion by 2027, driving demand for developers, cybersecurity experts and data specialists as digital adoption continues to accelerate.
Meanwhile, Deloitte estimates that more than 60% of U.S. companies are considering relocating operations closer to their home country, with Colombia being one of the top destinations.
Colombia in particular became a focus. Colombia’s IT outsourcing market will reach USD 803 million in 2025 and is expected to reach USD 1.15 billion within 10 years.
The cost argument is old, but still powerful. According to Glassdoor salary data, a senior software developer in Colombia earns approximately $57,000 USD per year, while the same role in San Francisco pays $223,000. That’s a gap of 74%, which means the Colombian professional’s salary is still well above $6,688 USD.
But executives note that operational factors are equally pressing. Colombia operates in the US Eastern Time Zone, enabling real-time collaboration that would be nearly impossible to replicate with teams in Asia or Eastern Europe.
WEF’s Future of Jobs report points to deeper structural changes. Demand for big data analysts, AI and machine learning experts is expected to surge in the broader Latin America and Caribbean market, with 84% of employers in the region planning to upskill their workforce within the next five years.
Talent exists. The question is whether you have the infrastructure to access and manage it.
model
Remoti’s WaaS offering covers the entire employment lifecycle: sourcing, contracting, payroll, benefits, compliance, and what the company describes as workforce “experience.” The new app organizes this into three modules: Global Opportunities for Talent Matching, People Operations for Management and Legal Tiers, and Marketplace and Financial Products to Provide Financial Tools Directly to Workers.
The third component is the most unique. While most employers of record and recruiting platforms focus on solving the problems of hiring companies, Remoti is built explicitly for workers. This is a difference that could be important in a market where 61% of Colombian companies surveyed cited outdated and inflexible regulatory frameworks as a barrier to business innovation.
The competitive landscape is real, but platforms like Deel, Rippling, and Oyster have built significant global businesses on similar premises. Remoti’s argument, especially in Latin America, where it has been operating for about a decade, is that its managed services model, which takes ownership of the operation rather than simply providing software tools, is what sets it apart.
These claims will ultimately be tested in the market over time.
policy dimension
Remoti’s launch event included executives from Deloitte, Cast and Crew and HR platform Influur, as well as Dr. Antonio Zabarrain, a member of the National Assembly who advocated for legislation to promote Colombia’s technology sector.
This combination is a sign that what the startup is trying is not a purely private sector story, but part of a national ambition to position Colombia as a global talent hub, supported by government investments in digital infrastructure and skills training.
Whether those ambitions, and companies like Remoti built on top of them, will translate into the sustainable employment the region needs is a more complicated question.
Nonetheless, the demand clearly exists. The more difficult part is building the infrastructure to meet this at scale without the operational errors that plagued previous models.
Featured Image: Courtesy of Remoti
Disclosure: This article mentions clients of Espacio portfolio companies.
