Global tech companies are flocking to LatAm: according to the latest reports, hiring stats in the region soared to 286%, outranking the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Due to the software engineer shortage, which will reach 85 million by 2030, LatAm is the place to be more than ever with its growing tech talent pool. But here’s the catch: how to navigate such a diverse region, and which country to consider for your IT company’s expansion?
I’m Alina Grytsenko, IT recruitment Team Lead at Alcor, a top-tier R&D center and IT recruiting agency in Latin America and Eastern Europe.
With 9+ years of experience recruiting for C-level tech positions and building teams from scratch, I’m familiar with the challenges IT companies face when recruiting software developers in new markets. In this article, I’ll fill you in on the Argentinian IT sector landscape, its tech pool, the pros and cons of hiring these coders, and share some data on software developer salaries in Argentina. Let’s get to it!
Should You Hire Software Developers in Argentina?
I’ll begin by drawing up a list of the pros and cons of hiring in Argentina to give you the bigger picture. Here are the key features of this country:
Pro: Competitive IT Market
The IT sector in Argentina is a powerhouse on the rise. In the next five years, its revenue is expected to grow by 126% and hit a record of $8.1B in 2028. The software development industry is also the primary source of foreign direct investment and has attracted 58%. Lastly, the country’s ascent to the 69th position in the Global Innovation Index bodes well for tech businesses.
Pro: Qualified Talent Pool
The Argentinian talent pool amounted to 115,000 software developers in 2022. What’s more, higher education institutions train about 20,000 STEM graduates yearly and bring the number closer to 130,000. By 2030, CESSI predicts, the overall quantity of developers should reach up to 500,000 as more and more universities are preparing ICT specialists, which will make Argentina one of the leading LatAm countries in data science and technology.
Pro: Government Support
The Argentinian government actively fosters its most lucrative sector. The Entrepreneurs’ Law further encourages businesses to register in Argentina, as it cuts time and costs: you need just one day to set up your company online and may get a 75% tax deduction if it’s a tech startup.
Pro: Lower Costs
Western tech companies opt for outsourcing software development to Latin America due to beneficial salary rates, and Argentina is not an exception. According to Alcor’s database, an average software engineer in Argentina clocks in at around $30K annually. In the US, this amount reaches $105K — more than a threefold difference compared to the salary of software engineers in Argentina. Argentina also offers favorable taxation rates for foreign tech businesses. The self-employed IT professionals’ income taxes range from 5% to 35% and are deducted from the overall tax amount in the first five years after opening an IT company if you register as an independent contractor.
Con: Labor Laws
Argentinian labor laws allow a 48-hour or six-day work week, plus possible overtime work. However, those who work longer hours are entitled to 150% of their average remuneration or even 200% if they overwork on holidays. Speaking of those, Argentina provides 12 public holidays and 14 days of paid leave. Additionally, if you hire developers in Argentina, you should be careful when classifying your team members as employees or contractors to avoid fines for misclassification. Also, the Argentinian labor law requires that an employer pay 25% on top of the developer salary in Argentina for their social security benefits. Last but not least, employers should negotiate mass layoffs with the government in advance.
Con: Intricate Taxation
The taxation system in Argentina might be overwhelming, especially for foreign IT companies like yours. Here’s the gist:
- The corporate income tax ranges from 25% to 35%;
- The Value-Added Tax (VAT) for goods and services amounts to 21%;
- The personal income tax paid by the employer varies depending on the contract but does not exceed 35%;
- Social Security contributions (SSC) on the employee’s monthly compensation are between 24% and 26.4%, plus ARS 173 ($0.5) for labor risk insurance.
On the bright side, knowing all its nuances can reward you with appealing tax exemptions. For instance, you can enjoy an exemption from paying SSC (for the first $19.5 of the employee’s monthly compensation), a reduced CIT by 20%-60%, an exemption from VAT, and the specialized promotion regime with deferred payment options. However, to reap all the benefits, you might need legal assistance from a local partner and other essential operational services to create your own software team in Argentina.
Con: Developing Economy
Argentina faces several economic challenges, such as severe inflation and a long-term devaluation of the Argentinian Peso. That leads to economic uncertainty on the one hand, but on the other, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still one of LatAm’s most significant economies in terms of GDP. Moreover, Argentina might well be on its way to outpacing other countries in the region as a startup hub — take the sweeping success of the established MercadoLibre and the rise of a new unicorn, Ualá, expected to be followed by Clicoh and Coderhouse.
Сonclusion: offshore software outsourcing in Argentina is appealing thanks to its top-skilled talent, slashed taxes and salary costs, and flourishing tech sector. While the legal side and economic uncertainty tip the balance against it, big-name American tech businesses like Microsoft, Google, IBM, HP, Intel, Cisco, and Nokia don’t shy away from setting up branches in this nearshoring location.
Argentinian IT Talent Pool Dynamics 2020-2025
The current employable software development pool, as Cessi reports, equals 142,000. This positive dynamic is spurred by the 21.5% increase in available jobs. In the meantime, the number of offshore software developers surpasses 100,000. To boot, a recent tech education initiative called Argentina Programa 4.0 aims to add 70,000 programmers a year.
Education
In Argentina, tech education is all-round. It starts with training programs for the younger generation, such as Argentina Innovadora 2020 and Argentina Conectada. Aspiring coders can also receive scholarships and stipends for their equipment and later pursue a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree. Education quality leaves no room for doubt: three Argentinian universities are in LatAm’s top 50, and seven reached the global ranking.
On top of that, there are numerous tech parks (Parque Austral, Buenos Aires IT Hub, Córdoba Technology Cluster, and others), startup incubators (Startup Buenos Aires, IncuBAte), and further STEM initiatives, supported by OECD and Siemens, to name just a few. One last thing: Argentina has been #1 in English proficiency among LatAm countries for several years now.
Tech Skills
Argentina ranks 30th worldwide for tech skills in the Coursera Global Skills report, while GitHub has defined it as the fastest-growing developer community. Moreover, they are renowned for app development, databases, and data analytics. As for programming languages, JavaScript and Python lead the way, with additional competencies in SQL, R, NLP, TensorFlow, and Cloud APIs, which make Argentina an attractive location for Blockchain and Machine Learning development.
Talent Retention
According to Bloomberg, Argentina is getting more and more dollarized. The staggering inflation in 2022 has prompted companies to offer Argentinian developers salaries in USD to retain their employees and help them manage their cost of living. Currently, up to 200,000 tech experts are working off the books, contributing to the 5% reduction in talent turnover in 2023 compared to 2022. This way, US tech companies already have a competitive edge over Argentinian businesses: a few benefits guarantee higher retention.
Senior Software Engineer Salaries in Argentina vs USA
Here, you’ll find a detailed overview of Argentinian developer salaries compared to the US compensations. For senior software developers, we considered the ones with 5, 7, and 10+ years of experience — to give you a full range of various annual senior software engineer salaries in Argentina.
| Senior Positions | Gross Annual Salary, USD | |
| Argentina | USA | |
| Full-Stack Developer | 40,000-60,000 | 128,000-150,000 |
| Front-End Engineer | 38,000-55,000 | 118,000-127,000 |
| Back-End Engineer | 40,000-60,000 | 125,000-151,000 |
| AI Developer | 33,000-66,000 | 73,000-93,000 |
| Game Developer | 38,000-54,000 | 100,000-140,000 |
| DevOps Engineer | 40,000-60,000 | 145,000-170,000 |
| Cloud Engineer | 35,000-60,000 | 140,000-169,000 |
| Mobile Developer | 37,000-53,000 | 98,000-162,000 |
To sum up, Argentinian software developers’ salaries are 2.5-3 times lower than the corresponding wages paid in the US. The salaries of Argentinian developers also have a narrower range. For instance, Mobile, Game, AI, and Backend software engineers make from $33K to $55K a year in Argentina and $73K-162K in the USA. The highest remuneration is that of Cloud and DevOps engineers — $35K-$60K and $140K-$170K, respectively.
Average and Median Salaries of Software Engineers in Argentina by Tech Stack
Cessi outlines the median programmer salary in Argentina as $44K a year at the beginning of 2023, and the average software developer salary in Argentina amounts to $30K. Let’s see if there are any differences if we factor in the tech stack of the most popular programming languages.
| Tech Stack | Average Annual Salary, USD | Median Annual Salary, USD |
| Ruby on Rails | 20,000 | 22,000 |
| Python | 41,000 | 45,000 |
| Blockchain | 48,000 | 51,000 |
| Golang | 48,000 | 48,000 |
| iOS | 36,000 | 41,000 |
| Android | 36,000 | 39,000 |
| JavaScript | 16,000 | 19,000 |
As you can see, the median annual software engineer salary in Argentina is higher than its average remuneration. Blockchain, Python, and Golang allow programmers to earn higher wages ($41K-$48K), mobile development skills bring $36K a year, and Ruby on Rails and JavaScript trail behind with $16K-$20K on average.
We at Alcor know how to hunt the best tech gems for a reasonable price. For example, we found a top-notch Ruby on Rails Developer for Sift in just a week! This USA-based online fraud detection company was impressed with our stellar performance, as we managed to hire 30 developers overall. With an 80% CV pass rate and 98% of the devs we hire completing the probation period, we can promise you astonishing results. Do you also need assistance with software development staffing? Alcor has your back!
Curious about software developer salaries in other LatAm countries?
Discover them in our article about Latin American software development!
Buenos Aires — a Rising Tech Hub
Buenos Aires has drawn in more than 85% of coders present in the country. It has been on top of the LatAm tech wave since the 2000s when OLX, Despegar, MercadoLibre, and Globant outshined other successful companies in the region. Naturally, it drew international companies to the city and made Argentina world-famous as one of the best countries to set up a startup.
Now, Buenos Aires hosts 293 startups, 8 unicorns, startup incubators, tech conferences, and grants, such as NXTP Labs, San Telmo, and TECNARG. In addition, the capital is the center of tech meetups for UX, JavaScript, Java, DevOps, and Ruby on Rails.
The city also boasts the largest blockchain hub in LatAm, which has prompted the government to implement a digital ID based on blockchain and include cryptocurrencies in the salary of software developers in Argentina. Speaking of that, the average software developer salary in Buenos Aires also varies across tech stacks. For instance, a PHP Engineer can expect an annual salary of around $13,500, while a .NET Developer might earn $18,000. Meanwhile, a C# software engineer could command around $20,500, and a Java Engineer might see an annual income of $21,500.
Looking for a Trusted IT Recruitment and R&D Partner in Argentina?
Alcor is your reliable partner for R&D office setup and IT recruitment in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, and Chile. With 6+ years on the market and 40 recruiters onboard, we’ve helped US tech product companies, such as Sift, Dotmatics, Ledger, Grammarly, and People.ai, to find talented devs within short timeframes: we guarantee 5 coders within 1 month and over 20 within 3 months.
Our all-in-one place solution covers everything you might be looking for, such as tech recruitment, legal compliance, tech equipment procurement, and employer branding to open your own R&D center in 2-3 months. We also offer EOR services to handle your remote developers’ salaries in Argentina. Your trusted partner for LatAm is just a click away!
