Why Brazil became a software development hotspot

Finding qualified IT professionals has quickly become a goal for many companies around the world. Staff augmentation in Latin America has grown extensively over the years, and one of the countries that has captured the eyes of many is Brazil. Its extensive talent pool, the skills local developers have achieved over time and the attractive infrastructure conditions are just some of the aspects that have turned Brazil into a software development hotspot.

Let’s dive into all the different aspects that make Brazil such a powerhouse when it comes to IT outsourcing, below.

Software Development Advances & Investments

Brazil is not only the world’s eighth-largest economy in the world (expected to become a part of the top five by 2030) and a member of the rapidly expanding BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China) , but it has also become an important player in the IT and electronics world.

Investments

According to the Brazilian Software Companies Association (ABES) most recent report, Brazilian Software Market Escenario and Trends 2020-2021, the local information and communication technology market (ICT) ranked 9th in the world, valued at 49.5 billion dollars, which represents 44% of the total ICT investments in the region.

When it comes to Brazil and IT outsourcing, if we consider the 2021 Kearney Global Services Location Index (GSLI),a major indicator of offshore potential, we can see that Brazil ranks 5th, only behind India, China, Malaysia and Indonesia, and jumping four positions from the 2020 edition. The country is also no. 1 in Latin America.

For the first time, Brazil has been able to perform above and beyond what was expected for the country in terms of innovation, rising to the 4th place in the Global Innovation Index 2021, five positions more than the year before.

Several tech companies have chosen to outsource to Brazil, many of which even have established offices in the country, including Google, Amazon, Spotify, Airbnb, Netflix, Dell, IBM, HP, GoDaddy and McKinsey.

The top software development companies in Brazil, according to Clutch, are Ateliware, Luby Software, Vinta Software, DB1 Global Software, Plathanus, CI&T, NextAge Agile Development, Metal Toad, PremierSoft and BEON Tech Studio.

Tech Hubs

In the past decades, slowly yet steadily, technology in Brazil has blossomed. As of 2021, the country had more than 90 technological parks and over 35 accelerators, all of which have significatively contributed to turning Brazil into a software development hotspot.

‍Campinas, considered the Silicon Valley of Brazil, has several industrial parks including TechTown, InCamp and Anprotec, which currently represents more than 6,000 companies, including some really interesting software development companies in Brazil (!). Tech parks are one of the country’s greatest catalysts when it comes to Brazil’s technological advances and innovation.

Coworking Spaces & Accelerators

Ever since the first coworking space started operating in the country in 2004, these spaces have become more and more popular, so much so that today, according to the Brazilian Coworking Census, more than 1,500 coworking spaces can be found across the entire territory.

‍Brazil has over 120 national institutes of science as well as 400+ incubators and 40+ accelerators, all of which definitely contribute to a strong entrepreneurial environment and the perfect scenario for innovation and technological advances in several different fields, and have definitely helped turn Brazil into a software development hotspot.

‍Many top software development companies in Brazil started in many of these incubators and accelerators.

Skills & Employment

When it comes to development skills, Brazil has some of the best IT professionals in the region. The talent pool is close to half a million software developers.

According to Coursera’s 2021 Global Skills Report, technology in Brazil has so much potential that the ranking considers the country a technology leader in the region, excelling particularly in cloud computing, computer programming, software engineering and databases.

‍Additionally, Brazil consistently ranks as the best Latin American country in TopCoder. Currently, it’s ranked 9th, above countries like Canada, Germany and Poland.

‍When it comes to programming languages, according to GitHub’s Octoverse report, the five most popular include Javascript, SaaS CSS, Blade, HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL) and Elixir. Some of the most popular languages in the market also include Python, Java, C#, PHP, HTML and C++.

‍There are several big tech initiatives in the country that have helped educate these skilled professionals, including:

• Estação Hack (Hack Station): run by Facebook, at Hack Station professionals and students can get free programming and business training.
• Start-Up Brasil: this government initiative partners accelerators with tech startups and software development companies in Brazil to promote tech development.

Local Universities with IT Degrees and Masters

Brazil has some of the top-rated IT universities and institutions in the region, producing about 50k+ new graduates every year. The country spends approximately 6.2% of its GDP on Education, one of the largest percentages in the region, above Argentina and Chile (5,4%), Uruguay (4,7%) and Colombia (4,5%), among others.

‍According to the QS Top Latin American Universities 2022, 10 universities in the top 30 are from Brazil.  Additionally, most of the universities mentioned above are also included in the QS World University Ranking by Subject 2021: Engineering & Technology, the first one being the University of Sao Paulo, in 86th place.

‍Finally, the QS Higher Education System Strength Rankings (2018) place Brazil as the 23rd best in the world, above countries such as Ireland, Austria, Singapore, Norway and Portugal.

‍Software development and IT-related careers are very popular in the country. In fact, according to a recent study by Morning Consult, 40% of Brazilians are interested in tech-related careers.

English Proficiency

In terms of English proficiency, Brazil is located somewhere in the middle of Latin American countries, at a B1 level.

‍However, in the last few years, the federal and state governments have put forward several different initiatives to improve foreign languages, including:

• Languages Without borders
• English for Everyone, an initiative in Sao Paulo aimed at training English teachers in the state.

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Also, in 2020, the federal government established that English lessons will be mandatory for all students, starting in the last year of primary school and all throughout high school, as a way of providing even more tools to students all over the country.

Connectivity

Currently, according to Huawei’s Global Connectivity Index (GCI) 2020, Brazil ranks 44th, above several other Latin American countries including Argentina, Mexico and Colombia.

‍Moreover, according to Ookla’s Speedtest Global Index, the mobile connection speed in Brazil is 33,92 Mbps, the 4th highest in the region. In terms of fixed internet speed, Brazil has 113,09 Mbps in download speed.

‍In order to improve access, the Ministry of Communications has put forth several different initiatives, including:

•  a request for bids for 4G and 5G networks and radiofrequency bands all over the territory
• the Internet Brazil program that provides internet to public school children all over the country
• the Wi-Fi Brazil antenna to take higher speed internet connections to the most isolated rural and indigenous areas of the country
• the Connected North program that looks to expand the communications infrastructure in the Amazon regions of the country through subfluvial fiber optics networks.
• the Connected Northeast program that aims to provide high-speed internet access to more than 16 million people in that region.
• Digital cities program, that provides the necessary communication infrastructure to local governments to ensure connectivity to public entities.

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Also, Brazil has joined the Humboldt project, a Chilean initiative aimed at installing the first submarine fiber optics cable that connects South America with Oceania and Asia.

‍In September 2021, the country also inaugurated a 6,000km submarine fiber optics cable connecting Fortaleza with Sines, Portugal, as well as French Guyan, Madeira Island, Canary Islands and Cape Green, to ensure, among others, high-speed data transmission between the continents.

Brazil: A Software Development Hotspot Worth Considering

Aside from all the different benefits mentioned above, Brazil is also culturally compatible with most U.S. companies, scoring a “very good” on the Gartner’s Index. Its time zone is also highly convenient for Americans, since it shares eight working hours with the U.S.. Overall, if you are looking to outsource, Brazil is a solid choice.

At Nearsure we specialize in outsourcing and providing nearshore services. We can help you tap into the best Latin American talent, hire an automation team and provide a seamless, successful experience for you. Get in touch today.

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