Nearly 60,000 US students graduate with computer science degrees annually. (Not so long ago, I was one of them.) Nevertheless, demand for software developers continues to skyrocket, with a shortfall of nearly 200,000 devs expected each year for the next decade, according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates.
What's behind the developer shortage?
Multiple factors are contributing to developer scarcity, including:
- Reliance on a limited pool. The tech industry has drawn candidates from the same homogenous candidate pool for generations. Over half of all tech workers are white Americans, and 86% are male.
- Supply and demand. Even with enrollment in university and dev "boot camps" soaring, demand for developers exceeds the supply. Today, there are an estimated five jobs for every software developer.
- High churn rate. Software developers' work becomes more demanding every year, contributing to burnout, resentment, and churn (not to mention astronomical salary demands).
- Lengthy, difficult hiring process. The pool of US developers is already small. The importance of the role, the high salary expectations, and the fact that developers have access to business data and key resources mean companies must invest a lot of time and energy to find the right match.
Widening the talent pool with female talent from LatAm
Relying on a finite source of talent has put the tech world in a tight spot. The industry excludes huge groups of people, even as companies struggle to fill open positions. What would the developer gap look like if we expanded our talent pools to include global workers and women developers?
LatAm offers both. Long overlooked by US companies, LatAm is emerging as one of the leading exporters of tech talent — including a growing percentage of female devs. LatAm's population of women tech workers is estimated to have doubled since 2017, with countries like Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil leading the way. An estimated 40% of STEM graduates In Latin America and the Caribbean are female, while the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries — including Canada, the UK, and the US — average 38%.
A positive outlook for LatAm female tech workers
As with the rest of the world, LatAm has a ways to go when it comes to supporting women in tech. The region is committed to breaking down barriers for female technology workers, introducing programs dedicated to training women in the field — like Brazil's Meninas Digitais project, Colombia's SheCodes Foundation, and Peru's Labatoria, a coding boot camp with locations across the region.
Latin America's investment in female-centric programs and education is paying off. The region is slowly but surely growing a pool of highly educated, hard-working female software developers who are fluent in English and exceptionally talented. As a cherry on top, South America offers the benefit of time zones and cultural overlap with the US, facilitating communication and collaboration.
Bottom line
The US's developer shortage represents a major problem across industries. No company is unaffected by the crisis, as a modern business's success hinges on effective technology management. LatAm offers a sustainable solution to this talent shortage, driven by a pool of dedicated, diverse, top-tier tech professionals eager to work. Importantly, thanks to LatAm initiatives to address the gender imbalance, this pool is expanding to include dedicated, trailblazing female STEM workers.