How a Boutique Software Company Expanded Its Engineering Team Across LATAM
Two Backend Engineers and two Java Developers.
A team operating across the United States, Peru and Chile.
Specialized engineering profiles across Backend and Java development.
Expanded recruiting reach into new markets across the region.
What started as a need to reach specialized talent across LATAM became a partnership built around speed, direct communication and a shared personal approach to hiring. Here's how we helped zutun. expand its engineering team across the region.
Our partner
zutun. is a boutique software development and IT consulting company headquartered in Peru, Chile and United States. Founded in 2020, the company works with organizations on complex technology projects across custom software development, staff augmentation, UX/UI, DevOps and ongoing technology services. Its experience spans industries including banking, insurance, fintech and consumer businesses. For them, finding the right person isn't only about matching a technical requirement. They need people who understand how the company operates and can become part of the way the team works.
We're very boutique. We have a personal touch to us, and that is something we were missing. We really needed somebody who understands exactly how we function, how we operate and what we're looking for.
The challenge
zutun. knew that limiting its search to the markets where the company already had recruiting reach was also limiting its access to talent. They saw Latin America as an attractive talent market and knew the professionals they needed were there. But reaching candidates across multiple countries required time and recruiting infrastructure they didn't have internally. The challenge wasn't identifying where the talent was. It was being able to access it.
We knew we had to reach out to other countries, but that's very difficult. We don't operate in all of the countries in the region and we're not recruiting from all over the world.
For a growing boutique company, managing sourcing across the region, identifying the right people, onboarding them and getting them up to speed would require significant internal bandwidth.
We knew where the talent is, but we had no resources or the bandwidth to really reach out to all the regions in LATAM to find the talent, do the onboarding and get them up to speed.
There was another challenge. Previous recruiting experiences had felt too impersonal. zutun. needed a recruiting partner that could understand the nuances of the company rather than approach hiring as a high-volume process.
We kind of always felt it was very machine-like. We're very boutique. We have a personal touch to us, and that is something we were missing.
And ultimately, the candidates they were receiving weren't meeting their expectations.
The quality of what we received, to be honest, was not what we were looking for.
The solution
Our strategy started by understanding what Zutun needed beyond the technical requirements. As a boutique company, the team needed engineers who could work independently, adapt to different projects and communicate well with both technical teams and clients. Instead of running a broad search based only on skills, we built each search around the specific project, team and working environment the person would be joining. We also expanded the talent pool beyond the markets zutun. was already reaching, searching across Latin America and expanding the search into new markets such as Colombia, where we found strong engineering talent with the technical experience and English level required for international projects.
For each search, we:
The result was a recruiting process that gave Zutun broader access to LATAM talent without losing the personal approach they valued.
Working with kala for us has been very great, and I can only recommend it. The reasons why are the directness, the fastness and really the speed.
Results
The partnership resulted in four successful engineering hires: two Backend Engineers and two Java Developers, all for roles with complex and highly specialized technical requirements. By expanding the search beyond Zutun's existing recruiting reach, we opened access to new talent markets across Latin America, including Colombia, and built a broader pipeline of specialized engineers with the technical skills and English level needed for international projects. More importantly, Zutun was able to expand its engineering team without adding the internal recruiting resources required to source, interview and assess talent across multiple countries. What started as a need for more recruiting bandwidth became a repeatable way to access specialized technical talent across LATAM while keeping the speed and personal approach the team was looking for.
If you look for talent and you're in the U.S., LATAM is definitely a good place to look for
Working with kala for us has been very great, and I can only recommend them
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