A trainee software engineer working at ITJuana's offices on April 3, 2023. The company connects American companies with Mexican IT workers.
Multiple factors are contributing to Tijuana’s current tech boom, including lack of engineers in the U.S., cheaper labor costs in Mexico, and disruptions to the global supply chain.Another factor is the wave of tech sector layoffs in the U.S. earlier this year, according to Fernando Torres, who heads the Ensenada office of Softtek, the biggest IT nearshoring company in Mexico. Nearshoring is like offshoring but not halfway across the world.
“We think of ourselves as part of their team,” Parra said. “It’s not like we just get assigned projects and send them back work. We create teams around their own organization and adapt to what they are already doing.” “Companies woke up,” he said. “Not just the big multinationals but the smaller $50 million to $100 million companies saying, ‘hey we want to add IT staff.’ Everybody was going to Mexico.”
Tijuana has 35 public and private universities with more than 14,000 students in engineering programs. ITJuana is tapping into that talent pool by establishing formal partnerships with some of Tijuana’s universities.