How one software development company found an ideal home base for operations.
Landing in Latin America
We at First Factory are fortunate to have found a home for the hub of our development operations in Costa Rica. Twenty-plus years ago, nearshoring wasn’t a term yet. Still, some pioneers began venturing from the US into Latin America, looking for talent and a supportive business environment to scale and diversify their operations. If the offshore model could work—with time zone disparity, language hurdles, cultural barriers, and higher instability of governments and infrastructure—a nearshore model would have great potential for success. Moving operations to Latin America brought software development creators within the US time zones, with contributors who had higher education levels and greater English proficiency. Several countries had strong trade and political alliances with the US, which could be a boon to companies looking to expand their development footprint.
As a solo entrepreneur, First Factory founder and CEO Jason T. Roff wanted to move his service operation from Ukraine and Russia to a place where he could work regular business hours, speak directly with his development team, have confidence in the consistency of the office operations, and trust in the security of monies being wired internationally. Jason was also seeking a place to plant roots, a location that would be easy to travel to, safe for bringing his family and clients, and a country that shared many of the same values he held: environmental stewardship, human rights, a passion for education, personal accountability, and respect. All these years later, Costa Rica has given all that and more, and Jason and his family now have dual citizenship, officially calling Costa Rica their second home.
Costa Ricans live the country motto of “Pura Vida,” or “pure life,” with a passion and appreciation for family, friends, their culture, and the environment. Their strong sense of family values extends to all relationships, including friends and colleagues. Bonds are formed that are lasting, and there is an overwhelming sense of commitment, compassion, and integrity. Costa Rica upholds the rights of women, children, and refugees. It is also a country that, despite its strong religious beliefs, is willing to self-reflect and evolve, as evidenced by the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2020.
Costa Rica is a country rich in educational resources. After disbanding their military in 1948, the country’s leaders redirected funds toward education and infrastructure. Education is free and mandatory in Costa Rica. Private Higher Education institutions are very popular, with almost fifty percent of university students choosing private schools for their international programs and accelerated courses. More than 120,000 students enrolled in Costa Rica’s public universities in 2022, with nearly 70,000 female students, a growth of almost twenty percent in five years. The progress is not just in new enrollments but also graduates; in 2020, women represented more than fifty percent of the higher education graduates, a more than ten percent increase in just two years. Engineering and other technical training areas continue to be seen as having the greatest job demand in Costa Rica. This indicates that the talent pool for software development contributors will continue to grow and diversify.
Beyond the Office
Costa Rica has much more to offer than just a friendly business climate and strong trade relations with the United States. Costa Rica has made significant strides in environmental conservation, renewable energy, and sustainable tourism. After losing half of its mature forest between 1940 and 1980, mainly to agriculture (according to the REDD+ initiative), the country shifted focus to promoting tourism while protecting its natural resources. With stricter environmental regulations and strong conservation policies, deforestation was halted, and many damaged areas were allowed to regenerate. Costa Rica now sees almost 60% of its territory covered in forests. And while all of this suggests that visiting Costa Rica means good times inside and outside the office, whether that be beaches, volcanoes, or rainforests, it underscores the country’s overall values, which extend beyond educational protection and sustainable development. Costa Rica now receives 98% of its energy from renewable sources. In addition to universal healthcare, social security, free and democratic elections, and a growing middle class, it is no wonder Costa Rica was named among the top 20 happiest countries in the world. This all translates into Costa Rica being a great place for business, an amazing place to visit, and a country that generates a vast pool of well-educated, passionate, and happy people who pull it all together.
The greatest competitive advantage we can have as a business is our people, and we are fortunate to have a long-standing, positive relationship with the community that we belong to. It must be a symbiotic relationship where we contribute to the community just as we rely on it for our success. In the early days of our operations in Costa Rica, we were small and unknown. Unable to compete with major employers for senior talent in those days, the team focused on identifying young talent who had not been given the opportunity to prove themselves yet. Many employers limited the breadth and depth of work a junior developer could do, and companies lacked training and support to help those engineers develop their craft. This niche became a key component to First Factory’s growth and built a reputation in the community as an employer that values the individual, cares about professional development, and operates with transparency and integrity. As we grew, we built upon those trainings efforts. We expanded into other technical disciplines, creating discrete, high-yield learning modules and formal months-long mini-boot camps that became the First Factory Academy. Unlike other boot camps, ours are free—and we actually pay the attendees a stipend and, in many cases, choose to bring them on full-time after graduation. These months-long Academies allowed us to help recent graduates bridge the gap between school and work while providing hands-on experience in building and deploying modern web applications.
Contributing to the Community
Over the years, we have seen our community interactions increase and now have over 30,000 social media followers. With such a large network in a country of just over five million people, we are continuously informed about technology trends and community engagement opportunities. When needed, we can quickly identify candidates who are ready and eager for change and who see a move to First Factory as a positive step forward in their careers. We rely on the help of our network to connect us even further and as such, we offer the largest standard referral bonus in the country, with $2,000 paid for each successful hire. In giving back to the community we are so reliant on, we offer Tech Talks, seminars, and workshops, covering topics such as AI Trends, CloudOps, resume writing, global conference recaps, and more.
While education establishments in Costa Rica are seeing an increase in female student populations, companies are lagging behind. We support organizations that help young women consider and be prepared for careers in software development, including Rocket Girls and MenTe. We also set salaries based on tiers by role, and our managers work diligently to calibrate raises and promotions based on the skill and experience of the employee. As such, there is no salary gap between our male and female employees. We will continue to support and help shepherd those who seek a career in software development regardless of gender, education, or any other factor.
In addition to social networks and community organizations, we have ongoing relations with university career development departments and boot camps, where we assist by offering paid internships for selected program candidates. These interns work hands-on and side-by-side with our full-time engineers and managers as they learn and contribute to a host of internal, web, and mobile SaaS products that First Factory builds and maintains.
Through these networking channels and with a focus on community stewardship, we maintain an invaluable connection that is the lifeblood of our business and the motivation behind our success.
A Rising Tide
Becoming a larger company is not about ego but, rather, creating new opportunities for our employees and the greater software development community. Growth and diversification have allowed engineers to develop into technical leads and engineering managers. It has opened up new career paths for designers, business analysts, and project managers. This growth has provided opportunities for engineers to work with mobile applications, streaming media, VR and 3D interactive software, DevOps, machine learning, and, most recently, Artificial Intelligence.
When we have a new development opportunity—from acquiring new clients, meeting the growing needs of our existing customers, or the desire to build out our personnel infrastructure further—we send out the message loudly and across various channels.
We are proud to be active participants in the development community and see our role as community members, advocates, and mentors. We love what we do and enjoy coming to work every day because of the people we get to work with. We learn from each other, challenge each other, and build outstanding software together. As a result, we make extra effort to have meaningful interactions: we treat each other respectfully, are highly transparent, and offer clear and tangible feedback. We will never be perfect; we make mistakes and learn from them. We are never satisfied; we can always find ways to improve. And we are never alone; there is a large and caring community that we all belong to.
We will continue to honor these relationships in a place we have fallen in love with. We are truly fortunate to have been so welcomed by the community all of these years.
Take the step and find out how Costa Rica and First Factory can work for you.
– Pura Vida