Why Brazil

Discover why Brazil was our winner in the global search for the best teams of developers.

In 2014, the first thing Brick Abode did was conduct a global search for the place where we could build the best teams of developers, and Brazil was our winner.(See “Our Story”.)Our experiences over the following decade have left us very happy with that choice, as Brazil has proven to have everything that we were looking for:

1. A deep population of intelligent, well-trained engineers.
2. A strong culture of personal responsibility; when a Brazilian promises he will do something, he means it, in ways that match with international business expectations.
3. Access to a good quality of life for our people.

Bonus:A time zone conducive to working with clients in Europe and North America

Engineering Team

Our team of skilled engineers collaborating to deliver high-quality software solutions.

The access to talent is remarkable: Brazil has a large population and a strong university system, so we can afford PhD-level talent here while still being both a premium employer and an affordable option for our clients.

A majority of the people in South America live in Brazil, 210 million people, and with a population that large, the absolute number of exceptional engineers is large, even though the percentage is small.

This incredible talent pool is often under-utilized in Brazil, letting us bring it to the international market to solve problems on a global scale. This creates opportunities for our people to create value and solve problems on a scale that they often otherwise would not have, letting us be a premium employer in the Brazilian labor market and take unusually good care of our people.

High-IQ Brazilian engineers under careful management make it possible. As mentioned before, Brazil gives us amazing engineers. Because the population of Brazil is so large, the absolute number of good engineers here is also large, even though their proportion of the population is normal. The Brazilian university system, as well as its free software culture, does a good job of producing good engineers, but Brazilian companies do a bad job of delivering them rewarding career opportunities. Most of our engineers are PhDs or PhD candidates, and the remainder are sufficiently skilled that they can defeat computer science PhDs to secure a golden ticket to our chocolate factory.

Strong Culture

Culture was a central factor in selecting Brazil, learn why?

Culture was a central factor in selecting Brazil. I grew up in the United States and have lived in Brazil for almost a decade; Brazil is culturally not a foreign place. I take my children to church each Sunday, where I see grandmothers gently correcting their grandchildren in ways I am very accustomed to. Men here look you in the eye when they shake your hand, and if they promise you something, then they really mean it. (I think this is related to my observations of the grandmothers.)

I have managed teams in almost 20 countries in my career, some of them large teams. In my international business experience, I have sometimes had difficulty understanding other cultures and what business promises mean. In Brazil, I have no such problems; the expectations here are identical to those which I was raised with.

The cultural affinity even runs to language. English and Portuguese share an alphabet, and there is large overlap in the vocabulary. I remember my second day in Brazil stepping onto an elevator, reading “Ocupação Máxima 12”, and thinking to myself “Learning Portuguese won’t be that hard.” It wasn’t, and learning English isn’t hard for Brazilians. It’s practically required for a graduate degree, and many of our engineers have studied in the United States or England. We reject lots of otherwise qualified candidates because of their insufficient English skills, and we don’t think twice about it. Our working language within Brick Abode is English, and everyone in the company speaks it fluently.

Strong Culture

Culture was a central factor in selecting Brazil, learn why?

Perhaps the most critical factor, though, is the ability to have a great life. Brazil is a poorer country than the United States, but most countries are. By international standards, Brazil is a rich country, economically and in quality of life, and it is still affordable compared to the United States.

Take the city I live in, Florianópolis, where our offices were located pre-COVID. It’s an island off the coast of southern Brazil, surrounded by great beaches. Florianópolis hosts international triathlons and surfing tournaments. With 1.1 million people in the metropolitan area, we have all of the modern amenities you could want. If you need world-class hospitals or shopping, São Paulo is only a one-hour flight away. The restaurants are amazing, women walk the streets alone at night in perfect safety, and when the delivery boys deliver pizza, they don’t bother to lock up their motorcycles while going into the buildings. Life expectancy in Santa Catarina, this state of Brazil, is 82.5 years. By comparison, in Georgia, it’s 74.2 years. (I think it’s because we eat a healthier diet here.)

Our engineers have the skills to leave Brazil, but they don’t want to. If they can do satisfying work and earn sufficiently in Brazil, why would they? Brick Abode lets them make great lives for themselves here, and that is what they do. Many of our engineers get married soon after signing on with us, and children follow in short order. Our Christmas parties are filled with babies and young children, and our Santa brings gifts for each and every one of them.

A lesson that I learned working both on Wall Street and at Atlanta startups is this: if the company shares success with the workers, then the workers will move mountains to create success for the company. We create special opportunities for our workers, opportunities they otherwise can’t easily find in Brazil. As a result, they bring the positive attitude, discipline, and effort necessary to create great experiences for our clients.

You surely know from your experiences the difference between an unmotivated team and a motivated team. The difference between having to beg to do basic things, versus a team that is outdoing itself to find solutions to your problems. These are the teams that Brick Abode was built to create, because we can create special opportunities for our engineers and reward them for good work.

It's that access to a good life that motivates people.

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