1. Pick your target before mass-applying
Applying to everything that shows up is the most common mistake, and it eats a lot of time. Before touching your resume, pick 2–3 types of role, no more, and research what they ask for and what their process looks like: software engineering asks for coding and system design; data science asks for SQL, statistics, product sense and communication; ML asks for a portfolio and command of the frameworks; quant asks for probability and fast coding in C++/Python.
Translate your experience into keywords
Recruiters and ATSs search for skills, not the name of your title or your degree. Many Latin American degrees have no direct US equivalent ("Ingeniero Civil Industrial", "Licenciado en Sistemas"), so translate them to the closest thing (Industrial Engineering, Computer Science) and let the skills do the rest.
Example: instead of "Analista de Control de Gestión", something like Data Analyst with SQL, Python, forecasting, dashboards (Tableau / Looker) and A/B testing. Those are the terms that show up in job postings.
The general recipe: read 10–15 real postings for your target role and underline the terms that repeat. That's your keyword dictionary.
2. A US-style resume
The CV format used in Latin America doesn't work as is. The most important differences:
- No photo, age, marital status, nationality, national ID number or full address. In the US that doesn't go on a resume, and it can work against you.
- 1 page if you have <10 years of experience; 2 at most.
- Quantify achievements ("cut processing time 40%", "pipeline handling 2M events a day") instead of listing responsibilities.
- If your companies aren't known abroad, add a line of context: "largest fintech in Colombia, 5M users".
- Everything in English, a simple ATS-friendly format, no odd columns or graphics.
A complete profile in English, with a headline that carries your target role's keywords ("Data Engineer | Python, Spark, AWS") and not just your current title. It's worth turning on "open to work" for the roles and locations you care about.
Portfolio / GitHub
Important if you come from companies few people know abroad: clean repos, a couple of projects with a clear README in English, maybe a technical blog. It's the most direct way to show your level without the recruiter having to know your market.
3. Where to look
- Companies' own career pages
- Wellfound (startups) and Hacker News' monthly "Who is hiring?" thread
- Remote job boards (We Work Remotely, Remote OK) if starting remote works for you
- Quant / finance: eFinancialCareers, QuantNet
4. Connections
Networking pays off far more than mass-applying, and it's exactly where not having studied or worked in the US hurts most. To make up for it: find former coworkers or classmates who are already there (the Latin American diaspora in tech is big and usually happy to help), filter your university's alumni by company on LinkedIn, and join communities like Techqueria, Latinas in Tech or LatinX in AI.
To make it work: ask for 20-minute conversations framed as "I want to learn about your role", not as asking for a job. If you reach out cold, keep it short and specific. A referral moves your resume to the front of the line, so if you're going to ask for something, ask for that, aimed at a specific opening. That said, a referral doesn't replace fit or experience: it gets you into the room, it doesn't win the conversation.
5. Applying: strategy
Tailor each application with the posting's keywords. Prioritize openings where you have a contact or referral and where your keywords really match. Before applying cold, check whether you know someone at that company (§4), and track everything so you don't duplicate effort or lose follow-ups.
6. Interviews
English
Your accent isn't the problem; clarity is. Practice out loud explaining your work, solving problems while thinking in English, and answering follow-up questions without translating in your head. If you get lost, asking them to repeat or rephrase is normal and well regarded.
Behavioral
Practice STAR stories (Situation, Task, Action, Result) and have 5–6 ready (leadership, conflict, failure, initiative, collaboration). One cultural difference that matters: in the US you're expected to talk about what you did, in the first person and with concrete results. Always saying "we" or downplaying your part reads as lack of impact, not modesty.
Technical (depending on the role)
For coding, LeetCode and the like, betting on patterns more than memorizing problems; for senior roles, system design. For quant, probability brain teasers and mental math. Take-homes are more and more common; there, care about clean code as much as how you communicate results.
Mock interviews
Do technical and behavioral mocks in English, ideally with someone who already works in the US, and record yourself to polish how you communicate.
7. Offer and negotiation
Don't anchor your expectations to salaries back home: US ranges are different, and asking for too little is a mistake that's hard to fix later. Do your research with levels.fyi, Glassdoor and the ranges postings publish. Understand total comp, not just base salary: bonuses, equity or RSUs, sign-on. And there's almost always room to negotiate, especially with a competing offer in hand.
8. Application tracker
Notion or Excel, with at least these columns:
| Company | Role | Date | Status | Contact | Next step |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
9. Reaching out to recruiters
A company's in-house recruiters are the best contacts you can get because they know the real openings. In your first message, make clear where you are, your time zone and when you can start: it saves both of you time. Being close to US time zones is a real advantage over candidates from other regions, so use it.
10. Pace and mental health
The search is a numbers game and it wears you down. Rejection is the statistical norm, not a signal about your worth. Start early and give it a cadence: fixed blocks for applying, networking and prep, instead of letting "job hunting" be a fuzzy cloud that eats the whole day. And lean on communities of Latinos in tech, where a lot of people are going through, or already went through, the same thing.