Hi everyone, and welcome back to SCALE UP: Global Talent Strategies Deep Dive.
In Episode 5 – The $100K Pivot, we examined how mobility is reshaping the future of tech careers — and how talent is rewriting the map of North America.
We followed Arjun Kapoor, a former Stripe engineer whose H-1B renewal fell through, forcing him to leave California for Toronto.
“When I got my PR card,” he told us, “it was the first time I stopped holding my breath.”
That quiet exhale captured something bigger: a continental realignment.
In 2024 alone, over 150,000 engineers moved from the U.S. to Canada, making Toronto and Vancouver two of North America’s fastest-growing tech ecosystems.
For many, it wasn’t about chasing higher pay — it was about finding predictability, access, and belonging.
And as Canada provided the anchor, another force was rising just south — one that would take the idea of mobility even further.
Episode 6 – Embedded Teams Win
When our research team began tracing how cross-border work was evolving, one pattern stood out: the border was no longer a boundary — it was a bridge.
That bridge led us to Mexico.
In Guadalajara, we met Diego Ramos, a 29-year-old automation engineer now leading AI logistics projects at SHEIN’s Mexico tech hub — part of a new wave of companies transforming how and where products get built.
“When people think Mexico tech, they still picture factories,” Diego said.
“But now we’re designing AI tools used in logistics and e-commerce worldwide. We’re not the backend anymore — we’re part of the build.”
That single statement reframed the episode.
Across the country, Tesla is expanding automation lines in Monterrey, AWS is scaling its data corridor in Querétaro, and Intel, Microsoft, and Huawei Cloud are hiring engineers who move fluidly between Austin, Mexico City, and Guadalajara.
This isn’t outsourcing. It’s near-sourcing innovation — a continental feedback loop where
the U.S. drives capital and scale,
Canada provides policy stability and research depth, and
Mexico delivers proximity, production agility, and design capability.
Together, they’re forming a new kind of regional system — a North American innovation network that competes not by geography, but by coordination.
Next week marks our Season Finale – Beyond Borders, where we’ll connect everything we’ve uncovered across the season.
We’ll trace how talent and innovation now move in patterns — from Silicon Valley’s declining center of gravity, to Canada’s steady corridors, to the U.S. South’s flexible economies, and Mexico’s tech-led reinvention.
And then, we’ll expand the lens further — to the Caribbean, where nations like Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic are converting tourism infrastructure into remote-work ecosystems.
Expect real case studies, data snapshots, and field insights on how to navigate this emerging network — how global leaders can conquer North America not by relocation, but by connection.
Because in this new era, opportunity doesn’t just move.
It multiplies — wherever people build together.
