Est. Read Time: 9 min

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One of the most common concerns we hear from US companies considering nearshore hiring is some version of: “How do I know the engineers are actually good?” It’s a fair question, and it deserves a specific answer rather than vague assurances about “rigorous vetting.”

This post walks through exactly how to evaluate a Latin American software engineer remotely — the technical screens, the communication evaluation, the cultural fit indicators, and the red flags that should give you pause.

Start with a Real Technical Assessment

The most important thing here is that the technical assessment should match the actual work. A generic LeetCode screen tells you almost nothing about how an engineer will perform on your codebase. A take-home project that mirrors your actual tech stack tells you almost everything.

For a backend engineer, give them a real-world task: design and implement a REST API endpoint with authentication, validation, and error handling. Ask them to write tests. Review the code for readability, structure, edge case handling, and documentation.

For a frontend engineer, give them a UI component build in your framework of choice. Evaluate the component architecture, state management approach, accessibility handling, and code organization.

For a full-stack engineer, give them a mini feature end-to-end. Does it work? Is the code clean? Did they make sensible architectural decisions, or did they over-engineer something simple?

Time-box the assessment — three to four hours is appropriate for senior roles. How someone manages their time under a constraint is itself useful signal.

Evaluate English Proficiency Specifically

General English proficiency is not the same as the specific English that matters for engineering collaboration. An engineer can be conversational in English but struggle to communicate technical decisions clearly in a code review comment, explain an architectural trade-off in a meeting, or push back on a product requirement diplomatically.

Test the specific scenarios:

• Ask them to walk you through a technical decision they made on a past project, and why they made it. Listen for clarity, specificity, and comfort with technical vocabulary.
• Give them a code snippet with a subtle bug and ask them to explain what’s wrong and how they’d fix it. The explanation matters as much as finding the bug.
• Role-play a scenario: “Your tech lead has asked you to implement a feature that you think will cause performance problems. How do you handle that conversation?” Communication style and directness are both relevant here.

Ask About Real Past Work — Specifically

Vague answers to questions about past experience are a red flag regardless of where an engineer is from. Good engineers can talk about what they built, what went wrong, what they learned, and what they’d do differently.

Probe for specifics:

• “Tell me about a system you built that handled significant load. What were the performance constraints and how did you address them?”
• “Describe a time when you identified a problem in the codebase that wasn’t yours to fix, but you fixed it anyway. What was the problem?”
• “What’s the most complex technical problem you’ve solved in the last 12 months?”

The quality and specificity of these answers tells you far more than any algorithm test.

Evaluate Timezone Availability and Async Communication

Even with aligned time zones, remote engineers need to communicate well asynchronously. Ask directly:

• What tools do you use for async communication, and how do you prefer to use them?
• How do you handle a situation where you’re blocked and your tech lead is unavailable?
• Walk me through a typical workday — how do you structure your time and communication?

Good async communicators have clear answers to these questions. They use Slack status effectively. They write clear, concise PR descriptions. They don’t disappear when blocked — they document the blocker and find a path forward.

Check Their Portfolio and GitHub

Real code is real evidence. Review their GitHub, portfolio projects, or prior employment work product when available. Look for:

• Commit history quality — do messages communicate what changed and why?
• Code review participation — do they give useful feedback and receive it gracefully?
• Project complexity — is the work representative of their claimed experience level?
• Documentation — do they write READMEs? Do their functions have meaningful names?

An engineer who claims senior-level experience but has a GitHub full of tutorial-following projects is a red flag. An engineer with a GitHub that shows real-world problems solved, contributions to open source, and consistent activity is a positive signal.

Red Flags to Watch For

Several patterns should give you pause regardless of how the rest of the interview goes:

Vague answers about past projects. If they can’t tell you specifically what they built, what the stack was, and what their specific contribution was, they likely weren’t doing the work they’re describing.

Resistance to technical assessment. Some engineers claim technical tests are beneath them or won’t do take-homes. This is occasionally a sign of seniority — but more often it’s a sign of someone who isn’t confident in their abilities.

Poor async written communication. If their email responses are unclear, their Slack messages are ambiguous, or their take-home submission is poorly documented, don’t expect that to improve.

Inconsistency between resume and interview answers. If the resume says they architected a microservices platform but they can’t discuss the trade-offs in that decision, something doesn’t add up.

Unwillingness to discuss failure. Good engineers have made mistakes. Engineers who claim they haven’t are either lucky or not being honest. Ask directly: “Tell me about a technical mistake you made and what you learned.” The answer is very revealing.

How a Good Nearshore Partner Handles This For You

If you’re working with a quality nearshore partner, most of this vetting happens before you ever meet a candidate. At SkilldLabs, every engineer goes through:

• A technical assessment in their specific stack
• A behavioral interview with structured questions
• An English communication evaluation across written and verbal channels
• A reference check from at least one prior engagement
• A cultural fit assessment against what we know about the client’s team

By the time you’re interviewing a SkilldLabs candidate, you’re interviewing someone who has already cleared a high bar. Your interview can focus on fit, not fundamentals.

That said, you should still interview. The best nearshore partnerships are the ones where the client company is actively involved in hiring decisions — not delegating them entirely.