Hiring top-tier software engineers is hard. Hiring them remotely in Latin America is even harder if your interview process is slow.

One of the most overlooked predictors of hiring success is velocity. Not just how fast you fill a role, but how many calendar days it takes for a candidate to move from first contact to offer. In our experience helping dozens of US startups hire developers in LatAm, velocity is the strongest signal of an effective, competitive, and high-quality hiring process.

The Velocity Sweet Spot

The best hiring processes work in two calendar weeks. A good process can stretch to three. Beyond that, things begin to fall apart:

• Candidate engagement drops
• Coordination complexity rises
• Top candidates vanish to faster offers
• Offer acceptance rates decline
• You pay more, wait longer, and hire worse

How We Got Here: The Remote Bottleneck

Before 2019, hiring was faster because it was largely onsite. A candidate might go through a phone screen, then attend a full day of interviews. Everything was batched. The result? A 2-week process was not just possible, it was normal.

Today, most hiring is remote. That flexibility comes at a cost:

• Interviews are now spread over days or weeks
• Each interviewer gets their own meeting slot
• Candidates juggle multiple parallel processes
• Recruiters must coordinate 3x to 5x more calendar events

A process that used to take 10 hours of total effort is now stretched over 30 days or more. This is what we see at many startups. And it’s hurting them.

What Happens When You Slow Down

Let’s be clear: interviewing slowly is expensive and ineffective.

1. You lose top candidates. The best engineers are never on the market for 8 weeks. They’ll accept a competing offer before you even reach the final round.
2. You attract the wrong talent. The slower your process, the more likely your pipeline is filled with candidates who aren’t getting other offers.
3. You need to pay more. A long process signals disorganization and lack of conviction. To convince a candidate to accept your offer after weeks of silence, you’ll likely need to outbid others.
4. You reduce offer acceptance. Candidates lose excitement. Your opportunity, which once felt like a great fit, now feels like one of many.
5. You burn out your team. Recruiters, hiring managers, and engineers all have to juggle ongoing interviews with inconsistent timelines and blockers.

Why the Process Slows Down

It isn’t just about adding more steps. Here are the common velocity killers we see:

• Too many fragmented interviews: Spreading 3 interviews across 3 weeks instead of doing them in one day.
• Poor coordination: Lack of alignment on who’s available, what they’re evaluating, and when.
• Candidate bottlenecks: Asking candidates to wait a week for the next step kills momentum.
• Internal blockers: Someone goes on PTO, and the entire pipeline halts for 10 days.

At Silver.dev, we’ve seen candidates stuck in interview pipelines for two months or more. Not one of those companies successfully closed the hire.

How to Speed Up Your Interview Process

1. Run a Lean Process

This doesn’t mean lower your bar. It means eliminate steps that aren’t adding signal. Every interview should have a clear purpose:

• Does it evaluate a unique skill?
• Is it providing strong signal to hire or reject?
• Could it be merged or skipped with another?

Fewer interviews means faster decisions and less coordination overhead.

2. Front-load the Hardest Step

Put your most selective step early. That might be a take-home challenge or a technical deep dive. Why?

• You filter out weaker candidates sooner
• Your long-tail becomes shorter and easier to manage
• You don’t waste time coordinating final rounds for poor fits

At Silver.dev, we give take-home challenges to candidates before they meet the company. This shaves up to two weeks from the timeline.

3. Batch Interviews Together

Group your interview steps tightly. If you can’t do everything in a single day (as was common pre-remote), do it in one week max. This is especially effective for:

• Technical interviews
• Team fit and culture sessions
• Final hiring manager conversations

By bundling these sessions, you reduce calendar time and decision fatigue.

4. Coordinate Proactively

Don’t wait for each interview to be completed before scheduling the next. Book the next step ahead of time, contingent on passing the current round. Candidates feel momentum. Your team stays aligned.

5. Use Interview Templates

Speed isn’t just about calendar time—it’s about consistency. Having a defined interview rubric, feedback format, and scoring criteria reduces delays and subjective debates.

Why This Matters More in LatAm

Hiring software engineers in Latin America comes with its own timing nuances:

• Candidates may have multiple international options
• There’s a growing awareness of pay transparency and market rates
• Strong developers are often off the market in 14-21 days

If your company takes 4-8 weeks to decide, you’re simply not in the game.

Final Thoughts: Move Fast, Hire Smart

Velocity is not about cutting corners. It’s about removing friction. A fast process doesn’t just close top talent faster—it makes your company look more professional, decisive, and attractive.

If you’re a US startup hiring software engineers remotely in LatAm, don’t let process drag cost you your best candidates.

• Audit your interview flow
• Eliminate unnecessary steps
• Compress time-to-offer
• Front-load your filters

Speed is strategy. The best teams move fast. And reach out if you need help.