Every spring, US tech leaders hold their breath. The H-1B visa lottery decides whether carefully recruited international talent can join — or whether months of effort are wasted. Once a reliable tool, the process has become a gamble with odds stacked against you.
When your roadmap and competitive edge depend on elite engineers, leaving hiring to chance is not a strategy — it’s a liability. The good news: you don’t have to. This article explores why the H-1B gamble no longer works and how nearshore hiring provides a stable, scalable, and strategic alternative.
The H-1B gamble: why the status quo is broken
The odds of winning are slim — hundreds of thousands of applicants for just 85,000 visas. For companies, this creates immediate risks:
- Massive opportunity cost: Recruiting and interviewing can be wasted if a candidate isn’t selected.
- Unpredictable headcount: You can’t forecast growth when hiring depends on a lottery.
- Competitive disadvantage: While you wait, global competitors move faster.
The nearshore imperative: a stable alternative
Instead of relying on chance, shift to a geographically distributed hiring model. Latin America offers a solution that bypasses immigration bottlenecks entirely:
- Stability: Direct hiring with no lottery uncertainty
- Speed: Engineers available in 2–3 weeks, not 6–12 months
- Cost clarity: Transparent, all-inclusive rates vs. unpredictable legal fees
- Access: A broad, growing LatAm talent pool without relocation barriers
- Scalability: Elastic models built to grow as your business does
Conclusion
Relying on the H-1B lottery is a gamble you can’t afford. To build a resilient, high-growth company, you need a talent pipeline you can control. Nearshore hiring provides that certainty — world-class engineers, U.S.-aligned time zones, and predictable costs.
Howdy.com is your platform for executing this strategy. We eliminate the gamble and give you the certainty of great hires, every time.