As the entire world was forced into their homes in 2020, the number of digital transactions increased to never-before-seen numbers; in Costa Rica alone, mobile money transfer transactions increased 700% (SUTEL, 2020), which represented 55 million transactions.
The recent chain of worldwide events, ultimately fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, has accelerated the digital journey of companies around the globe. How can we adapt and be better prepared for this uncertain and technologically disrupted future?
As a country which exports 2x the OCDE countries ratio in services and delivers over 100 different business functions in more than 12 different languages around the globe, Costa Rica is a knowledge-intensive economy, ideal for the nearshoring of IT companies worldwide.
San José, April 27, 2021. TradeStation, a multinational company in the services sector, announced that it is seeking 100 new hires in Costa Rica. These professionals will join the other 100 employees that the company currently has on its payroll.
- Hires will be working from home.
- Jobs will be offered during the company’s virtual fair this week.
Hiring will take place this week during a virtual fair to be held by the company. It will primarily be looking for candidates with experience as .net developers and automation engineers. Intermediate English will be required for some positions and advanced English for others.
According to Foreign Trade Minister Andrés Valenciano, “in recent years, our country has become an important partner for service companies. Today Costa Rica is an intensive knowledge economy that exports twice as many services as the average number for OECD countries. Companies like Softtek continue to grow thanks that we have proven to be resilient to the ups and downs of the global economy. This vote of confidence in our country is a challenge for us to continue working on strengthening our investment climate so that more companies like this will look to Costa Rica for setting up their operations.”
Andrey Meléndez, Softtek site leader, commented that “we came to Costa Rica 12 years ago and are extremely happy to be developing the human talent we’ve found in this country. Our main goal is the development of our employees so that they can not only work but also achieve their career with us.
“During 2020, Softtek expanded its payroll considerably, and this year, we are focused on continuing this growth. Our customers are information technology and service companies. We will be offering attractive benefit and development plans so that our employees can pursue a professional career within the company.”
“Costa Rica’s human talent has demonstrated the resilience needed for meeting the needs of industry 4.0, even in times of pandemic, enabling the country to provide a home for 16 of the top 100 global technology leaders. Softtek has opened a new window of opportunity to many Costa Ricans for formal jobs and personal development in multinational firms, which at the 2020 close had created 19,806 jobs”, noted CINDE Managing Director, Jorge Sequeira.
Those interested in applying for one of these jobs should email their resumes to Jobscr@softtek.com or enter the platform https://www2.softtek.com/jobs .
The company is located on Paseo de las Flores in Heredia. Interviews will be conducted virtually, and the company will only contact persons who apply during this week for one of the job openings.
About Softtek
Founded in 1982, Softtek is a global company and the largest provider of IT services from Latin America. With a broad portfolio of business-transforming products and solutions, Softtek helps Global 2000 organizations evolve their digital capabilities constantly and seamlessly from ideation and development to execution.
Within the context of International Women's Day, today we highlight five examples of how Costa Rica has encouraged greater female participation in industry 4.0. This is key in generating greater employability and opportunities for this population, which has been the most affected in the workplace, throughout the pandemic.
- With the opening of its first office in San José, AWS strengthens customer relationships and supports the expansion of cloud computing in Costa Rica.
- AWS will invest in the local market by hiring highly trained engineers, network specialists, and account managers, among other roles.
San José, Costa Rica – February 25, 2021 –Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), a company of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), announced the opening of its new San José, Costa Rica office, to support the rapid adoption of cloud computing within Costa Rica.
Local AWS representatives will work to support organizations of all sizes, from startups to some of the oldest and most established companies in the nation, including those in the public sector, as more Costa Rican companies transition to the AWS cloud. As part of this expansion, AWS also plans to hire highly skilled professionals in sales, marketing, and technical engineering roles; these positions will be based in Costa Rica.
The new location will pull together a local group of account executives, solution architects, partner managers, support personnel, and other functions, so that customers can engage directly with AWS – in their local environment, in their native language. This openness is further evidence of AWS’s global growth and the company's continued investment in helping organizations migrate their movements and activities to the cloud. If you would like more information on working with AWS in Costa Rica, please visit https://aws.amazon.com/en/
When AWS first launched in Central America, Costa Rican organizations were among the first to adopt its cloud services. Established customers in Costa Rica are now using AWS to run everything from development and test environments to Big Data analytics – from mobile, web and social applications to enterprise-level applications and mission-critical workloads. Among its local clients, AWS now serves some of the best-known and fastest-growing companies in Costa Rica, including Banco LAFISE, Fujitsu, and Snap Finance.
“For AWS, Costa Rica is a key market in Central America, where companies rely on AWS to innovate and use the cloud to accelerate time-to-market and expand their businesses to reach customers locally and around the world, especially during these pandemic times,” explained Marcos Grilanda, AWS Regional Director. “The decision to open an AWS office in San José speaks to growing customer demand, the broad pool of talent located here, and the investments we are making to support the adoption of the cloud in Costa Rica. We are very excited to work with more Costa Rican companies and to help them drive innovation within their organizations while maintaining the industry's high standards for reliability, privacy, and security."
Andrés Valenciano, Minister of Foreign Trade, continued: “News of Amazon Web Services’ new Costa Rican location offers further proof that Costa Rican human capital is talented, resilient, and trained in professional areas of high demand for industry 4.0. In addition, it demonstrates that our country offers an optimal business climate for foreign companies seeking locations that enable an increase in efficiency, to carry out successful, safe, and innovative productive operations. As a government, we are committed to strengthening our country’s competitive advantages, so that more companies like AWS will choose us as their corporate home base for exporting quality services to the world.”
Jorge Sequeira, Managing Director of CINDE, stated: “We are proud to welcome AWS to Costa Rica. With the help of our local talent, AWS will contribute significantly to Costa Rica’s considerable cloud computing sector, which accounts for 54% of all industry 4.0 services that Costa Rica provides to the United States, Canada, and Mexico, as well as to other Latin American and European countries. As of September 2020, our exports on value-added services had reached $3.7 billion.”
Similarly, some clients and colleagues that have worked together with AWS in Costa Rica on AWS cloud adoption programs, highlighted the importance of the company's in-country offices and asserted that they will be of great benefit to Costa Rican companies.
Rodrigo Zamora, Executive Director of Grupo LAFISE, stated: “Our relationship with AWS has allowed us to innovate in a more agile and efficient way, bringing us closer to our clients and helping us provide better customer experiences. In 2020, more than 50% of our new clients were captured through digital channels, thanks to our digital onboarding process.”
Likewise, Alex Sánchez, Global Head of Cross-GDC Networks of Fujitsu stated: “For several years, Fujitsu has partnered with AWS to offer Costa Rican companies a leading hyperscale platform to host critical systems and drive business innovation. With the arrival of AWS in Costa Rica, we are able to continue in our mission to help more companies migrate to the cloud.”
The COVID-19 pandemic created instability in different ways worldwide and exports was one of them. Even so, Costa Rica's exports of goods grew 1.9% in 2020 reaching a historic record of US $11,683 million: $214 million more than 2019.
- The Women in Engineering Projects in Community Service is led by CINDE with the Arizona State University, the United States Embassy in Costa Rica, and the Ministry of Education.
- Seventy-eight students and eight teachers were part of the pilot plan in zones like Sixaola, Nicoya, Grecia, and Turrialba.
San José, Costa Rica. January 26, 2021. By 2030, the world will have a greater demand for knowledge skills such as creativity, critical thinking, decision-making, and complex data processing; this need will increase 19% in the United States and 14% in Europe, according to a study by the McKinsey Global Institute.
- Global Software Company to Hire Sales Talent to Propel Long-Term Regional Growth
San Jose, Costa Rica, Dec. 16, 2020 – San Francisco Bay Area-based software company Autodesk, Inc.(NASDAQ: ADSK) today announced plans to open a Costa Rica-based office in support of business across the Americas.