Why Global Companies should Hire African Software Engineers in 2021

According to Microsoft, the digital transformation that happened during the global pandemic lockdown last year was expected to happen in 2 years. As such, they estimated that there will be 149 million new tech jobs in 2025. The fact is, more and more jobs requiring digital skills are being created daily, do you have enough talent in your market to handle this?

Source: Financial Markets

Some stats about Africa:

• Africa is currently the world’s youngest continent with a population of over 1.9 billion and 60% of it being below 35 years of age, so the youth population is large.
• According to this article by Forbes, Africa is a continent of the future and she can leapfrog the rest of the world with innovation.
• There are currently over 618 active tech hubs in Africa which include Facebook Hub, Google Hub, and many more.
• The year 2020 was a record-breaking one for African tech startups, with 397 companies securing US$701.5 million worth of investment.
• According to a report by IFC & Google, tech talent in Africa is at a historical peak and continues to rise annually.

Source: IFC

Why hire African Software Engineers?

In 2019, Google opened its first Artificial Intelligence Lab in Africa. Microsoft also opened its first Africa Development Centers which currently hires local African Software Engineers to build their products. If these giants have seen the potential and are currently hiring African engineers, why shouldn’t you?

1. Language is not a barrier: I bet you will agree that programming language is the only global language. An African Javascript programmer writes the same js code as a programmer in any part of the world as the structure has been defined globally by Javascript’s best standards and practices. African programmers can compete with their peers from anywhere in the world. Literally stating languages, most Africans have their first language being either English or French due to the colonization. So communication is never an issue if you have them in your team.
2. Time Zone differences? Most African countries have similar times as Europe and adaptable times with the US and other continents allowing them to work seamlessly remotely during the day or at night. Timezone has never been an issue for engineers working remotely with clients because they are naturally proactive, resilient, and very flexible.
3. How about Soft Skills? As long as you are hiring from a trusted recruitment firm, you should have nothing to worry about. Renowned recruitment firms like CodeLn trains programmers on the necessary soft skills needed for the workplace and tools/skills required for remote work, e.g Scrum, Slack, Jira, etc.
4. Value for money: you are also guaranteed value for your money. Due to the currency exchange rate, you can get highly qualified senior software engineers at a really good rate from whatever country you are hiring from in Africa. Unlike other markets where the standard of living is quite high, the African talent market can be considered quite affordable even for startups.

CodeLn currently has a pool of over 13,000 qualified African Software Engineers available for hire. Contact us at codeLn@codeLn.com if you are interested in creating global impact from local tech talent.