This edition is brought to you by Athyna

Good morning to all new and old readers! Here is your Saturday edition of Faster Than Normal, exploring the stories, ideas, and frameworks of the world’s most prolific people and companies—and how you can apply them to build businesses, wealth, and the most important asset of all: yourself. 

Today we’ve got a guest post from Bill Kerr the founder and CEO of Athyna, and author of Open Source CEO. I am a proud partner of Athyna after seeing first-hand their ability to source a diverse set of roles quickly.

They hire the best sales, marketing, product and engineering talent, all at up to 80% less than hiring locally. Incredible talent, matched with AI-precision, at lightning speed.

Today, Bill shares a sharp guide on landing 2025’s hottest tech talent—without burning runway. With VC dollars tighter and Gen-AI now table stakes, hiring globally is the new superpower. Here’s where smart startups are finding top engineers, how much they’re saving—and how you can too.

Cheers,

Alex

P.S. Send me feedback on how we can improve. We want to be worthy of your time. I respond to every email.

2025’s Hottest Tech Roles (and How Much You’ll Save by Hiring Globally)

VC money is no longer cheap, Gen-AI is table-stakes, and every board deck has a “Do More With Less” slide.

The fastest-growing startups are responding by going borderless: global teams working in largely aligned time zones, stretch burn, and unlock talent pools that Silicon Valley ignored for years. If you’ve read our deep dives on Latin America’s talent boom or why global teams outperform local ones, you already know the strategy works.

Below are the five roles U.S. startups are scrambling to fill for 2025, plus the latest average salaries in the U.S. versus three powerhouse markets where remote hiring is friction-free: Brazil, South Africa, and India.

Savings snapshot: Hiring in Brazil, South Africa or India trims 60-93 % off U.S. payroll for the same roles—capital you can re-allocate to runway, R&D, or go-to-market.

1. AI / Machine-Learning Engineer

The backbone of every Gen-AI feature launch.

• Why it’s hot – LLM fine-tuning, RAG stacks, and multi-modal pipelines moved from “research” to “shipping code” in months.

• Must-have skills – Python, PyTorch/TensorFlow, vector databases, prompt engineering, and a solid grasp of data-centric AI.

• Interview checkpoints – Ask candidates to walk through an end-to-end pipeline they productionised (see our guide on must-ask interview questions).

• Global success tip – Pair programming and schedule sync architecture reviews; follow the playbook in Global teams: How remote work increases productivity.

2. DevOps Engineer

From “deploy on Friday” to “deploy on commit”.

• Why it’s hot – Startups are containerising everything and racing to keep cloud costs in check.

• Core toolchain – Kubernetes, Terraform, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, and FinOps dashboards.

• What great looks like – Engineers who measure MTTR and can quote your last AWS invoice from memory.

• Onboarding globally – Use objective OKRs—see “Best practices for setting goals and measuring success with remote workers”—and shared runbooks in Notion.

3. Cybersecurity Engineer

Your SOC-2 badge in human form.

• Why it’s hot – AI-generated code increases attack surface, regulators tighten the screws, and Series-B term sheets now ask for pen-test dates.

• Key domains – Cloud posture management, zero-trust architecture, AI-threat modelling.

• Interview angle – Red-team scenario: “Your LLM leaks PII—walk us through day-one response.”

• Emerging-market edge – Brazil and South Africa both run world-class banking and fintech hubs; their security talent lives and breathes compliance frameworks.

4. Data Engineer

Making your lake house livable.

• Why it’s hot – Real-time analytics feeds Gen-AI apps, and messy data costs you models and money.

• Modern stack – dbt, DuckDB, Apache Iceberg, Airflow, Snowflake.

• What to vet – Look for candidates who’ve migrated monolithic ETL to event-driven architectures.

• Global playbook – Treat pipelines as code; reviewers in opposite time zones keep data flowing 24/7.

5. AI Product Manager

The translator between users, models, and margin.

• Why it’s hot – As Microsoft’s CTO put it, PMs must now “train the agents, not just write the specs”.

• Superpowers

  • Define success metrics beyond accuracy (think latency, cost-per-token, and user trust).

  • Run rapid A/B on prompt variants.

  • Coordinate legal/ethics reviews.

• Interview cue: “Describe the feedback loop you built between human QA and your model retraining schedule.”

Why Brazil, South Africa & India?

1. Time-zone overlap with the U.S., EMEA, or APCA means real-time collaboration.

2. STEM education surges – Brazil graduates > 100k engineers yearly, India >1 M.

3. Proven tech ecosystems & talent quality – São Paulo, Bangalore, and Cape Town each host unicorn startups, FAANG-class R&D centers, and multiple hyperscale cloud regions. Engineers from these hubs arrive battle-tested, fluent in agile practices, and accustomed to enterprise-grade standards, so you’re not just saving money, you’re upgrading capability.

For a wider lens on emerging-market talent, read “Unlocking Global Talent Goldmines”.

Talents Ready to Interview

To make the numbers real, here’s a sneak peek of five vetted professionals from Athyna’s Global Pool. Each of them aligns with the roles above and is actively looking for new opportunities.

If you’re looking for more candidates or different roles, fill out this form, and we’ll get started right away.

So… why Hiring Globally Makes Strategic Sense?

It’s not just about saving money, though that's a huge plus. It’s about tapping into diverse perspectives, fresh ideas while keeping aligned with time zones.

Countries like South Africa, Brazil, and India aren’t just cost-effective; they're talent hubs, home to top professionals already powering global giants.

At Athyna, we connect you to this exceptional global talent.

Ready to build your dream team for less? Let’s get started.

That’s all for today, folks. As always, please give me your feedback. Which section is your favourite? What do you want to see more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.

Have a wonderful rest of week, all.

Recommendation Zone

⎯

Hire remote employees with confidence

Two years ago, I hired an offshore assistant for the first time. Since then, I’ve recommended many people do the same. It’s been one of the highest leverage things I’ve done, helping with everything marketing and customer support (for The Intelligence Age) and personal matters and email management.

Athyna is a service that quickly (<5 days!) finds remote employees across 150+ countries for you or your team. They cover roles from sales and marketing to creative and product, and have worked with companies like Facebook, Zoom, Uber, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Amazon.

I’ve personally used Athyna and recommended them to my Brother, Will, who runs a fashion label, and several close friends running their own businesses. To date, they’ve all had very positive experiences.

If you’re in the market for talent, visit their website to explore options and cover all your hiring needs.

Why Faster Than Normal? Our mission is to be a friend to the ambitious, a mentor to the becoming, and a partner to the bold. We achieve this by sharing the stories, ideas, and frameworks of the world's most prolific people and companies—and how you can apply them to build businesses, wealth, and the most important asset of all: yourself.

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