AI Engineering Talent in Mexico: Pablo Fajer, Codifin CEO | Scaling Tech Podcast in Mexico

Описание: In this special interview, recorded in Mexico City in January 2026, Arin Sime speaks with Pablo Fajer, CEO of Codifin, to discuss the state of AI engineering talent and nearshoring in Mexico.

Pablo shares his experiences helping US companies establish "capability centers" in Mexico, the unexpected challenges they face, and the immense quality of the senior, bilingual "GCC talent" pool. He also discusses how his company built its own AI-driven recruiting application, Codi, and how AI is rapidly shifting developers into architects and data-led developers.

Watch to learn why Mexico is a prime location for high-impact, lean, and highly efficient innovation centers.

Key topics discussed include:

Establishing Capability Centers in Mexico: This trend is growing due to the high cost of maintaining senior, AI-capable talent in the US, and a shift towards in-house teams to create technology and value, with companies being the sole owners of that technology.
Misunderstandings about Building Teams in Mexico: Companies mistakenly believe it will be simple to hire due to the large overall talent pool in Mexico. However, the pool of bilingual talent with specific technical capabilities is smaller and more competitive. Regulatory processes also are more complex than in the US, and the high competition means companies still need to be careful to retain the talent.
Mexico vs Other LATAM Regions: Mexico has a unique benefit due to its proximity to the US, with the same timezones and easy travel.
Codifin's AI-Driven Recruitment Application "Codi": Pablo discusses how Codi helps them to search their internal databases and public data sources to reduce the time it takes to find quality candidates.
Challenges in building AI-Driven Applications: Pablo discusses the challenges around building Codi, and how they reduced hallucination and improved accuracy to 92%.
The Future of AI Engineering Talent in Mexico: We discuss about the qualities engineers need in the future, and how team structures are changing.

This interview is part of a series recorded in Mexico City and will be featured in an upcoming Scaling Tech Podcast episode about AI Engineering in Mexico.

Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction: Scaling Tech Podcast
1:08 - What is Codifin? Helping US companies build capability centers in Mexico
2:31 - Misunderstandings about building teams in Mexico (Talent, Regulations, and Engagement)
3:03 - The "GCC Talent" Pool: Bilingual, senior engineers
6:33 - Quality of engineering talent in Mexico
7:30 - Comparing Mexico's talent to other LATAM regions (Brazil, Colombia)
9:06 - The value of geographic proximity (flights and engagement)
10:09 - How capability centers are built and transitioned to clients
11:45 - Building an AI-driven recruiting application: Codi
13:11 - Codi's efficiency: 2-3 weeks of search reduced to 2-3 minutes
14:08 - AI's role: Increasing value, not just cutting costs
15:55 - Technical challenges: Overcoming AI hallucinations and achieving 92% accuracy
17:59 - AI is turning developers into architects and data-led developers
20:50 - The shift towards architectural coding and learning English
21:40 - The "Diamond" team structure (fewer juniors/seniors, more L2/L3 talent)
24:12 - Advice on deciding where to put humans in the loop
25:50 - The future: Lean, high-impact innovation hubs
27:07 - Final advice for a CEO considering Mexico
28:30 - Closing and find out more about Codifin

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Scaling Tech Podcast
This episode is brought to you by AgilityFeat, providers of technical staffing and software development services in Latin America for clients globally since 2010.

Host: Arin Sime, Scaling Tech Podcast host and Founder/CEO of AgilityFeat.com
Guest: Pablo Fajer, Codifin CEO

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