Brazil is on UTC-3 all year, so engineers in Sao Paulo and Florianopolis get 7 to 8 hours of workday overlap with US Eastern and 4 to 5 with US Pacific. The country has more than 5.4M GitHub developers, the largest base in the region, and Plugg's role medians run from $32 an hour for QA to $64 for AI and data engineers.
- Tech hubs
- Sao Paulo, Florianopolis
- Time zone
- Brasilia time is UTC-3 all year. Brazil dropped daylight saving time in 2019. Western states are one to two hours behind.
- GitHub developers
- Brazil has more than 5.4M GitHub developers (Octoverse 2024), growing 27% year over year. The report puts Brazil at 6.89M in 2025, the fourth-largest market worldwide. GitHub counts active accounts, not employed engineers.
- English
- Brazil ranked 75th of 123 countries on the EF English Proficiency Index 2025. That national rank covers the whole population and developers are a self-selected group, so test English directly in every interview. Plugg screens for advanced-level English communication.
- Universities
- The report names USP, Unicamp and ITA among representative Brazilian engineering universities.
- More from Plugg
- Plugg's Brazil country guide
Time-zone overlap with the US
| US time zone | US standard time (about Nov to Mar) | US daylight time (about Mar to Nov) |
|---|---|---|
| US Eastern | 7 hours (2 hours ahead) | 8 hours (1 hour ahead) |
| US Central | 6 hours (3 hours ahead) | 7 hours (2 hours ahead) |
| US Mountain | 5 hours (4 hours ahead) | 6 hours (3 hours ahead) |
| US Pacific | 4 hours (5 hours ahead) | 5 hours (4 hours ahead) |
Overlap assumes a developer workday of 9am to 6pm local time and a US workday of 9am to 5pm local time.
What talent costs in Brazil
These are median client bill rates for engagements Plugg has placed in Brazil, from the 2027 hiring report. Use them as a planning range and request rates for your exact role.
| Role | Median bill rate | Engagements |
|---|---|---|
| AI engineers | $64 an hour | 11 |
| Data engineers | $64 an hour | 11 |
| Senior backend engineers | $52 an hour | 10 |
| DevOps and cloud engineers | $55 an hour | 10 |
| Salesforce developers | $46 an hour | 14 |
| QA engineers | $32 an hour | 12 |
How to read these rates
What the figures are. Median client bill rates in US dollars per hour, by role and country, from Plugg Technologies' own engagement data as published in the 2027 Latin America Tech Hiring Report. The number in parentheses is how many engagements sit behind each median.
Bill rate is not pay. The bill rate is what the client pays. The contractor's pay is lower. For senior and lead engineers the report shows contractor pay of $30 to $38 an hour against a client bill rate of $44 to $52.
Do not stack these with the country-level medians. The report also cites country-level software engineer medians. It says they are reported separately and do not reconcile with this table, so each page here uses one or the other.
These are illustrative medians from a Plugg sample, not a quote. Your rate depends on the role, seniority, stack and country. Request talent rates for a real number.
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Request Talent RatesBrazil is the scale play in Latin America. The 2027 report counts more GitHub developers there than in Mexico, Argentina and Colombia combined, and Brazil also has the highest role medians in the table. This page covers the time zone, talent base, English, hiring considerations and rates.
Why hire engineers in Brazil
- The largest developer base. More than 5.4M GitHub developers in 2024, with 27% growth, the fastest among the four countries profiled.
- Companies that train senior engineers. Nubank, with 131M customers across Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, and the enterprise software company TOTVS were both founded in Brazil. Google acquired Akwan in Belo Horizonte in 2005 and opened its first Latin America R&D center there in 2006.
- A strong startup ecosystem. Sao Paulo's Cubo Itau, founded in 2015, connects more than 500 startups from 18 countries.
Talent hubs
Sao Paulo is the anchor, with USP, Unicamp and ITA feeding it. The report's Oxford Economics scores put Sao Paulo at 62.8 for human capital and 50.0 for quality of life, on a 0 to 100 scale. Florianopolis adds a smaller, product-focused scene.
Hiring considerations
Brazil is UTC-3 all year, which gives a smaller overlap with US Pacific hours than Mexico or Colombia. Western Brazilian states are one to two hours behind Brasilia time. Hiring directly generally means a local entity and compliance with Brazilian labor law, and the report notes that labor, tax and currency complexity remain even with global employment platforms. Ask Plugg how it employs engineers in Brazil, and confirm current rules with local counsel.