Case study · IT operations automation · LATAM RPO
Forty specialists screened. Two hired. One market the client had never recruited in.
A Texas SaaS company scaling from 300 to 1,500+ people needed senior endpoint engineers who had built patching automation, not just run it. Prometeo opened Latin America from a standing start and delivered two — to a bar most résumés couldn't clear.
screened
presented
hired
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The engagement
An RPO search for roles built on hands-on depth, not résumé keywords.
Mission-critical hires, an unfamiliar market, and a technical bar few candidates could meet from scratch.
The client's product roadmap hinged on expanding its endpoint engineering team to sharpen patching and endpoint management across an infrastructure-heavy platform. These weren't backfills — they were tied directly to the company's ability to serve a fast-growing customer base.
A market with no internal map
The in-house team recruited in the U.S. and Europe. This was the company's first specialized technical hire in Latin America — and it had no regional insight to draw on.
The build-from-scratch bar
The roles demanded engineers who had developed patching automation themselves. Years in the field weren't enough; the gap was hands-on building.
Calibrating blind to the tech team
With no direct line to the client's engineers, the role had to be decoded through the recruiter lead alone — résumé keywords and screening questions defined upfront.
Senior salaries, urgent timeline
High-value roles during a 5× scaling phase meant every week of vacancy carried weight — and shaped how the engagement itself was structured.
We embedded as a continuous extension of the team — and chose the model that fit the math.
Prometeo engaged under a Recruitment Process Outsourcing model, dedicating two experienced recruiters at four hours each per day — eight hours of focused, full-time support. We sourced across Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Ecuador, where the client already had operational logistics in place, including local partners for shipping hardware.
The model followed the salary band
With salaries above $5,000/month, a pay-per-hire fee would have run higher. RPO turned that budget into continuous effort and iterative feedback instead of a one-off placement charge.
Two recruiters, one embedded team
Splitting the day across two specialists kept the search live and responsive — closer to an in-house function than an external vendor.
Because the roles were so specialized and the market so new, our LATAM sourcing strategy did the work the client's U.S.-focused team couldn't: regional reach, tailored outreach, and candidates routed through markets where hardware and onboarding logistics already existed.
Three phases, run in tight feedback loops with the client's technical interviewers.
Decode the role without the engineers in the room
Working through the recruiter lead and internal talent team, we spent the first phase deeply calibrating: technical requirements, ideal résumé keywords, and detailed screening questions — essential, given no direct access to the technical team.
40 screened, 20 presented, most filtered on depth
After rigorous technical and linguistic filtering, we presented 20 finalists from 40 screened. Despite strong résumés, most lacked the hands-on experience to build solutions from scratch — especially in patching automation, the gap that drove early rejections.
Weekly calls, same-day follow-up, live iteration
The client held weekly 45-minute calls with rapid email follow-up. That cadence let us adjust the sourcing strategy on live feedback straight from the technical interview process.
Hiring timeline
Two senior endpoint engineers who met every critical criterion — hired from Brazil and Mexico.
- →Both hires landed at a moment of urgent scaling and contributed directly to improving the client's core platform.
- →Internal feedback flagged both their technical strength and cultural alignment with the team.
- →The RPO structure proved more cost-effective than pay-per-hire at this salary band — and made Prometeo feel like part of the in-house team.
The filter
Why the numbers narrow so hard
For roles this specialized, the depth of the filter is the value. Here's where the field fell away — and why each hire took an average of 88 days.
Filtered at screening. Strong résumés, but they operated patching tools rather than building them.
Declined in technical interviews. Gaps in SaaS or patching development, or English fluency.
From Brazil and Mexico — every critical criterion met.
What carried the search
Four things that turned a hard brief into two hires.
Depth sets the clock
For complex roles, time-to-hire rises by design. An 88-day average reflects the filtering and qualification these roles demanded — not delay.
Regional insight closed the gap
Our LATAM strategy succeeded where a U.S.-focused internal team had stalled, through regional reach and tailored candidate outreach.
Embedded beats transactional
Weekly check-ins and day-to-day involvement kept us close to the process and made us a trusted extension of the client's team.
Fast loops, faster hires
Rapid responses and transparent collaboration drove efficiency and satisfaction on both sides of the search.
When the role is this specialized and the market this new, depth beats speed — and the right partner brings both.
Prometeo Talent · Recruitment Process Outsourcing