Finding the right engineering talent is a major hurdle for startups. Leaders often scour for employees overseas as they struggle to find the right skillset domestically, but one innovator is solving this challenge with a novel approach to recruitment that keeps the search in North America.
Zain Lakhani is the founder of Toronto-based Light Consulting, Inc., a new but swiftly growing software consulting firm that offers a wide range of services from product development to market research and engineering management. The firm covers various industries and approaches, including fintech, climate tech, and e-commerce.
Where Light Consulting stands out, and what's helping it quickly gain attention throughout North America, is its expansive network of contacts that can quickly find the right local engineering talent to "plug and play" into any type of startup.
As Zain explains, "Our high quality, Canadian plug-and-play engineering pods can fill any gaps in your resourcing needs quickly and permanently. If you like your team, you can decide to hire them outright and bring them in-house."
"Finding engineering talent has always been a struggle," says Lakhani. "On top of that, the desire to grow your team quickly at a startup leads companies to search for talent offshore. They end up finding the staff they need quickly and for a cheap price, but sometimes they fall short."
Light Consulting is offering a solution to hire in North America for prices that are comparable to talent in offshore countries. "If you look at the boom for hiring talent in LATAM, one could argue that prices are almost one-to-one in Toronto when they are in those countries. The result is a lower standard of work and, consequently, the need for expensive consultants," Lakhani added.
Light Consulting aims to end that recurring issue by matching startup leaders to highly skilled employees domestically.
"We're offering a solution for scaling companies to hire in North America for prices that are comparable to talent in offshore countries," says Lakhani."This enables startups to find better skillset matches the first time around."
It's not just India that is currently leading the market in overseas engineering talent staff, but also Latin America. Lakhani explains that when total costs, including consultancy work, are taken into account, his firm can find qualified workers in Canada at the same price it would have cost for an offshore staffer. In less than two years, Light Consulting's client roster has grown to over 20+ clients, spanning multiple different industries.
"After scaling several startups, I realize how important it is to pick the right people and build the right teams at the growth stage," he says. "This is where I found I can add value. I've been building up these world-class teams, bringing engineers together to focus on a common goal, and I realized I can replicate that and do it for other companies as well at scale," Zain added.
Zain first recognized his zeal for engineering through an after-school robotics program, where he consistently led his team through competitions at national and international levels. He also has a passion for teaching robotics to students abroad. Through partnerships with Stem Seed and Aga Khan Development Network, he led summer robotics programs in Tajikistan and Pakistan for middle school and high school students.
Lakhani's early years as an engineer gave him a front-row seat to the daily issues teams face at fast-growing companies. His prior roles include heading up engineering at climate tech leaders - EcoCart and Cloverly. Most recently, he managed the fintech engineering team at Snapcommerce.
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