Half of U.S. Engineering Job Posts Ask for Ownership, Hire With Near Finds

Engineering asks for ownership more than any other department, and the companies asking want engineers who see the work through without a manager in between.

SAN ANTONIO, TX, UNITED STATES, October 14, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Hire With Near, a staffing and recruiting agency that helps U.S. companies hire remote talent in Latin America, today released data showing that half of the engineering job descriptions U.S. companies send it ask for ownership. Of the IT and engineering job descriptions the firm analyzed from September 2025 to September 2026, 51% asked for it. In a separate analysis of job descriptions in other departments, including marketing, sales, finance and customer support, the figure was 32%. No other department asked for ownership as often.

Read in full, the job descriptions spell out what companies mean by ownership. They want an engineer who will:

– take full ownership of a system, a codebase or an area of the product, such as payments or the front end
– see work through from concept to production, or, as one put it, “from setup to completion”
– make technical decisions and answer for the outcome
– work without close management, often reporting straight to a founder, the CEO or the CTO

One in five of the job descriptions that ask for ownership mention working directly with the company’s founders or CEO. One asked for someone who will “follow through without being micromanaged.” Another said, “This isn’t a role for a task-taker.”

The pattern fits the main finding of Hire With Near’s research. Roughly 45% of the U.S. companies looking to hire software engineers in Latin America through the firm were leaving an offshore team or a development outsourcing firm. Many are bringing engineering in-house for the first time.

“A lot of the companies I’ve hired developers for are making their first IT hire,” said Julieta Gorodetzky, a tech recruiter at Hire With Near. “Maybe they’ve used an outsourcing agency before, or someone built their website or an internal tool, but they’ve never had an engineer on their team.”

“When a company moves away from an agency, the project manager who sat between it and the code goes too,” said Hayden Cohen, CEO of Hire With Near. “Many of these companies don’t have an engineering manager yet. They need someone who can take a problem, decide how to solve it and see it all the way into production. That’s what they mean by ownership, and it’s one of the first things we look for in a candidate.”

The engineering figures come from the Hire With Near report “Why US Companies Are Switching Engineering Models to Hire in Latin America,” available at https://www.hirewithnear.com/insights/why-us-companies-hiring-engineering-roles-in-latin-america. U.S. companies looking to hire software engineers in Latin America can find more at https://www.hirewithnear.com/hire/software-engineering.

About Hire With Near

Hire With Near is a staffing and recruiting agency that helps U.S. companies hire remote talent in Latin America across all industries and departments. More than 950 companies, including Jersey Mike’s, Expensify and Deel, work with Hire With Near to build their teams. The firm fills 97% of the roles it takes on, holds a 4.8 rating on G2 across 160-plus reviews, and 80% of its hires stay two years or more. Most clients hire in under three weeks. Hire With Near ranked No. 118 on the 2026 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America. For more information, visit https://www.hirewithnear.com

Marketing Team
Hire With Near
editorial@hirewithnear.com
Visit us on social media:
LinkedIn
YouTube
X

Media gallery