Top-10% Mobile Engineers in Mexico: How Franki Scaled Without Outsourcing or Opening an Entity

Engineering Infrastructure Setup
Hard-to-Find Tech Skills
Latin America
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HQ: Los Angeles, USA
Company size: 11-50
Funding raised: Private
Team location: Latin America
Cooperation time: 2 years

Product: Video-first experience platform for local businesses and communities
Clients: Kafek, LaRochelle, TukTuk, Fuegos, Hakumaru, and 5,000+ local businesses

Franki is a US-based experience platform that bridges local businesses and their communities through customer-generated video content. Franki+ clients have generated over $12 million in revenue, earned a 6x return on investment, and tapped into a growing library of 220,000+ authentic video reviews – with $700,000+ distributed back to the customers who created them. To power its product roadmap, Franki built its mobile engineering team in Mexico — nearshore to its Los Angeles HQ.

Issue

The plan for Franki’s global tech expansion was Mexico. Smart call. Nearshore to Los Angeles, top-tier mobile engineering talent, and cost efficiency that made US hiring difficult to justify. And a first move into Latin America, with no local entity, no compliance framework, and no existing knowledge of the market.

The outsourcing market was the obvious path. But it was structurally incapable of delivering what Franki actually needed. Outsourcing gives you developers. It doesn’t give you a real team.

Engineers whose primary relationship is with the vendor, not the product. A model that optimizes for contract renewal, not engineering quality. No real mechanism for building the cultural alignment that would make a Mexican team work directly with US leadership the way in-house colleagues do.

Franki needed to build differently. Top-10% mobile engineers. Full ownership from day one. A recruitment process that screened for cultural fit as seriously as it screened for technical depth.

Solution

Alcor ran the process Franki needed, not the one the outsourcing market was selling.

The recruiting brief was specific: senior mobile engineers with the technical capability to work inside a Silicon Valley product team and the professional culture to work directly with US leadership. Alcor’s recruiters evaluated every candidate. Technical screening came first. Cultural fit came second. Neither was optional.

The onboarding structure supported the integration from day one. Alcor set up a compliant framework in Mexico — payroll, contracts, IP protection, no local entity required — so engineers were employed under Franki’s terms, reporting directly to Franki, from the moment they started. No vendor sitting between the team and the product.

The result was a Mexico team that didn’t need to be managed at arm’s length. Engineers knew the product, aligned to the roadmap, and collaborated with the LA team the way in-house colleagues do, because that’s exactly who they were.

Operational support ran in parallel. Hardware procurement, test equipment delivery, and day-to-day ops all handled by Alcor. Franki’s leadership stayed fully focused on the product delivery.

We were able to bring on amazing engineers in Eastern Europe to supplement our core AI team here in Silicon Valley and kind of scale up. Some of them have become our core senior or staff AI engineers now.

Oleg Rogynskyy Founder & CEO Backstory (ex-People.ai)

Results

Rare stack, zero compromise

Senior iOS engineers with expertise in RxSwift are hard to find anywhere. In Mexico, the pool was no different. Alcor’s dedicated recruiters delivered a pipeline of 20 qualified candidates regardless.

4-5 weeks per senior hire

Each of the first 7 hires – 2 iOS Engineers, 3 Android Engineers, 2 QC Engineers – closed by Alcor in 4-5 weeks on average. Screened right, placed right, everyone passed probation.

Pricing transparency from day 1

Developer salaries and Alcor’s fee were communicated upfront and held throughout. No surprises. Franki called it a WOW moment before the team was even built.

First LATAM entry done right

Contractor agreements, legal compliance, benefits, PTO. Alcor handled everything, so Franki’s first Latin American expansion didn’t come with a learning curve.

Terminated. Replaced. Done.

When Franki needed to let a hire go, Alcor managed the exit cleanly, committed to a free replacement immediately, and tightened performance monitoring going forward. The replacement was never needed.

Ops handled end-to-end

Every piece of test equipment was sourced, delivered, and ready for Franki’s engineers from the start. No procurement overhead, no delays. One less thing for leadership to think about.

Hired experts in:

Swift RxSwift Reactive Programming UIKit Apple App Store REST APIs Fastlane RxKotlin Kotlin Java Google Firebase CI/CD Pipelines BrowserStack Charles Postman Manual Testing Java for Automation Confluence

Build Your AI Engineering Team in 30 Days

No vendor chaos. 0 compliance risk. No more recruiting delays.

Alcor Helped Build the Foundation for Everything That Followed

2017

Alcor builds Backstory’s Eastern Europe AI R&D team

2021

Backstory raises $100M, reaches $1.1B valuation – becomes a unicorn

2023-2024

Named to Deloitte Technology Fast 500 two years running

2025

Recognized as a Visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Revenue Action Orchestration

2025

Launches SalesAI + MCP integration, connecting AI agents – including Claude and ChatGPT – to revenue intelligence data

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Clients Love Us. Teams Do Too.

“The Alcor team has always been supportive and approachable whenever assistance was needed. Rather than feeling like an external resource, engineers working through Alcor are able to integrate closely with the client’s teams. This creates a more collaborative environment and allows engineers to have a greater impact.”

Germán Parodi Senior QA Automation Engineer

“My overall experience has been outstanding. Alcor’s model offered the right balance — strong operational support combined with genuine ownership and long-term collaboration. In this model, I am a core member of the team. Rather than rotating between projects, I can invest meaningfully in improving the product and establishing processes that deliver lasting value.”

Oleksandr Artemenko Senior QA Engineer

“Whenever I’ve had tricky bank requests or needed extra documentation, Alcor has resolved everything rapidly. I also love their support with business trips and expense tracking—it’s incredibly convenient. Their team is always available via messenger and ready to help. Highly recommended for anyone who wants a hassle-free professional life!”

Yevhen Kochetkov Staff Software Engineer

“Alcor has been a reliable partner throughout, especially in complex situations. Issues are resolved quickly — often within minutes or hours. Their ability to adapt and support us in complex situations has made a real difference for our team.”