Jacqueline Samira Built Howdy by Betting on Latin American Engineers

Jacqueline Samira runs one of Austin's quieter success stories. As founder and chief executive of Howdy.com, she has built a company that helps U.S. technology firms hire and manage software engineers from Latin America, pairing companies with vetted developers and handling the operational weight of cross-border employment.

Founded in 2018 with cofounder Frank Licea, Howdy was accepted into Y Combinator's Winter 2021 batch and has since raised roughly $25 million from investors including Y Combinator, Greycroft and Evident Ventures. The model leans on a thesis Samira has championed publicly: that nearshore talent in compatible time zones, paired with genuine cultural integration, beats the transactional outsourcing arrangements that came before it.

Samira has been an outspoken advocate for the welfare of the engineers her company places, framing Howdy's edge as much around how it treats people as around the talent it sources. That posture has made her a recognizable voice among Austin's women-led startups and a regular on founder and product panels.

Why it matters

As AI tooling reshapes software development and companies rethink where engineering work happens, nearshore staffing has become a strategic lever rather than a cost-cutting afterthought. Howdy's growth shows Austin can incubate companies that quietly underpin how the broader industry builds, and Samira's prominence adds to a roster of women founders giving the city's startup scene a more varied face.

Joshua Baer was the first person to believe in me, the first investor to say yes, and the loudest champion for Howdy.com I ever had. He invested in every round.— Jacqueline Samira, Founder and CEO, Howdy