Calgary BR Tech tried something different in June. Instead of a single talk, the June 2025 meetup was a roundtable on working for US companies, with André Buarque and Raphael Araújo as guests. The room was full, with plenty of new faces, and the audience was invited to jump in with questions at any point instead of waiting for the end.
Two very different paths
Raphael had just completed one year in Calgary, having moved straight from a small town in Minas Gerais. He has been building websites since the early 2000s and has worked remotely since 2009. His break into the North American market came in 2021, when a recruiter spotted him at a RubyConf and connected him with a Calgary firm that places developers with an American client.
André introduced himself as someone who is “not a developer” but has been around technology since he designed his first website at 14. After a first career in web design, he moved into sales and leadership, with stints at Groupon and Booking.com, and came to Canada as a transferred executive. Today he runs his own business and works as a fractional CMO for companies in Calgary and in the United States.
Contracts, pay cycles and the market
The practical side came first. André was direct: an American company is not going to hire you as an employee from Canada. The usual route is to open a sole proprietorship or a corporation and serve US clients as a business, no US visa required. Raphael added a detail many in the room had not heard of: with “net 30” terms between the client and the agency, his first paycheque arrived about 60 days after he started.
André also gave his read on why the local market feels tight, linking it to venture capital pulling back after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse and the rise in interest rates.
Culture is the real job
Most of the conversation turned to culture. Raphael described Calgary colleagues who are polite and focus on fixing problems rather than finding someone to blame, but also strict hours, hourly billing and little room to go outside the agreed scope.
André shared what he called the Brazilian strengths, being resourceful, flexible and adaptable, and how he learned to work with American leaders by being “the neck, not the head”: supporting their ego while steering the change. Canadians, he said, take longer to trust you. His advice for networking: “Don’t be interesting. Be interested.”
Questions from the floor
Questions covered his years at Booking.com and how to adapt to international teams, which André summed up as staying Brazilian without being “too much Brazilian”. Another attendee asked about launching a startup here, and a Brazilian-Canadian founder in the audience added his own story about unlearning what worked back home. The evening closed with applause and plenty of conversations that carried on into networking.
Watch the full recording below to catch the whole conversation.
▶ Watch the recording
Watch on YouTube →
