Industry: Engineering
Role: Electrical BIM Drafter (Full-time, Remote)
Location: Brazil
Monthly Salary: $3,900 USD all-in
U.S. Equivalent Salary: $8,000/month
Total Savings: 51% vs. U.S.-based hires ($8,000/month)
Background: Producing Field-Ready Electrical Drawings In-House
Our client is an electrical engineering and design firm that challenges the traditional approach to electrical design and installation. In the conventional process, responsibilities are split among project managers, designers, and electricians, which leads to endless revisions, miscommunication, and costly delays.
The company takes a different path. It delivers constructability drawings: highly precise, fully coordinated plans that closely match the final installation. By handling electrical engineering, constructability design, lighting control systems, BIM modeling, and prefabrication drawings in-house, it removes the disconnect between stakeholders and produces drawings ready for immediate field use.
That model only works if the drafting bench can keep up, which is why the company needed an Electrical BIM Drafter it could rely on.
The Challenge: Finding a Drafter Who Models for Construction, Not Just Design
The client needed more than someone who could draw in Revit. Constructability drawings are held to a higher standard than design documents: if the model is wrong, the error shows up on site, where it is expensive to fix.
The role covers modeling electrical systems in Revit to a construction level of detail; coordinating with architectural, mechanical, plumbing and structural models and resolving clashes before they reach the field; producing panel schedules, conduit and cable tray routing and lighting control layouts; and preparing prefabrication drawings the shop and the field crews can build from directly.
The ideal candidate needed the technical judgment to catch problems in the model rather than flag them for someone else, and the independence to keep drawing packages moving without constant supervision.
Hiring a U.S.-based Electrical BIM Drafter with this experience would cost approximately $8,000/month, or $96,000 per year. The client wanted to find highly qualified talent without compromising on technical accuracy or the ability to operate independently.
The Solution: Top LATAM Talent
South sourced, vetted, and presented qualified candidates for this specialized role. The position was filled in just 17 days, and the contractor was already working with the client within 10 days of being hired.
The Impact: Field-Ready Drawings at a 51% Savings
- The position was successfully filled in just 17 days.
- The contractor was fully onboarded and working with the team within 10 days of being hired.
- The client added drafting capacity that works to a construction level of detail, not just a design one.
- Clashes with architectural, mechanical, plumbing, and structural models are resolved in the model before they turn into change orders on site.
- Panel schedules, conduit routing, lighting control layouts, and prefabrication drawings are produced in-house, keeping the fully coordinated process the company sells to its clients intact.
- Engineers and project managers spend less time on drafting production and more on design review and client work.
- The firm can take on more projects without adding a U.S. drafting salary for each increase in volume.
- Based in Brazil, just one to two hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time, the drafter works alongside the team during U.S. business hours, so markups come back the same day.
- The client secured specialized LATAM talent at 51% less than the estimated cost of a comparable U.S.-based hire.
- That adds up to $49,200 in annual savings: $46,800 per year versus an estimated $96,000 for a U.S.-based hire.
Why Hire With South?
Hiring talent is not the problem. Building great teams is.
Most hiring solutions stop at sourcing. South runs the whole system: we find people who are not on job boards, vet them down to the top 1%, and stay on after day one with a dedicated success manager who makes sure the hire sticks. We measure ourselves on retention, not placements. One monthly invoice covers payroll, benefits, and compliance.
For this client, that meant a specialized BIM drafter sourced, vetted, and working with the team in under three weeks, at 51% less than a comparable U.S.-based hire.
Looking to hire engineering and design talent in LATAM? Let's talk!
