The Barbell Hiring Model: How Apollo.io, Expensify, and Vonage Scaled With LATAM

Last updated: September 1, 2026

The Short Answer

The barbell hiring model puts weight at both ends and keeps the middle light. Strategic, relationship-heavy revenue roles stay in the United States. Execution-heavy roles in customer success, revenue development, and engineering scale in Latin America. The goal is not the lowest salary. The goal is to pay US cost only where US market proximity earns it.

Apollo.io, Expensify, and Vonage each built teams this way with CloudTask. Their published results are below, along with a worked cost example built entirely on public benchmarks.

If you are planning your next 5 hires, you can review pre-vetted LATAM talent now.

What a Barbell Looks Like in Practice

A barbell has 2 heavy ends and a thin bar between them. Applied to hiring, it means this:

• The US end. Strategic account executives, enterprise sellers, and senior leaders who own executive relationships and complex discovery. Domain credibility and local market presence are the product here.
• The LATAM end. Customer success, implementation, revenue development, and engineering. These roles run on process, response time, and technical depth, all of which travel well across a 0 to 3 hour time difference.
• The thin bar. Very few seats sit in the middle. A role is either close to the customer relationship or it is not.

Key point: The question is never which country costs less. The question is where US proximity creates enough value to justify US cost, and where it does not.

3 Companies That Built It

These 3 engagements are documented in CloudTask case studies. The figures below are the ones published there.

Apollo.io: 5 to 250+ LATAM professionals over 10 years

Apollo.io grew from a 5-person LATAM team to more than 250 over a decade-long partnership. The roles were customer success managers and account executives. Over that period the company grew from $10M to $100M in ARR.

The case study frames the problem plainly. When your product grows faster than your team, you either slow down or find a partner who can keep up. Read the Apollo.io case study.

Expensify: 24 to 48 account executives with 5+ year tenure

Expensify scaled from 24 to 48 account executives in a post-IPO sprint. The stated challenge was not sourcing leads. It was building a sales team at speed without sacrificing retention or deal quality.

The result that matters most is tenure. Placed account executives average more than 5 years in the role. As the case study puts it, that is not a staffing result. It is a talent strategy result. Read the Expensify case study.

Vonage: 20 to 200+ SDRs across 3 workstreams

Vonage scaled its SDR operation 10x, from 20 to more than 200 people, across MQL follow-up, inbound, and cold outbound. CloudTask managed hiring, onboarding, training, and ongoing performance. The pipeline that team built supported Vonage through its $6.2B acquisition by Ericsson.

Vonage did not just need more SDRs. It needed a fully managed multi-team operation. Read the Vonage case study.

Why These 3 Fit the Barbell

Look at which roles moved. Apollo.io scaled customer success and account executives. Expensify scaled account executives. Vonage scaled SDRs. None of them moved their executive relationship layer. All of them moved the roles where process, responsiveness, and volume drive the outcome.

That is the barbell. The heavy US end stayed heavy. The LATAM end took the scale.

A Worked Example: The 5 Seat Expansion Pod

Here is the model applied to a common first test, a 5-person pod. Every US figure is Built In's 2026 national average total cash compensation. Every LATAM figure comes from published payroll data or CloudTask's published 2026 salary ranges. Employer taxes, benefits, and fees are excluded on both sides so the comparison is like for like.

The US planning cost per role

• Account Executive. $104,062 base plus $108,787 additional cash. Total $212,849.
• Sales Development Representative. $57,921 base plus $25,189 additional cash. Total $83,110.
• Client Success Manager. $91,920 base plus $21,775 additional cash. Total $113,695.
• Software Engineer. $139,718 base plus $19,482 additional cash. Total $159,200.

The LATAM planning cost per role

• Revenue Development. $2,000 to $3,800 per month in CloudTask's published 2026 ranges. Midpoint $2,900, or $34,800 per year.
• Customer Success. $2,500 to $4,500 per month. Midpoint $3,500, or $42,000 per year.
• Software Engineer. Howdy's payroll data across 12,500+ LATAM professionals puts the overall average at about $57,000 per year, with country averages from $53,000 to $63,000.

The pod, 2 ways

All 5 seats in the US. 1 account executive, 1 SDR, 2 client success managers, 1 software engineer. That is $212,849 plus $83,110 plus $227,390 plus $159,200. Total: $682,549.

The barbell. The account executive stays in the US at $212,849. Revenue development moves to LATAM at $34,800. 2 customer success seats move to LATAM at $84,000. The engineer moves to LATAM at $57,000. Total: $388,649.

Difference: $293,900 per year, or 43%. That is capacity you can reinvest in product, demand generation, or a second strategic seller without weakening the relationship layer.

Key point: The barbell did not touch the account executive. The savings came entirely from moving execution roles, not from discounting the strategic one.

What This Model Deliberately Does Not Do

The barbell is not a race to the lowest number. 3 things it avoids on purpose:

1. It does not move relationship sales. If a role depends on industry credibility and executive access in the US market, it stays there. Moving it saves salary and costs deals.
2. It does not pay bottom-of-market rates in LATAM. The ranges above sit at the midpoint or higher. The point is to hire experienced professionals with strong, near accent free English who can work US hours, not to find the lowest quote. Lower quotes churn, and a hire who leaves at month 6 costs more than the difference.
3. It does not assume every LATAM hire is a contractor. Customer-facing and engineering roles are full-time seats. They should be employed properly, with benefits and compliance, which is what makes tenure like Expensify's 5-year average possible.

For the full cost picture including employer contributions and 2026 currency effects, see our guide to the cost of hiring employees in Latin America.

How CloudTask Runs It

CloudTask is a staffing and recruiting company. Our matching team sources from a talent pool of more than 10,500 vetted professionals across 12 LATAM countries and returns matches in 48 hours. Every candidate has a video profile so you judge communication before the first call.

Managed Staffing is one all-in monthly rate per person. CloudTask acts as vendor of record, handling payroll, benefits, and compliance. It carries a 24 month replacement guarantee, and replacements are not capped. Direct Hire carries a 6 month replacement guarantee covering one replacement against the same job description.

Replacement is the only guarantee CloudTask makes. We do not guarantee revenue, pipeline, or that any individual hire will work out. Apollo.io, Expensify, and Vonage got their results by pairing the model with real management. Read why LATAM hires do not stick for what that management looks like.

Key Takeaways

• The barbell keeps strategic, relationship-heavy revenue roles in the US and scales execution roles in LATAM.
• Apollo.io grew from 5 to 250+ LATAM professionals over 10 years while ARR grew from $10M to $100M.
• Expensify scaled from 24 to 48 account executives with an average tenure above 5 years.
• Vonage scaled from 20 to 200+ SDRs, building pipeline through a $6.2B acquisition.
• A 5-seat pod costs $682,549 all in the US versus $388,649 as a barbell, on public 2026 benchmarks. That is a 43% difference.
• The savings come from moving execution roles, not from discounting the strategic seller.
• Managed Staffing carries a 24 month replacement guarantee with uncapped replacements.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the barbell hiring model?

A team design that concentrates spend at 2 ends. Strategic, relationship-heavy revenue roles stay in the US market. Execution roles in customer success, revenue development, and engineering scale in Latin America. Few roles sit in between.

Which roles should stay in the US?

Roles where local market proximity creates the value. Enterprise account executives, national account managers, and leaders who own executive relationships and complex discovery. Moving these saves salary and costs deals.

Which roles move to LATAM well?

Customer success, implementation and onboarding, revenue development and SDR work, and software or integration engineering. These run on process, response time, and technical depth, all of which work across a 0 to 3 hour time difference.

How much does the barbell save?

On 2026 public benchmarks, a 5-seat pod costs $682,549 with every seat in the US and $388,649 as a barbell. That is $293,900 per year, or 43%. Your figure depends on your role mix and seniority.

Did Apollo.io, Expensify, and Vonage use this exact model?

Each scaled execution-heavy roles in LATAM with CloudTask while keeping their strategic layer where it was. Apollo.io scaled customer success and account executives. Expensify scaled account executives. Vonage scaled SDRs. The published outcomes are in their case studies linked above.

Is this about paying less?

No. The LATAM ranges here sit at or above the midpoint of published data on purpose. The model pays US cost where US proximity earns it and pays a fair LATAM rate everywhere else. Bottom-of-market hires churn, and churn erases the savings.

What does CloudTask guarantee?

Replacement only. Managed Staffing carries a 24 month replacement guarantee with replacements not capped. Direct Hire carries a 6 month replacement guarantee covering one replacement against the same job description. CloudTask does not guarantee outcomes, revenue, or pipeline.

Plan Your Next 5 Hires

Send us the roles you expect to add over the next 12 months. Our matching team will return a role-by-role US, LATAM, and barbell view built on your actual seniority and countries, not on averages.

Start here. Review pre-vetted talent, or see how the process works.

Author

Dave Menjura — CloudTask. Helping US B2B companies build and keep high-performing go-to-market and operations teams in Latin America.