In the world of IT recruiting for US-based companies, English often becomes one of the biggest sources of anxiety for LATAM candidates before an interview. Many technically strong professionals exclude themselves from international processes due to a common misconception: believing they need to “speak perfect English” to have real opportunities.The reality is different.
In technical and product interviews for US companies, English does matter—but not in the way many candidates imagine. It is not evaluated like an academic exam, nor is native-level proficiency expected. What interviewers truly look for is something far more concrete and achievable: clarity, effectiveness, and the ability to communicate in a professional context.
In this article, we break down common myths and focus on what really makes a difference in an IT interview conducted in English.
Fluency vs. Clarity: The First Big Misunderstanding
One of the most frequent mistakes is confusing fluency with speed or grammatical perfection. Speaking fast, without pauses, with a neutral accent and complex structures is not the expected standard for a LATAM professional interviewing with a US company.
What is critical is clarity.
Behind every meeting, demo, or technical discussion, there is business impact and company risk. Reducing communication errors becomes essential.
Clarity means:
- Your ideas are understood.
- You can explain what you did, how you did it, and why.
- Your answers are structured and coherent for someone who is meeting you for the first time.
A candidate who speaks more slowly, takes a moment to think, and delivers clear answers often leaves a better impression than someone who speaks quickly but jumps between ideas, contradicts themselves, or loses the thread.
From the interviewer’s perspective, the guiding question is usually:
«Will I be able to work efficiently with this person in calls, dailies, and reviews without unnecessary follow-ups or clarifications?”
If the answer is yes, your English level is good enough.
📚Practical tip: Short, well-structured sentences are better than trying to sound sophisticated. Sometimes, less really is more.
Technical Vocabulary: More Important Than “General” English
Another key point: in IT interviews, English is evaluated within a technical context. No one expects you to discuss literature or politics, and you won’t be penalized for minor grammatical mistakes.
What is expected is comfort with the technical vocabulary of your role—including domain-specific terminology—and awareness of differences between your native language and English.
A backend engineer may have limited conversational English, but if they can clearly explain:
- how they designed a microservice,
- which trade-offs they evaluated,
- how they solved a performance issue,
- or how they work with databases and APIs,
then English is fulfilling its primary purpose: transmitting knowledge.
In practice, technical vocabulary is often an advantage for IT profiles. Many terms are already in English and used daily: deploy, pipeline, backlog, sprint, refactor, ownership, among others.
📚Practical tip: practice explaining in English your current role, your last two projects, a complex technical problem you solved, a difficult decision you had to make.
You don’t need to memorize answers—but you should rehearse them to identify where you get stuck and how to simplify complex ideas.
How to Handle Blockers Without Hurting Your Interview
Getting stuck is normal, even for candidates with strong English skills. The difference between junior and senior candidates in international interviews is not whether they get blocked, but how they manage it.
Some simple and effective strategies:
✅️Ask for a moment to think
✅️Natural and well-received phrases include:
- “Let me think about that for a second.”
- “That’s a good question—let me structure my answer.”
✅️Paraphrase the question
✅️Acknowledge limits without framing them negatively. Saying:
- «I haven’t worked directly with that tool, but I’ve used similar ones and the approach would be…”
- “In my current/previous company, we handled this differently, but I’m very interested in…”
is far better than improvising or staying silent.
✅️Rephrase when a sentence doesn’t come out right. Instead of forcing a literal translation:
- Pause
- Change the sentence structure
- Use simpler words
- Say things like “Let me rephrase that” or “What I mean is…”
This shows communication maturity and problem-solving skills.
Phrasing: Think in English, Don’t Translate
This point makes a huge difference and is often overlooked. Many candidates think first in Spanish (or Portuguese) and then translate mentally into English. The result is usually: long sentences, unnatural structures, expressions that sound “off” even if they’re grammatically correct, confusion for the interviewer.
US companies don’t expect native English, but they do value common professional—and even slightly colloquial—phrasing.
👇Examples of more natural phrasing:
- Instead of: “In my work I realized that…” / Use: “I noticed that…” or “I discovered that…”
- Instead of: “I had to take a decision” / Use: “I had to make a decision”
- Instead of: “How do you say…?” / Use: “I’m not sure how to phrase this, but…”
Avoid translating local expressions. Use simple, direct explanations or common American English phrasing. This signals readiness to work in that market.
The best way to improve this is exposure to real working English: recorded meetings, tech podcasts, technical interviews on YouTube, simulated daily standups, participation in tech forums.
The goal is not to copy accents, but to internalize structures and think in full phrases rather than isolated words.
What Doesn’t Matter as Much as You Think
To close, here’s what is usually not decisive in US IT interviews:
- Having a Latin accent.
- Making minor grammatical mistakes.
- Speaking more slowly.
- Asking for a question to be repeated.
- Not knowing a specific word.
None of these define a hiring decision if your technical seniority is solid, your communication is clear, and you demonstrate a collaborative, professional attitude.
Making the leap to US companies often doesn’t require “learning English from scratch,” but rather reframing communication strategies and training English in real professional contexts.
With the right focus, English stops being an obstacle and becomes what it always was: a tool to showcase the value you already bring as an IT professional.
