The global developer shortage has not gone away. What has changed is how companies respond to it. Instead of competing for the same local talent pool, a growing number of tech companies are building high-quality web products with remote teams across Poland, the Philippines, Brazil, and other markets where the talent is deep, the costs are lower, and the quality matches or exceeds what they were finding at home.
The catch used to be logistics. Setting up a legal entity in another country just to hire two developers rarely made financial sense. Engaging them as contractors felt easier but carried real misclassification risk. Today, Employer of Record platforms have closed that gap entirely. Here is how the model works and how to use it to scale your engineering team internationally.
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What an Employer of Record actually does
An EOR is a third-party company that legally employs workers on your behalf in countries where you do not have an entity. You find the developer, interview them, make the offer. The EOR handles the employment contract, payroll, tax withholding, social contributions, and local compliance. The developer gets a proper employment relationship. You get a team member who works on your product, in your codebase, on your schedule.
The whole thing typically takes days, not months. No entity registration. No local director. No foreign bank account. The EOR has already set up the infrastructure in that country. You plug into it.
Where to find developer talent (and what it actually costs)
Not every country is equal when it comes to engineering talent. The markets that keep coming up for a reason are:
Poland has over 410,000 IT specialists and one of the strongest developer ecosystems in Europe. Polish developers are known for deep expertise in Java, Python, and cloud infrastructure. Average remote salaries for mid-level engineers sit around $47,500 to $83,000 per year. Time zone alignment with Western Europe makes collaboration straightforward for EU-based teams.
The Philippines offers exceptional value, particularly for React, Node.js, and PHP roles. Mid-level remote developers earn between $2,500 and $4,500 per month. English proficiency is a genuine advantage here. Filipino developers handle code reviews, documentation, and client-facing calls without the friction you might find in other markets. One thing to budget for: the 13th month pay is legally mandatory, adding 8.3% to annual costs.
Brazil has become a go-to nearshore destination for US companies. The 4 to 6 hour overlap with the US East Coast makes real-time collaboration easy. Brazilian developers are strong in JavaScript, Python, and mobile development. Remote salaries average around $63,000 per year for mid-level engineers. The trade-off is that employer-side costs in Brazil run 30% to 40% on top of gross salary, which is among the highest in the world. A good EOR will handle all of that.
These three are the most common starting points, but they are far from the only options. According to the 2026 Developer Hiring Index, markets like Vietnam, South Africa, Argentina, and Romania also rank strongly for cost, talent depth, and time zone compatibility.
The contractor trap most companies fall into
Before EOR platforms became mainstream, the default approach was to hire international developers as contractors. It is still what a lot of companies do. And it is still risky.
The problem is straightforward. If your developer works full-time for your company, uses your tools, follows your sprint schedule, attends your standups, and reports to your engineering manager, most countries will classify them as an employee. It does not matter what the contract says. The relationship determines the status.
Misclassification penalties vary by country but they are consistently expensive. Back taxes, social contributions you should have been paying, fines, and in some jurisdictions, personal liability for directors. Brazil and Germany are particularly aggressive about enforcement. The Philippines has tightened its approach as well.
An EOR eliminates this risk entirely because the developer is, in fact, a legal employee. They have a compliant contract, receive proper payslips, and are covered by local labour protections. You just do not need your own entity to make it happen.
What the hiring process looks like in practice
Here is what a typical EOR-supported developer hire looks like from start to finish:
- You identify the role and target market. Maybe you need a senior Python developer and have decided to hire in Poland based on talent availability and time zone fit.
- You source candidates the same way you always do. Job boards, LinkedIn, referrals, a recruiter. The EOR does not usually find the candidate for you (some offer recruitment as an add-on, but it is separate from the EOR service).
- You run your normal interview process. Technical assessments, coding challenges, culture fit calls. Nothing changes here.
- Once you select a candidate, the EOR generates a locally compliant employment contract. In Poland, this means aligning with the Polish Labour Code, including provisions for working hours, leave, and social insurance.
- The developer signs with the EOR and is onboarded. The EOR handles payroll registration, tax filings, and benefits enrolment. Your developer starts working on your product.
- Every month, the EOR runs payroll, withholds taxes, pays social contributions, and deposits the developer’s net salary in local currency. You receive a single invoice covering salary plus management fee.
From the developer’s perspective, they have a real job with a real employer. From your perspective, they are part of your team. The EOR is the legal layer in between.
How to choose the right EOR provider
There are now over 200 EOR providers in the market. Some are global platforms covering 150+ countries. Others specialise in a single region. Pricing, contract terms, and service quality vary more than most buyers expect.
A few things worth checking:
- Does the provider operate through their own legal entity in the target country, or do they subcontract to a local partner? Both models work, but you should know which one you are getting.
- What does the pricing include? The headline fee might be $499 per employee per month, but watch for additional costs like FX markups on salary conversion, security deposits, setup fees, and offboarding charges.
- How fast can they onboard? In some countries, a good EOR can have someone employed within 3 to 5 business days. In others, visa requirements or registration processes add time.
With over 200 providers in the market, comparing them manually is not realistic. EOR comparison platforms like Employsome let you filter by country, pricing, and compliance track record so you are not relying on sales calls alone.
Making it work long term
Hiring your first international developer through an EOR is the easy part. Making the arrangement work over 12 to 24 months takes a bit more thought.
Integrate them fully into your engineering workflow. Same Slack channels, same Jira board, same code review process, same sprint ceremonies. The worst thing you can do is treat an international developer as a separate unit. The companies that get remote team collaboration right tend to share one thing in common: they stop thinking of remote developers as remote and start treating them as engineers who happen to be in a different time zone.
Get the time zone overlap right. You do not need eight hours of overlap. Two to three hours is usually enough for standups, pair programming, and real-time discussions. The rest of the day, async communication carries the load. But those overlap hours need to be protected and consistent.
Plan for the 13th month. Some countries mandate additional salary payments (Brazil’s CLT framework, the Philippines’ 13th month pay). A good EOR builds this into the cost, but make sure it is not a surprise in December.
And track your costs properly. The EOR fee, the gross salary, the employer contributions, and the FX conversion cost. Add them up monthly per developer. Compare that to what you would pay for the same role locally. The savings should be meaningful. If they are not, you are either in the wrong market or with the wrong provider.
