Why Legal Teams Block Offshore Vendors
Your procurement team has seen contracts fail during M&A diligence because IP assignment clauses don't work under Indian or Eastern European employment law.
They've watched companies get penalties when offshore contractors get reclassified as employees by state tax authorities.
They know what happens when production breaks at midnight and the team that built it is offline until tomorrow morning.
US-only hiring solves compliance. It also often costs 2-3x more and limits who you can hire.
That's why we founded HireDeveloper.dev in 2023 - to solve exactly this.
Our Framework
What “US Ready” Actually Means
Legal Structure Your Lawyers Will Approve
Delaware-Governed Contracts
Master Service Agreement under Delaware law. Not international arbitration. Not vendor's home country jurisdiction. Delaware. Work-for-hire IP assignment signed before code gets written. Ownership transfers at creation, not at payment. Your legal team reviews the MSA before we start. Most approve it in one pass because it's structured like standard US vendor contracts. This same contract structure powers our Dedicated Developers Teams. and Legacy System Modernization. engagements.
Background IP Documented
Every engineer signs pre-engagement disclosure forms listing prior work, open source contributions, personal projects. Everything documented. This prevents the “I built something similar six months ago so I actually own this code” problem that comes up during M&A diligence.
Data Processing Compliance
We sign GDPR and CCPA-compliant data processing addendums. If you have customers in Europe or California, we document how data gets handled, where it lives, who accesses it. Your compliance team can verify this before we touch any customer data.
Audit Trail
Every commit, pull request, deployment logged with engineer attribution. If you need to prove who wrote what and when (for patents, M&A, disputes), the evidence exists.
Employment Structure That Reduces Your Risk
W2 Employees, Not Contractors
W2 Employees, Not Contractors
E&O Insurance Coverage
E&O Insurance Coverage
How Work Actually Gets Done
Real Availability
Engineers commit to your core business hours. If you need someone 10am-4pm Eastern, they're available 10am-4pm Eastern. Not “we'll try to join standup.”
Production Accountability
Developers who ship code own monitoring, incidents, fixes. No handoff to separate support teams who've never seen the codebase. Engineers participate in on-call rotations. They own production, not just tickets.
Design Before Implementation
Engineers write design docs before building features. You see the technical approach before code gets written. No surprises three weeks into development. We do this because production systems require thinking before execution, not because we love process. See how this works in practice in our Case Studies.
Code Review Standards
Minimum two reviewers per pull request. Documented checklist covering security, performance, test coverage, documentation. No rubber stamps. No “looks good” on 500-line PRs.
How This Compares to Other Options
Here's how our model compares to typical offshore vendors, talent marketplaces, and US-only hiring for engineering teams.
| Typical Offshore | Talent Marketplace | US-Only Hiring | HireDeveloper.dev | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IP structure | Foreign law | Platform ToS | Platform ToS | Delaware work-for-hire |
| Employment | Overseas contractors | Gig workers | W2 employees | W2 (ours) |
| Tax risk | May create nexus | 1099 issues | Compliant | No nexus |
| Availability | Partial overlap | Developer-dependent | Full coverage | Contractual core hours |
| Accountability | Account manager | Platform support | Internal | Founder-involved |
| Annual churn* | 40-60% | 50-65% | 15-25% | 11% |
| Typical cost/hour | $25-45 | $60-100 | $120-180 | $65-95 |
*Internal data, 2024
Why Teams Choose Us Over Platforms
Toptal and Turing focus on matching.
They connect you to remote developers. Once matched, delivery is largely your responsibility. Quality control, production ownership, and retention are on you.
We focus on delivery.
We're accountable for code quality, production incidents, and long-term system health. Matching is just the start. Our remote engineering teams stay with you because they're our W2 employees with career paths, not marketplace contractors looking for the next gig.
The marketplace model optimizes for choice. Our model optimizes for continuity and ownership.
Neither is wrong. They solve different problems. If you need a developer for a three-month project, a marketplace works fine. If you need an engineering team for US companies that ships to production and owns what they build, that's what we do.
Industries We Serve
SaaS & Product Companies
Most of our clients build SaaS platforms. We understand product development cycles, technical debt management, and the difference between shipping features and maintaining systems. Our remote developers integrate with your existing engineering workflow.
Fintech (Non-Regulated)
We work with payment processors, financial tools, and B2B fintech products that don't require SOX or GLBA compliance. If your product handles money but isn't a registered financial institution, we can help.
Healthcare Technology (HIPAA-Adjacent)
Remote engineering teams for health tech platforms not directly processing PHI. If your product supports healthcare workflows without touching patient data directly, our compliance structure works.
Who This Works For
- Your company: Seed through Series B startups or established SaaS companies. You've proven product-market fit and need to scale engineering without multiplying recruiting costs or spending six months hiring.
- Your team: CTO or VP Engineering makes technical decisions. You have CI/CD, code review, production monitoring. You need capacity, not process consulting.
- What you're building: Backend systems, APIs, data infrastructure, product features requiring ownership through production. Work where quality matters more than speed.
- Regulatory requirements we can't meet: ITAR or defense contracts (export restrictions). FedRAMP (not certified). Regulated financial services requiring SOX compliance (not registered as financial services vendors).
- Engagement types we don't take: Fixed-price projects (wrong incentives). Staff augmentation without outcomes (not a body shop). Contracts under 6 months (onboarding cost exceeds value).
- Buyer profiles we decline: Shopping for lowest offshore rates (we're typically 30-40% more expensive than commodity vendors). No version control or code review (can't operate in that environment). Requiring developers to sign direct NDAs or non-competes with you (our legal structure doesn't allow it).
Client Results
Based on our internal data since we started operations:
Engagement metrics
- Average client relationship: 16 months
- 12-month retention: 89%
- Time to first production deployment: typically 13 days
Recent delivery (Q4 2024)
- 52 production releases across 14 active clients
- Zero security incidents
- 94% on-time delivery for milestone-based commitments
We provide customer references for qualified prospects. Most clients prefer vendor relationships stay private, so we don't publish logos without permission.
How to Start
Technical Assessment (2 Weeks, $7,500)
We don't do “free trials” because IP ownership during unpaid work creates legal ambiguity. Instead: paid technical assessment of real work.
Structure:
- Fixed $7,500 fee
- You pick a deliverable from your backlog (API integration, data pipeline, feature module, tech debt cleanup)
- We assign one senior engineer plus technical oversight
- Full IP assignment on completion
- Assessment fee credited toward your first three invoices if you continue
What you're evaluating:
Code quality. Communication during your business hours. Fit with your processes. Whether this solves your problem.
What we're evaluating:
Technical complexity. Your development standards. Scope definition clarity. Whether this is a good long-term fit.
Then Legal Review
After technical assessment, your legal team reviews our Master Service Agreement, data processing addendum, insurance certificates, security documentation. Most legal teams approve in one review cycle because the structure follows standard US vendor patterns.
Ongoing Engagement
If both sides want to continue:
- 30-day notice contracts (either side can exit)
- Monthly invoicing based on actual hours worked
- Current typical rates: junior $65-75/hr, mid-level $75-85/hr, senior $85-95/hr
- Scale up (2-3 week lead time for sourcing) or down (30 days notice)
Questions Legal and Procurement Usually Ask
HireDeveloper.dev operates through entities in the UK, India, and USA. Your contract will be with our US or UK entity depending on which provides better tax treatment for your situation. Contract is Delaware-governed regardless of entity.
Code repositories and development tools run on AWS us-east-1 or your provided infrastructure. We sign data processing addendums documenting data handling, access controls, breach notification procedures.
Work-for-hire means you own everything produced up to termination date. Unpaid invoices are collections issues, not IP ownership disputes.
Contract includes 24-month non-solicitation. After that period ends, we'll facilitate direct hire conversations if all parties want it.
We replace within 5 business days at our cost. If the replacement also doesn't work, we terminate the engagement and refund the most recent month.
Covered under our E&O insurance. We fix at our cost. Post-deployment bugs found within 90 days get fixed without additional charges.
Most of our work involves extending and maintaining existing systems. Engineers review your architecture, understand technical debt, contribute to long-term system health.
Type II audit in progress, expected completion Q2 2025. We currently operate SOC 2-compatible workflows and can provide our readiness assessment.
Traditional offshore models create IP and compliance gaps that US companies discover during audits, fundraising, or M&A. We structure engagements for US companies with Delaware contracts, proper W2 employment structures, and production accountability. The result is offshore economics with US-standard legal protection.
Get Started
Start with Technical Assessment
Two weeks. Real deliverable. Real evaluation.
Schedule Assessment Planning Call
Review Compliance Documentation First
Legal team wants to review contracts before technical work starts? We'll send our Master Service Agreement, insurance certificates, security documentation.
Request Legal Package
Talk to Our CEO
Gourav handles every client relationship directly. No sales team. No account managers.
Schedule Call with Gourav