An E-commerce Firm Rebuilt Its Offshore Development Team with Talent JDI
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A Singapore-based e-commerce platform spent three months trying to scale its offshore development team in Vietnam through a traditional recruitment model. After a paid retainer, more than 40 CVs, two hires, and one resignation, the technical manager had started losing confidence in the market. Talent JDI stepped in and helped the company onboard four qualified engineers within three weeks — all of whom were still with the business a year later.
Industry:
E-Commerce
Headquarters:
Singapore
Developers Hired:
4
Time to First Hire:
21 Days
RESULTS AT A GLANCE
4
Developers placed — all still in role at 12 months
100%
Interview attendance rate across every candidate presented
3 Wks
From first brief to fully staffed team
ABOUT THE CLIENT
Our client is a Singapore-headquartered e-commerce enablement platform supporting merchants and brands across Southeast Asia. As the platform expanded, demand for experienced backend engineers grew rapidly.
However, hiring in Singapore had become increasingly costly for the level of technical talent they needed, especially across backend systems and infrastructure-heavy work. During their search, Vietnam quickly emerged as the strongest alternative: a deep and growing backend talent pool, more sustainable salary benchmarks, and strong time zone alignment with their Singapore team.
THE CHALLENGE
Three Months, a Paid Retainer, and Still No Team
What started as a straightforward Vietnam hiring expansion gradually turned into a frustrating and expensive process. Despite strong demand for backend engineers and a willingness to invest quickly, the company spent months stuck in a recruitment cycle that produced little real progress.
A Retainer Model That Consumed Time Without Creating Momentum
The client paid an upfront retainer — a standard arrangement with the recruitment platform they had chosen. What followed was a slow drip of CVs across three months, two conditional offers, and eventually one resignation that undid half the progress.
By the time the engagement wound down, the retainer was fully spent, the pipeline had dried up, and the team was still critically understaffed. Losing a full quarter of runway to a process that produced almost nothing was another.
High Candidate Volume, Low Technical Alignment
While many profiles looked strong during early screening, deeper interviews consistently revealed gaps across backend system design, scalability, production experience, and real-world problem-solving. Communication during live discussions also became a recurring concern.
Interview schedules frequently broke down due to candidate drop-offs and no-shows, while technical managers spent countless hours reviewing profiles and repeating interview cycles that rarely resulted in long-term hires.
Internal Confidence in Vietnam Hiring Started Breaking Down
After months of failed interviews and unstable hiring outcomes, the technical manager had started questioning whether building a strong backend engineering team in Vietnam was realistically achievable.
By the time Talent JDI was introduced, the company no longer wanted more promises or generic recruitment pitches. They needed a partner capable of consistently delivering engineers who could pass technical scrutiny, integrate successfully, and remain long-term.
THE SOLUTION
We Started with the Brief, Not the Candidates
Talent JDI didn't start with candidates. Before any sourcing began, the team went back to the brief — tearing up what existed and rebuilding it from scratch alongside the CTO.
01
Step 01 · Discovery
Brief Rebuilt with the CTO, Not Around Them
The original job description had been taken at face value and used to generate volume. Talent JDI's first move was to discard it. Working directly with the CTO, the team built a brief grounded in the actual technical requirements: specific stack experience, the real complexity of the problems engineers would face, and the communication and collaboration standards the existing team expected.
The result was a document specific enough to filter on technical merit before a CV ever reached the client.
02
Step 02 · Shortlisting
Eight Pre-Vetted Candidates, Ready in Three Days
Drawing from a network of more than 30,000 pre-screened developers across Vietnam, Talent JDI assessed candidates against the rebuilt brief before surfacing them. Within three days, eight candidates were presented — each verified for technical capability and communication readiness, and each having confirmed genuine availability and interest in the role.
No padding. No hedging. Every candidate on the shortlist was intended to be there.
03
Step 03 · Placement
Four Offers, Four Acceptances, Three Weeks
The client interviewed all eight candidates. Every single one attended their scheduled session — a 100% show-up rate that stood in direct contrast to everything they had experienced before. The technical manager noticed the difference in quality immediately.
Four offers were extended. All four were accepted. The team went from chronically understaffed to fully operational within three weeks of Talent JDI's first engagement call.
04
Step 04 · EOR & Compliance
EOR Employment Locked In from Day One — No Entity Needed
Operating from Singapore without a Vietnamese legal entity, the client had no way to employ their new hires directly. Talent JDI removed that problem entirely. Employment contracts, SHUI contributions, and monthly payroll were all managed under Vietnam labour law from day one.
The client's four new engineers were compliant, protected, and operational — without the Singapore HQ carrying any employment liability on the ground.
Four Engineers. Three Weeks. All Four Still There at Month 12.
Four and a half months after first speaking with Talent JDI, the company had transformed an informal contractor setup into a fully operational offshore development team in Vietnam — fully compliant, properly structured, and ready to scale further as the team continued to grow.
4
Engineers placed
The Technical Manager Was Converted
The client's technical lead — who had written off Vietnam hiring entirely — found four engineers he was fully confident in, within three weeks. Twelve months later, not a single one has left.
100%
Interview show-up rate
Zero Compliance Exposure, Zero Entity Required
Every engineer was onboarded under Talent JDI's EOR structure from day one, with full SHUI compliance and employment contracts in place. No incidents across the full twelve months.
3 Wks
Brief to fully staffed
A Hiring Model Built to Scale
The client now has a compliant, operational Vietnam engineering team — and a process they trust enough to repeat. As the platform grows toward its next hiring tranche, the infrastructure is already in place.
WHY TALENT JDI
Why Enterprise Clients Choose Talent JDI Over Others
Talent JDI
Glints TalentHub
Deel
AYP Group
Vietnam-only specialist
✓
✗
✗
✗
Recruitment + EOR bundled
✓
✓
✗
✗
Pre-vetted tech talent pool
30,000+ devs
10M+ (generic)
—
—
Ministry licensed & compliant
✓
Partial
✓
✓
Dedicated account manager
✓
✗
✗
✓
Time to first hire
< 2 weeks
3–4 weeks
No recruitment
No recruitment
EOR monthly cost
Market-competitive
$299+/mo + 18%
$599/mo
Flat fee
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Building an Offshore Development Team in Vietnam: What Companies Ask Most
We already paid a retainer and got poor results. Why would switching to a different partner change anything?
The outcome of Vietnam tech hiring depends almost entirely on how candidates are assessed before they reach you — not how many are sent. Most platforms are incentivised to generate CV volume, which is what their metrics reward.
Talent JDI works from a pre-assessed pool of over 30,000 developers and only presents candidates verified for the specific technical requirements of your role. The process also starts differently: we rebuild the job brief directly with your technical lead before any sourcing begins, which means the pipeline is filtered against your real standards — not a generic description that produces surface-level matches.
What actually caused the 100% interview attendance rate — and should we expect that?
The attendance rate reflects two things that most recruitment platforms skip: intent verification and honest expectation-setting. Before any candidate is presented, Talent JDI confirms genuine interest in the specific opportunity, assesses communication readiness, and sets accurate expectations about the role, the company, and what joining would mean.
Candidates who are uncertain, underqualified, or passively available are removed from the shortlist before it ever reaches you. High-volume platforms typically submit candidates before that interest is confirmed — which is why no-shows are so common.
We're a Singapore company with no Vietnam entity. What does the EOR service actually involve on a practical level?
Talent JDI becomes the legal employer for your Vietnam-based engineers under our Employer of Record arrangement. In practice, that means we issue employment contracts compliant with Vietnam's Labour Code, run payroll, and manage all SHUI contributions — Social Insurance, Health Insurance, and Unemployment Insurance — as required by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.
You direct the daily work of your engineers exactly as you would if they were employed by you directly. Everything related to compliance, statutory obligations, and in-country employment administration sits with Talent JDI. No Vietnam entity registration is required, and no employment liability rests with your Singapore company.
If Your First Attempt Didn't Work. This One Will.
Whether you're rebuilding after a failed engagement or starting from scratch, Talent JDI finds the engineers who show up, perform, and stay. Vietnam hiring done properly — without the retainer roulette.
