Discover How Gigacover Scaled Their Tech Team in Vietnam

Yes, and increasingly so. Vietnam's tech talent pool has grown significantly in ML, AI, and data engineering roles over the past five years, with HCMC in particular producing a strong pipeline of data science graduates from universities like HCMC University of Technology.

Senior ML engineers are available at a fraction of Singapore or regional hub costs, and the talent quality at the senior level is genuinely competitive. Gigacover's team — built specifically for ML and data science functions — is a direct example. The key is knowing where to look and how to screen for the specialisation, which is where local recruitment expertise matters.

A recruitment agency finds people and hands them over; after that, you're responsible for employment contracts, payroll, HR compliance, office space, and everything else. A venture support model like Talent JDI's covers the full operational stack: we find the talent, employ them compliantly under Vietnamese law, manage payroll and HR, provide office infrastructure, and handle day-to-day admin.

You direct the team on their work; we handle everything else. For a company like Gigacover that didn't want to set up a Vietnamese entity or hire a local country manager, this meant they could be operational in weeks rather than months, with no ongoing overhead.

The savings are the difference between what it costs to hire and retain the same calibre of tech talent in Singapore versus Vietnam, covering salary, statutory employer contributions (CPF in Singapore vs. SI in Vietnam), office costs, and recruitment fees.

For a team of ML and data science engineers, the gap is significant: mid-to-senior level data scientists in Singapore command S$8,000–S$14,000/month in base salary, while equivalent talent in HCMC runs considerably lower. When you factor in employer contributions and office overhead, the annual saving on a small team of 3–4 engineers typically reaches six figures. Gigacover's S$200,000 figure reflects both recruitment and operational savings.

For companies in a growth phase (like Gigacover) speed is often the deciding factor. Through Talent JDI's venture support model, a team can typically be operational in 6–10 weeks from engagement start: initial market mapping and role briefing in week one, candidate shortlisting within 2–4 weeks, offers and onboarding in weeks 5–7, with the team settled into their HCMC office shortly after.

This is significantly faster than setting up your own entity (which typically takes 3–6 months) and removes the risk of a failed market entry if plans change.

Talent JDI's model is specifically designed for fast-scaling companies; the venture support structure is most valuable when a founding team is moving quickly and can't afford to get distracted by operational complexity. Gigacover was a 20–50 person company when they expanded to Vietnam.

Fulfilled were even smaller — a 2–10 person startup. The model scales from first offshore hire to full team without requiring you to build a local HR function or open a Vietnamese entity. If you're growing fast and need senior tech talent without adding management overhead, that's precisely the use case Talent JDI was built for.