Software engineer working at a laptop in an office

Hiring in three countries for a company with no legal entity in any of them

Adthena wanted engineers outside the UK and had no way to employ them. We found the people and became their employer, and five years later we were still invoicing for it every month.

562Candidates sourced
3Countries, no entity in any of them
5 yearsBilled every month since 2020

TL;DR

  • Who. Adthena, a London company whose search intelligence platform shows advertisers the whole competitive landscape of paid search: who is bidding on what, at what cost, against which creative.
  • What they needed. Senior engineering and data talent that was not in the UK, or not affordable there. A full-stack developer, a data scientist and a machine learning engineer, plus searches for data engineering, BI, React, Java, Salesforce administration, scrum and QA.
  • Why it was hard. They had no legal entity anywhere outside the UK and no intention of opening one. Finding the person was only half the problem; the other half was that there was no lawful way to put them on the payroll.
  • What we did. Both halves. We ran the searches and then employed the people ourselves, on local contracts in their own countries, invoiced monthly to Adthena.
  • What happened. Three people started, in Ukraine, Poland and Hungary. The engagement ran from 2020 and was still billing five years later.

About Adthena

Adthena builds search intelligence software. Its platform maps an advertiser's entire paid search landscape — every competitor, every keyword, every ad — and turns it into a picture of where the money is going and where the gaps are. It is headquartered in London and sells to advertisers and agencies internationally.

Like a lot of UK software companies of that size, its engineering hiring ran into two walls at once: the salary levels in London for senior data and engineering people, and the fact that hiring outside the UK requires either a legal entity in the country you are hiring in, or a partner willing to be the employer.

They had no entity outside the UK, and no plan to change that for a handful of engineers.

The brief

Find senior engineering and data people outside the UK, and employ them. Three roles to start: a senior full-stack developer, a data scientist and a machine learning engineer, with searches over the following years for data engineering and BI, React, Java, Salesforce administration, scrum and manual QA. Remote, permanent in practice, contracted through us.

The 4 problems we had to solve

Problem #1: "We want to hire in Europe and we have no entity in Europe."

This is the whole account in one sentence. Adthena could identify the countries they wanted to hire in and could afford the salaries. What they could not do was employ anyone there. Setting up an entity for two or three engineers is disproportionate; hiring them as loose freelancers creates a different problem; and most recruitment agencies simply stop at the introduction.

What we did

We did both jobs. We ran the searches and then employed the people ourselves, on proper local contracts in their own countries, with Adthena paying us a monthly amount and managing the work day to day. The candidate got a real contract, Adthena got the engineer, and nobody had to register a company in Kyiv or Warsaw.

Problem #2: "The bar is very high and the pool is very small."

These were not volume roles. A machine learning engineer and a data scientist at senior level, in specific countries, for a company most candidates had never heard of. The client was demanding, deliberately, and the conversion reflected it: roughly thirty-five interviews for every hire.

What we did

We accepted the ratio and worked at that volume rather than arguing the bar down. 562 candidates were sourced and logged for these searches, by name, country, years of experience, current role and technology, with the state of every conversation recorded. Sourcing at that scale for three hires only makes sense when the placements last, which is the next problem.

Problem #3: "If we get this wrong, we get it wrong for years."

At thirty-five interviews per hire, a mis-hire is not a small cost. It is the entire search again. And because these people were on our payroll rather than Adthena's, a bad fit becomes our problem to solve as well as theirs.

What we did

We optimised for people who would still be there in years, not months. Two of the three placements were long-running: one engineer in Ukraine who later relocated, and one in Poland who stayed from the beginning. A third, in Hungary, was hired and chose to leave shortly after starting, which is in this document because leaving it out would make the ratio look better than it was. The engagement itself ran from 2020 and was still being invoiced monthly five years later.

Problem #4: "One role is not like the last one."

Over the years the requirement kept changing shape: full-stack, then data science, then machine learning, then data engineering and BI, React, Java, a Salesforce administrator, a scrum master, manual QA. Nine distinct searches, most of them one-off, none of them the same market.

What we did

Each one got its own written intake document before sourcing started, taken from the hiring manager, covering the product, the team, the stack and the seniority. Nine intake documents on file. It is unremarkable work and it is the reason a one-off Salesforce administrator search did not get run like a full-stack search.

How we actually ran it

  1. An intake document per role. Written, from the hiring manager, before any sourcing. Nine of them across the engagement.
  2. Targeted sourcing by country. Candidates logged by name, country, years of experience, current position and technology, with the state of every conversation tracked.
  3. Our own screening interview. Every candidate, against a written script.
  4. We became the employer. Local contracts in the engineer's own country, through us, with Adthena managing the work.
  5. A monthly invoice, not a placement fee. Which is why the account was still active five years after it started.

Everything behind the placements

Most agencies show you placements. This is the search underneath them.

| | |

|---|---|

| Candidates sourced and logged | 562 |

| Interviews per hire, approximately | 35 |

| Roles briefed with a written intake | 9 |

| People placed and employed by us | 3 |

| Countries | Ukraine, Poland, Hungary |

All remote, all contracted through us, against a London headquarters.

What Adthena ended up with

  • Engineers in three countries where they have no legal presence and never needed one.

  • Someone who did the finding and the employing, instead of two suppliers for the two halves.

  • Nine distinct searches over five years, each with a written brief, without adding a supplier for each new discipline.

  • Local, compliant contracts for the people they hired, handled entirely by us.

  • A cost that arrives as a monthly invoice rather than a placement fee.

  • An engagement that has outlasted almost everything else in their vendor list.

Written by

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Remote Crew