What is the talent pool like for nearshoring in the Caucasus Region?
- Gegidze • გეგიძე | Marketing
- Jun 6
- 20 min read
Table of contents:
Why Companies are eyeing the Caucasus region for nearshoring
What does nearshoring mean in the Caucasus (vs outsourcing or freelancing)
Top skills and specializations available for nearshoring in the Caucasus Region
Legal hiring and payroll compliance (Without opening a local entity)
Mandatory benefits for nearshore employees in the Caucasus Region
Legal risks of hiring in the Caucasus Region without an employer of record
Final word: Why early movers are winning in the Caucasus region
Why Companies are eyeing the Caucasus region for nearshoring
You know what’s getting old?
Spending six weeks trying to hire a mid-level dev in London who thinks Figma is a lifestyle brand and asks about equity before they’ve pushed a single commit.
Meanwhile, over in the Caucasus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, there are full-stack engineers who’ve quietly shipped fintech platforms, scaled U.S. healthtech apps, and solved production bugs faster than you can say “timezone overlap.”
No drama. No ego. Just output.
And here’s the kicker:
Nobody told the rest of the market yet.
While your competitors are busy getting ghosted in Poland or outbid in Romania, the early movers are nearshoring to the Caucasus region, where it still makes sense.
Where the Talent pool for nearshoring in the Caucasus region is deep, the payroll is sane, and you can hire full-time employees legally, without launching a local entity or learning tax law in
Armenian.
Let’s talk real insights:
Georgia has become a hub for startups hiring React, Node, and Laravel devs at half the EU rate, many with international remote experience baked in.
Armenia is shipping serious backend and DevOps talent. Quiet, senior, reliable. No “rockstar” nonsense.
Azerbaijan? Growing fast, especially in mobile and NET. And way less picked over than the Baltics.
They’re not just cheap.
They’re good.
And they’re tired of being ignored in favor of someone in Berlin who “wants to try leading a team” after 18 months of work experience.
The Caucasus isn’t up next. It’s already working.
And if you're still hiring like it’s 2019, you're burning money and losing time.
So yeah, your next great dev hire probably drinks mountain tea, codes in two languages, and works out of a coworking space in Tbilisi, not a WeWork in Shoreditch.
What does nearshoring mean in the Caucasus (vs outsourcing or freelancing)
Let’s clear this up now, nearshoring is not just a sexier word for outsourcing.
And it definitely isn’t about hiring a freelancer with three Gmail addresses and a mystery invoice generator.
When we say nearshoring to the Caucasus, we’re talking about hiring full-time, fully-committed, legally employed team members based in Georgia, Armenia, or Azerbaijan.
People who show up like your own team. Because they are your team.
So, what’s the actual difference?
Freelancing | Outsourcing | Nearshoring (Team Up Model) | |
Legal employment | No | No | Yes (via local EOR) |
IP protection | Maybe (if you’re lucky) | Usually vague | Locked down in local contracts |
Who manages work | You (sort of) | External PMs | You, directly |
Timezone & culture fit | Hit or miss | Often off | Tight (full EU/UK overlap) |
Payroll compliance | You're exposed | Hidden in the service fee | Fully compliant and transparent |
Retention & loyalty | Low | Depends on contract | High, employees stick when treated well |
Why this matters in the Caucasus
You don’t need another contract developer juggling three side projects.
You need a DevOps lead who takes ownership of your infrastructure.
You need a frontend dev who’s there for the long haul, not just until their
Canadian client comes calling.
You need someone who joins your standups, commits code like it's their product (not yours), and isn’t about to disappear on Georgian Independence Day because they were never legally hired in the first place.
And here's the thing: trying to build that kind of relationship through a contractor setup is like asking someone to commit while only texting them after 10 pm.
It doesn’t work. Not long-term.
This is where Team Up comes in
We’re already legally set up in the region.
We employ your hire under local labor law.
You manage the work, the team, and the roadmap, like they’re in-house.
We handle the compliance, contracts, payroll, taxes, and workspace support behind the scenes.
It’s clean, fast, and fully above board.
And most importantly?
It’s the kind of setup that lets serious companies scale without waking up to tax problems, IP headaches, or vanishing developers.
Talent pool for nearshoring in Caucasus Region: Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan
Nearshoring only works if the talent shows up.
In the Caucasus, it does with real skills, real experience, and way less hiring noise than in the usual markets.
Here’s how the talent pool for nearshoring in Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan actually stacks up without the fluff.
Talent pool for nearshoring in Georgia
The talent pool for nearshoring in Georgia is built for teams that ship fast and think lean.
Over 20,000 ICT professionals, a strong remote culture, and developers who’ve already worked with founders across the EU, UK, and U.S.
Top roles: Frontend (React, Vue), full-stack (Laravel + Vue), QA
Languages: PHP, JS, Node, Vue
Culture: Startup-aware, proactive, collaborative
Why they stay: They want meaningful work and clear growth, no BS, no babysitting
If your roadmap is moving fast and your product actually matters, Georgian devs will match that energy, and then some.
Talent pool for nearshoring in Armenia
The talent pool for nearshoring in Armenia runs deep and quiet.
You won’t find inflated resumes or overconfident juniors. You’ll find backend engineers and DevOps leads who’ve worked on complex products across healthcare, fintech, and SaaS and actually know what they’re doing.
Top roles: Senior backend (.NET, Python, Node), DevOps (AWS, Kubernetes), QA automation
Strengths: Low ego, high output, long-term mindset
Retention: High, especially when treated like true team members
Timezone flexibility: U.S. and EU overlap? Already baked in
If your app has real infrastructure or your product can’t afford flaky deployments, hire here.
Talent pool for nearshoring in Azerbaijan
The talent pool for nearshoring in Azerbaijan is newer, but not to be underestimated.
What it lacks in saturation, it makes up for in loyalty, flexibility, and strong delivery, especially for mobile and QA roles.
Top roles: Mobile (Flutter, React Native), QA, .NET backend
Best for: Startups building cross-platform apps or scaling QA pipelines
Market advantage: Less competition, better retention, eager talent
Communication: Solid English in Baku, improving fast across the region
Looking to build a cost-efficient team that grows with you? This is the time to hire from Azerbaijan, before everyone else catches on.
Top skills and specializations available for nearshoring in the Caucasus Region
Let’s not play bingo with buzzwords.
You're not here to “explore possibilities.”
You're here because your team needs talent, and you're wondering if the Caucasus can actually deliver developers who know how to ship clean code, not just write Medium posts about it.
Here’s the answer: yes.
The top skills and specializations available for nearshoring to the Caucasus Region aren’t just checkboxes.
These are people who’ve been in the trenches, shipping MVPs, scaling platforms, surviving legacy codebases, and working across U.S., UK, and EU time zones without crying in Slack.
And unlike some overhyped markets, they’re not going to triple their rate after one successful deployment.
Let’s break it down country by country with the hard truth and no fluff.
Skills and specializations available for nearshoring in Georgia
Georgian devs aren’t flashy, but they’re quietly excellent. Especially on the frontend.
Top stacks: React, Vue, Laravel, Node.js
Typical mindset: “Just tell me what needs to be built, and I’ll deliver it before your standup.”
Strength: Startup-readiness. A lot of them have worked with EU-based founders already.
Common roles: Full-stack Laravel + Vue, QA engineers, frontend devs with strong UI chops
Remote culture: High. Tbilisi’s coworking spaces are full of people in Figma, Jira, and VS Code all day.
Want a developer who can debug your form logic and explain the user journey better than your designer? Hire from Tbilisi.
Skills and specializations available for nearshoring in Armenia
Nearshoring to Armenia is where backend devs quietly dominate.
These folks don’t “look for a challenge.” They’ve already built three different fintech products and survived an enterprise migration during a war.
Top stacks: .NET, Node.js, Python, AWS, CI/CD
Specialties: High-volume backend systems, DevOps, infrastructure
Common roles: Senior backend devs, QA automation leads, DevOps engineers who actually know what CI means
Vibe: Calm. No panic commits. No drama. Just commits, pull requests, and documentation that doesn’t suck.
If your infrastructure is duct-taped together and you can’t afford downtime, your next product manager should come from Yerevan.
Skills and specializations available for nearshoring in Azerbaijan
The market here is smaller, younger, but focused.
Devs hired through nearshoring to Azerbaijan aren’t coming in with inflated egos.
They’re coming in with clean code, serious curiosity, and a willingness to build from scratch.
Top stacks: React Native, Flutter, .NET, Java
Roles: Mobile developers, junior-to-mid backend devs, QA testers (manual and automation)
Best for: Startups who want to scale with loyalty, not LinkedIn mercenaries
Vibe: Friendly, sharp, and incredibly coachable
Need someone to maintain your mobile app without randomly rewriting the entire architecture? Try Baku.
Roles you can reliably hire today across the region:
Role | Availability | Market Strength | Best Country |
Frontend Devs | High | React, Vue | Georgia |
Backend Devs | Very High | .NET, Node.js | Armenia |
Full-stack Devs | High | Laravel + Vue | Georgia, Armenia |
DevOps Engineers | Moderate | AWS, Kubernetes | Armenia |
QA Engineers | High | Manual + Auto | Azerbaijan, Georgia |
Mobile Developers | Moderate | Flutter, React Native | Azerbaijan |
Designers (UI/UX) | Moderate | Figma, Webflow | Georgia |
This isn’t Upwork roulette.
This is the real talent pool for nearshoring to Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan with people who will ship your product, not sink it.
And with Team Up, they’re legally employed, fully equipped, and onboarded fast, no ghosting, no payroll gymnastics, no LinkedIn drama.
You just manage the work.
We handle the rest.
Availability vs demand: Can you hire fast here?
Let’s be blunt, speed means nothing without quality.
Hiring “fast” only works if you're not stuck onboarding a dev who needs three weeks to learn Git flow and five more to unlearn bad habits.
So the real question isn't “Can you hire quickly in the Caucasus?”
It’s: Can you hire quickly and correctly, before everyone else catches on?
Let’s unpack that.
The market is still unsaturated, but not for long
The Caucasus region sits in a rare sweet spot:
Plenty of qualified engineers
Low saturation from Big Tech
High interest in stable international work
A professional culture that’s remote-native, not remote-converted
But here’s what’s changing fast:
EU companies are shifting away from Poland and Romania, where salary expectations have exploded and notice periods last longer than most products do.
Talent marketplaces (yes, even the smart ones) are now actively mining Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
Local dev communities are maturing fast with better training, more access to international clients, and zero interest in playing “cheap labor.”
This means the window is open, but not forever.
And the best candidates? They’re not sitting on job boards.
Nearshoring talent availability in Georgia
Think of Georgia like a stealth startup scene, quiet to the outside, loud in delivery.
Frontend devs here won’t waste your time. They’ve built dashboards, SaaS platforms, and marketplaces that already work across Europe.
Most hires come from referrals or local talent networks, not job ads
Time-to-hire can be under 2 weeks—if your offer doesn’t stink
High remote maturity: People here were async-ready before it was cool
But: It’s a fast-moving pool. Devs with React and Laravel? Gone in days, not weeks.
TL;DR: Don’t bring bloated interview processes to Georgia. You’ll lose to someone faster. And smarter.
Nearshoring talent availability in Armenia
You won’t get 200 applicants here. You’ll get five.
Three of them will quietly outperform your entire existing backend team.
But you’ll need to be intentional.
Strong preference for clear, full-time employment offers
Backend devs and DevOps engineers are often already employed, but open to the right move
Time-to-hire is 3–4 weeks if you know what you're looking for
And yes, they’ll vet you as hard as you vet them
Why? Because senior Armenian engineers know their worth, and they’re not here for chaos.
But show them product ownership, technical clarity, and a stable legal structure?
They’ll build with you for years.
TL;DR: This is the best-kept backend hiring market in Eastern Europe. For now.
Nearshoring talent availability in Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan is where Eastern Europe was 10 years ago:
Curious, capable, and still undervalued.
This is a prime spot to find:
Mobile developers who’ve worked their way up the hard way
Junior backend devs with coachable habits
QAs who aren’t just checking boxes, they’re hunting bugs like it’s a sport
Hiring is fast. Talent is loyal. And if you invest now, you’ll build a team that grows with your product, not one that leaves at the first recruiter message.
Time-to-hire: 1–2 weeks
Dev salary expectations are still grounded
English skills are improving fast, especially in Baku
TL;DR: Azerbaijan is your low-noise, high-loyalty advantage if you get in early and commit.
Hiring is no longer about where. It’s about when.
You can still win in the Caucasus.
But you’ll need to:
Know what role fits which country
Move fast with offers that actually reflect 2025 expectations
Treat remote like real employment, not as a second-tier setup
You don’t need a 3-month recruitment cycle.
You need 3 smart conversations, 1 signed offer, and a partner who’s already built the infrastructure.
That’s how Team Up makes fast hiring work in a region that’s about to stop being “undiscovered.”
How much does nearshoring to the Caucasus Region cost
Let’s start with the question founders love to ask:
“How cheap is it to hire there?”
Here’s a better one:
How much value are you getting per euro, and how much risk are you avoiding in the process?
Because hiring in the Caucasus isn’t just about spending less.
It’s about spending smart.
About building real, compliant teams without the payroll, tax, or legal acrobatics that come with hiring ‘creatively’ in places you don’t understand.
So let’s break this down like a financial advisor who actually knows the Armenian tax code and has helped more than a few founders recover from “contractor” setups gone sideways.
The baseline: Real salaries in 2025
You’re hiring real full-time devs. Not gig workers. Not interns. Not “helpful friends.”
So here’s what actual, competitive monthly gross salaries look like in the region:
Role | Georgia | Armenia | Azerbaijan |
Junior Developer | €800–€1,200 | €900–€1,300 | €750–€1,100 |
Mid-Level Developer | €1,300–€1,800 | €1,400–€2,000 | €1,200–€1,700 |
Senior Developer | €2,000–€2,800 | €2,200–€3,000 | €1,800–€2,500 |
DevOps / Cloud Engineer | €2,200–€3,200 | €2,400–€3,500 | €2,000–€2,800 |
QA (Manual/Automation) | €1,200–€1,800 | €1,300–€1,900 | €1,000–€1,600 |
These aren’t fantasy numbers. These are real-market salaries paid by European startups and U.S. product companies operating through Team Up’s EOR model.
And yes, they include engineers who show up, deliver clean code, and understand sprint planning better than your own PM.
But wait, what about the total cost?
Let’s talk all-in cost to hire legally and cleanly.
With Team Up, you’re not just paying salary. You’re covering:
Gross salary
Employer tax contributions (social fund, pension, insurance)
Our EOR service fee
Optional add-ons: equipment leasing, workspace, local benefits
And here’s the kicker: it’s all wrapped into one monthly invoice per employee.
Transparent. Predictable. No “surprise” filings or hidden fees from a lawyer in Yerevan named Arman.
A typical mid-level full-stack dev in Georgia would cost around:
€1,600 salary + €300 taxes + €299 EOR fee = ~€2,199/month
You want a workspace? Add €150.
Need a MacBook? Add €69 for equipment leasing.
Want to pay a bonus? We’ll structure it legally and handle the tax.
That’s it. That’s your cost.
No exchange rate drama. No delayed payments. No “uh, where’s the invoice from last month?” emails.
Real talk: What does this mean compared to EU hiring?
Here’s the ROI you don’t see in your payroll spreadsheet:
The same mid-level dev in Germany would run you €5,000+ per month, after taxes, pension, and the joy of German bureaucracy
In the UK, £4,500–£6,000 per month, plus NI, plus equipment, plus compliance headaches
In Portugal? They’ll be gone in six months, after using your job to negotiate their next one
But in Tbilisi? They’re still in the same seat 12 months later.
In Yerevan? They’re leading your infrastructure migration.
In Baku? They’ve brought in two more friends from their tech meetup, and they actually want to stay.
Why legal structure matters to your budget
Here’s what you don’t want to do:
Hire as a “contractor” to save €300/month, only to get hit with fines, lose IP rights, and watch your dev quit because their bank won’t give them a mortgage without a real employment contract.
We’ve seen it.
And fixing it costs more than doing it right from day one.
When you hire through Team Up’s local entities, you get:
Full IP protection under local labor law
Guaranteed tax compliance
No misclassification risk
And a hiring structure that lets you actually scale, not spin your wheels
Legal hiring and payroll compliance (Without opening a local entity)
Let me be direct, because that’s how we do it in Georgia:
If you’re hiring in the Caucasus without a legal structure or a proper employment contract, you’re playing with fire.
It might feel easy now. It won’t be when the tax office calls, or when your “contractor” walks off with your code, and there’s nothing you can do.
We’ve seen the WhatsApp screenshots.
We’ve rewritten the contracts that came from Reddit.
We’ve cleaned up the IP messes no founder ever wants to explain to a VC.
So let me save you time, risk, and possibly a very awkward call with your board.
You’ve got 3 hiring options in the Caucasus. Only one makes legal sense
Option 1: Open a local entity
Sure, if you’ve got 9 months, a local accountant, a VAT headache, and time to figure out employment law in Armenian, Georgian, or Azerbaijani.
You’ll need:
A local office lease (yes, still a thing)
Monthly tax declarations
Labor contracts under local codes
A plan for inspections, filings, and yes, bribes (just kidding…)
This is not lean. This is not smart if you just want to hire 3–5 engineers.
Option 2: Hire freelancers “under the radar”
Ah, the old “just invoice us in USD and we’re good” plan.
Until your developer wants a visa, a bank loan, or a real job title—and you suddenly realize you’ve been dodging labor law, IP protection, and tax classification the whole time.
Risks include:
Retroactive taxes (yes, we have those)
IP disputes (if it’s not clearly assigned in a legal contract, you don’t own it)
Misclassification penalties
And developers ghosting when they realize there’s no job security
Option 3: Hire through a local EOR (like Team Up)
This is the option that actually works.
You stay abroad. We hire locally, through our own established entities.
You manage the day-to-day. We achieve payroll compliance, handle contracts, and IP assignments.
You get:
Legally binding employment agreements in line with local labor codes
Payroll done right (taxes, pensions, health insurance, all filed on time)
Full IP transfer clauses (no legal grey zones)
Sick leave, vacation, and end-of-employment handled without drama
One monthly invoice and zero admin on your side
We’ve structured dozens of these. I’ve defended them. We’ve seen them hold up in court.
And no, your developer isn’t taking you to court, but you better believe your Series
A lawyer will ask about compliance before that next round closes.
What makes Caucasus hiring risky, if you don’t do it right
Each country has its own legal flavor:
In Georgia, labor law favors the employee. A “contractor” working 40 hours a week? That’s an employee.
In Armenia, labor inspectors are getting sharper. If your hire’s on Slack every day, using your tools, answering to your manager, you’re exposed.
In Azerbaijan, compliance is stricter than people assume. And courts lean toward protecting the worker, not your Google Doc job offer.
If you’re paying people directly and calling them freelancers, you are, legally speaking, rolling dice.
Let’s talk IP. If it’s not in a local employment contract, you don’t own it.
This is the part that keeps founders up at night, and rightly so.
You think you own your code.
You don’t, unless it’s signed over in a contract that’s legally enforceable where the developer lives.
Here’s what you need:
A local labor agreement that includes full IP transfer
Signed in the right jurisdiction, in the right language, by a local entity
Backed by enforceable local laws, not just wishful thinking, and your U.S. NDA
With Team Up, you get exactly that for every hire.
Mandatory benefits for nearshore employees in the Caucasus Region
Let’s be honest, benefits aren't just a “nice to have.”
They’re the difference between a developer sticking with your product for 18 months… or bouncing after the first recruiter whispers “equity” in their LinkedIn DMs.
The good news?
You don’t need beanbags and kombucha to keep great talent in Georgia, Armenia, or Azerbaijan.
You just need to get the basics right, do it legally, and understand what the best developers here actually care about.
Let’s break it down.
First: What’s mandatory?
Every country in the Caucasus has baseline legal benefits that apply to full-time employees. If you're hiring through Team Up’s EOR model, these are already included and compliant. No guesswork, no drama.
Country | Paid Vacation | Sick Leave | Pension/Social | Public Holidays |
Georgia | 24 calendar days | Yes | Yes (≈2% from employer) | 15+ days |
Armenia | 20 working days | Yes | Yes (≈7–10% from employer) | 12+ days |
Azerbaijan | 21 working days | Yes | Yes (≈25% total tax including social) | 15+ days |
So yes, your developer will take Nor Tari (New Year’s) seriously. And if they don’t show up on January 2nd, that’s not ghosting. That’s tradition.
Second: What’s expected?
Mandatory is the floor. But retention lives in the extras. And no, that doesn’t mean gym stipends and fruit baskets.
Here’s what top devs in the region actually expect from a serious international employer:
1. Private Workspace or Coworking
Not everyone wants to code from a kitchen table.
In Georgia and Armenia, it’s common to offer access to:
Flex desks (€150/month)
Dedicated desks (€250/month)
Private offices (starting at €1,250/month for teams)
Team Up handles all of this, so your dev can work where they’ll be most productive (and not next to their cousin’s wedding planning calls).
2. Equipment That Doesn’t Suck
A 6-year-old Lenovo with a cracked hinge? That’s not “lean.”
That’s sabotage.
Offer:
Equipment leasing (from €69/month)—for newer teams scaling fast
Equipment buying—tailored pricing and device recommendations. We’ll handle the setup, upgrades, and delivery. No more IT roulette.
3. Supplemental Health Insurance
It’s not legally required in Georgia, but it’s appreciated.
In Armenia and Azerbaijan, it’s becoming standard for mid-senior talent.
Cost? Modest.
Impact? Huge.
Team Up can structure this directly into your employee’s benefits without you navigating a foreign insurance portal.
4. Structured Onboarding & Support
This gets overlooked. But trust us, remote hires in the Caucasus remember how they were onboarded.
Through Team Up, your new team member gets:
Local tax & payroll onboarding
Equipment setup
Workspace access
Training support (yes, it’s included)
It’s not fluff, it’s how you start the relationship off right.
Bottom line: Benefits are your retention weapon
Forget the “startup perks.”
What they care about is:
Getting paid on time
Having stable, legal employment
Working on something real, with tools that let them win
Do that, and your team in the Caucasus will stick, contribute, and scale with you.
Miss it, and they’ll quietly leave for the company that didn’t treat remote like second-tier.
Workspace and equipment support for remote teams
Hiring remote teams doesn’t mean handing out a contract and hoping your new hire works well from their kitchen table.
If you want real output, you need to give your team the tools and the setup to actually do the job.
That’s where workspace and equipment support in the Caucasus goes from “nice-to-have” to non-negotiable.
Do Employer of Record employees work remotely in the Caucasus Region
The Caucasus is remote-first by necessity, but that doesn’t mean people are working in isolation.
In Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, top designers want two things:
A professional setup that doesn’t slow them down
Flexibility to choose how and where they work
Team Up handles both.
Workspace setup for employer of record employees in the Caucasus Region
Whether your dev prefers a busy coworking hub in Tbilisi or a quiet private office in Yerevan, we’ve already got the infrastructure.
Here’s what we offer:
Flex Desk – €150/month
A comfortable, professional space with rotating seating. Perfect for hybrid workers or solo contributors who don’t want to work from home 24/7.
Dedicated Desk – €250/month
Your dev gets their own spot. Same desk, same chair, same good coffee. Great for creators, engineers, and anyone who needs deep focus and zero distractions.
Private Office – €1,250/month
Fully equipped and secured. Ideal for growing teams who want to collaborate face-to-face, hold client calls, and still lock the door at night.
We’ve partnered with top coworking spaces across Tbilisi, Yerevan, and Baku, so your team gets fast internet, meeting rooms, printers, and a fridge that actually works.
Who provides equipment when hiring via Employer of Record in the Caucasus Region
You.
And you should.
Your devs shouldn’t be troubleshooting hardware.
They should be shipping features.
That’s why Team Up offers:
Equipment Leasing – from €69/month
Access to top-tier laptops and monitors without upfront costs
Ideal for fast-growing teams
Includes replacements, upgrades, and troubleshooting support
Equipment Buying – tailored pricing
You pick the setup, we handle sourcing and delivery
Full device ownership, no surprises
Localized to each role, devs get dev tools, designers get the screen real estate they need
Either way, we handle it: procurement, delivery, support.
You just say, “We’re hiring a new engineer.” We make sure they have the gear before day one.
No more ‘Bring Your Own Everything’
Too many companies treat remote hires like second-class citizens: “Here’s your contract, good luck with the Wi-Fi.”
That doesn’t fly in the Caucasus.
Developers here expect to be set up for success:
Clean workspace
Fast internet
A laptop that doesn’t freeze during a deploy
The noise-free zone where they can actually think
And when you provide that?
They perform like they’re in-house. Because, in all the ways that count, they are.
Legal risks of hiring in the Caucasus Region without an employer of record
Let’s not sugarcoat it:
Hiring without a legal structure in Georgia, Armenia, or Azerbaijan is a shortcut, until it’s not.
It feels lean.
It looks fast.
And then one day, you’re on a Zoom call with a tax lawyer from Tbilisi trying to figure out if your “freelancer” just became your legal employee.
If you’re skipping an Employer of Record (EOR), here’s what you’re actually gambling with:
1. Misclassification = real fines
Let’s say you’re calling your developer a “contractor.”
They’re working full-time hours, using your tools, following your managers’ instructions, joining your team meetings, and relying solely on your payment.
Guess what?
That’s not a contractor. That’s an employee.
And in the eyes of Georgian, Armenian, and Azerbaijani labor law, you’re now:
Liable for back taxes and social contributions
Potentially facing legal penalties
Exposed to labor claims (unpaid vacation, termination rights, etc.)
All it takes is one inspection. Or one disgruntled dev.
2. No IP protection, no legal backup
Do you think you own your product? Not if your code was written by someone:
Not legally employed
Under no enforceable local contract
Outside of any jurisdiction, your lawyers can touch
Without an EOR, your IP is floating.
And if that person walks or gets poached, you’ve got a legal black hole where your backend used to be.
3. No local compliance = you take the hit
Every country in the Caucasus has its own:
Tax filing rules
Employment standards
Social fund obligations
Termination procedures
If you mess these up, it’s not your contractor who takes the hit.
It’s you.
You’ll be:
On the hook for incorrect filings
Blocked from re-hiring in that market
Risking public legal disputes, you do not want to be in your Google search results
4. Developers talk, and reputations travel
Here’s what devs in the Caucasus Region won’t post publicly, but definitely share in Telegram channels and meetups:
Which companies pay late
Which ones don’t offer real contracts
Who treats them like “just a freelancer” while expecting full-time commitment
If you ghost on legal structure, the market will ghost you back.
Why EOR is the move (and not just because we offer it)
An Employer of Record gives you:
Full legal employment in the developer’s home country
Contracts that hold up in local court
Payroll, taxes, and benefits are filed and paid by the book
One partner who handles the messy stuff, so you can focus on the product, not paperwork
It’s the difference between “we hired someone in Armenia”
and “we’re building a compliant, scalable team in the Caucasus.”
Final take
If you’re serious about scaling with talent in the Caucasus, stop hiring like a tourist.
The region is opening up fast.
But the companies that win here are the ones that hire like locals, pay like professionals, and build legal infrastructure that doesn’t crack under pressure.
Team Up gives you that.
So you can start remote hiring in the Caucasus region, and stay bulletproof while you do it.
Final word: Why early movers are winning in the Caucasus region
There’s a pattern here.
You’ve seen it before.
Berlin in 2014.
Warsaw in 2017.
Lisbon in 2020 (until rent prices tripled and everyone learned the hard way what “developer shortage” really means).
Now it’s the Caucasus.
And just like those markets back then, the companies moving early aren’t just getting better deals, they’re building better teams.
Here's what early movers are already doing:
Hiring senior backend engineers in Armenia for less than a London junior
Building frontend squads in Georgia that ship faster than their in-house teams
Locking in full-time mobile devs from Azerbaijan before marketplaces catch up
Offering legal employment with proper benefits, equipment, and workspace without opening a local entity or spending months on setup
And they’re doing it clean.
One invoice. One legal partner. Zero tax gray zones.
The later you wait, the louder it gets
Right now, this region is quiet.
Focused.
Hungry.
But it's not going to stay that way.
The best developers in the Caucasus are already fielding inbound offers.
Talent pool is circling.
Startups in Berlin, Amsterdam, and Stockholm are quietly shifting headcount this way.
You can be part of that early wave.
Or you can show up when the prices are higher, the inboxes are flooded, and the best talent’s already taken.
So what’s stopping you?
You don’t need to:
Figure outthe tax law in three countries
Set up foreign entities
Worry about payroll, IP, or compliance
You just need a hiring partner who’s already built the structure.
That’s what we do at Team Up.
Hire full-time employees in Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, fully legally, fully equipped, and fully managed.
Before the rest of the market wakes up.