Roles open for months while US product deadlines hold firm? Developers in Malaysia, multilingual software and AI engineers, join your codebase and build with AI agents like Cursor, for 50-70% less than US salaries.
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Top 1%
AI-native talent
200+
teams building with us
Vetted on agentic workflows and matched to your stack before you see a résumé.
AI engineer focused on production ML and computer vision with sub-100ms inference at scale.
Senior AI Engineer · 7+ Years
Working remotely at a US AI
Ships React and Next.js platforms end-to-end, from consumer-facing web apps to internal tools.
Senior Full-Stack Developer · 7+ yrs
Working remotely at a US SaaS
Builds recommendation engines and NLP pipelines for SaaS and fintech products across Asia.
Senior AI Engineer · 6+ yrs
Working remotely at a US AI
Builds fintech and payment systems serving millions of users on Java microservices.
Senior Backend Engineer · 9+ yrs
Working remotely at a US SaaS
Sets up production cloud infrastructure with IaC and container orchestration for fast-growing companies.
Senior DevOps Engineer · 7+ yrs
Working remotely at a US SaaS
Hire in 3 steps, not 3 months.
Share what to ship, automate or scale, plus your stack, budget and time zone.
6–8 pre-vetted Developers who ship with Claude Code, Cursor and AI agents. Interview the ones you like.
We handle contracts, payroll, compliance and equipment, so your Developer ships in the first week.
Founders and engineering leaders on hiring with Second Talent.
Second Talent played a key role in our tech expansion, quickly providing high-quality frontend talent that integrated seamlessly into our projects.
Their pre-vetted candidates, smooth onboarding process, and excellent support helped us build a strong, cost-effective team that drives our success.
Marco A.
Co-founder & CTO
Second Talent helped Beyond Cars (acquired by Carro) swiftly build a top-tier tech team in just a month, accelerating our platform's development and boosting productivity.
This success allowed us to expand into new markets, ultimately leading to our acquisition by a major automotive e-commerce company.
Garry Y.
Co-Founder (acquired by Carro)
Partnering with Second Talent has been a game-changer for our tech expansion.
Their ability to source top-tier talent from Vietnam helped us scale rapidly while maintaining quality. Their pre-vetted candidates integrated seamlessly, and their account management ensured smooth onboarding.
Tom F.
Co-founder (#1 US Real Estate Coach)
Everything you need to know about employment laws, payroll, and compliance when hiring developers in Malaysia.
Malaysia is the compromise candidate that keeps winning: the best English in Asia, a serious AI and data center build-out, and rates below Singapore without the thin senior pool of the cheaper markets.
EF English score, the highest in Asia and 24th worldwide
Digital economy share of GDP, targeting 25.5%
Share of the region's AI funding captured in a single year
Monthly starting point for a senior engineer through us
Malaysia took 32 percent of the region's AI funding between the second half of 2024 and the first half of 2025, about $759 million, and approved RM16.2 billion of digital investment in the first four months of 2025 alone. Microsoft, Google and an NVIDIA partnership with YTL have each committed billions to data center and AI capacity. That build-out is pulling cloud, data and platform engineers into the market and lifting their rates.
Malaysia scored 581 in the 2025 EF English Proficiency Index, first in Asia and 24th worldwide, ahead of the Philippines at 569. For teams that need engineers in front of clients, or working across English and Bahasa, this is the market where the language question stops being a question.
About 65 percent of the digital workforce sits in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur. Cyberjaya is the purpose-built technology city and still hosts hundreds of accredited companies, from data centers to software firms. Penang carries the hardware and electronics heritage and is the better fit for embedded and systems work.
See what each role actually pays in the Malaysia developer rate card.
Sources: MDEC investment and digital economy figures, 2025; EF English Proficiency Index 2025; regional AI funding analysis.
45 hours/week max. 8 hrs/day standard.
150% weekdays, 200% rest days, 300% public holidays.
Typically 3-6 months. Must be specified in the employment contract.
4 weeks (<2 yrs), 6 weeks (2-5 yrs), 8 weeks (5+ yrs).
10 days/year (<2 yrs), 15 days/year (2-5 yrs), 20 days/year (5+ yrs).
Payroll, taxes, social contributions, leave tracking, contracts, and compliance in Malaysia. You focus on building your product.
Pricing
Per full-time engineer, with vetting, employment, equipment, a dedicated partner and a replacement guarantee included. No upfront fees: you pay only when you hire.
Start Hiring*Starting price for a full-time engineer, billed monthly. Final rate depends on role, seniority and location.
Answers to common questions.
Starts at $23/hour. $0 cost until you hire.
Start Hiring