Hiring locally takes forever and the backlog won't wait. Developers in the Philippines work US hours in strong English, build with AI agents like Cursor and Copilot, and join your standups instead of a vendor queue.
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Vetted on agentic workflows and matched to your stack before you see a résumé.
Ships AI-native features with Claude Code, Cursor, and modern LLM toolchains.
Claude Code Developer · 5+ Years
Working remotely at a US Fintech
Technical SEO engineer who has rebuilt site architectures for e-commerce and SaaS sites pushing 5M monthly organic visits.
Senior SEO Engineer · 7+ Years
Working remotely at a US SaaS
Backend engineer specializing in Go and distributed systems for SaaS and fintech.
Senior Backend Engineer · 9+ Years
Working remotely at a US Fintech
Senior AI engineer with deep expertise in LLMs and production ML systems for SaaS and fintech.
Senior AI Engineer · 7+ Years
Working remotely at a US SaaS
Workflow automation engineer who replaces manual ops with reliable flows across 30+ SaaS tools.
Senior Workflow Automation Engineer · 7+ Years
Working remotely at a US Healthtech
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 built our team of pre-vetted engineers who made our hiring decisions straightforward.
Once onboarded, our tech team saw a significant boost in productivity and development speed. Their excellent account management and responsive customer service also ensured smooth handling of all post-onboarding HR matters.
Jack N.
Director of IT (10,000+ employees)
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 us rapidly scale by sourcing top-quality SDR talent from Indonesia.
Their pre-screened candidates fit perfectly, and their smooth onboarding and support built a strong, cost-effective team that helped to test and experiment sales with another market.
Leo W.
Co-founder (raised US$5m)
Everything you need to know about employment laws, payroll, and compliance when hiring developers in the Philippines.
The Philippines runs one of the largest technology services sectors in the world, and it is the only market in Asia where a full overlap with US business hours is routine rather than a concession. Here is the state of it going into 2026.
IT-BPM export revenue in 2025, on track for $42B in 2026
People employed in the sector, targeting 1.97M by end of 2026
EF English score, 28th of 123 countries, high proficiency band
Monthly starting point for a senior engineer through us
Industry body IBPAP reported about $40 billion in export revenue for 2025 across roughly 1.9 million workers, growth that beat the global market. In July 2026 it cut its 2028 targets to $50.5 billion and 2.14 million workers, down from the $59 billion and 2.5 million projected in 2022, citing AI adoption and stronger competition. The work being automated is the scripted, high volume end. Engineering is the part moving up the value chain, which is why IBPAP is now steering toward global capability centers rather than outsourced support.
In the 2025 EF English Proficiency Index the Philippines scored 569 and ranked 28th of 123 countries, inside the high proficiency band and well above the 488 global average. Within Asia it sits second, behind Malaysia. For engineering work the practical difference from first place is negligible: design docs, pull request comments and client calls happen without a translation layer.
Metro Manila holds the deepest pool, the highest rates and most of the product engineering work. Cebu is the strongest secondary hub, generally 10 to 20 percent cheaper with lower attrition. Davao, Iloilo and Bacolod are smaller but real, and remote hiring puts them 20 to 30 percent below Manila rates at the same seniority.
See what each role actually pays in the Philippines developer rate card.
Sources: IBPAP full-year 2025 results and July 2026 roadmap revision; EF English Proficiency Index 2025.
40 hours/week (8 hrs/day, 5 days). Compressed work weeks allowed.
125% regular OT. 130% on rest days. 200% special holidays. 260% regular holidays.
6 months max. Employer must set reasonable standards communicated at start.
30 days for authorized causes. Immediate for just causes (with due process).
Redundancy: 1 month per year of service. Closure: 0.5 month per year.
Payroll, taxes, social contributions, leave tracking, contracts, and compliance in the Philippines. 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.
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