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How GitLab hired remote tech talent across borders, legally
The background | Scaling remote teams without borders, or legal trouble
GitLab, a San Francisco-based DevOps giant with over 1,200 employees across 67 countries, is built on a remote-first culture. But that model came with a critical operational roadblock:
How do you compliantly hire remote talent in countries where you don’t have a legal entity?
Without the right infrastructure, GitLab risked:
- Employee misclassification and legal exposure
- Inability to hire in new markets quickly
- Tax, labour law, and IP protection risks
- An inconsistent contractor experience across borders
With expansion plans across Europe, GitLab needed a solution fast, and a partner with boots on the ground in complex hiring markets.
The challenge | Access talent in new countries without setting up local entities
GitLab wanted to expand across Poland, Ukraine, Romania, and Portugal, but lacked:
- Legal entities in those countries
- In-depth knowledge of local employment laws
- A scalable, compliant hiring process
- A unified contractor engagement model
They needed more than just payroll support. They needed:
- In-country compliance expertise
- A seamless contractor experience
- A low-risk, entity-free path to expansion
The fix | CXC’s global EOR solution for remote tech hiring
CXC implemented a multi-country contractor compliance, engagement, and payroll solution across four key European markets.
What we delivered
- Fully compliant hiring through EOR and contractor engagement models
- Streamlined onboarding: digital-first, secure, fast
- Accurate classification to reduce misclassification and tax risk
- Contractor care program with dedicated account and finance support
- Embedded monthly invoicing + payment structure to support financial operations
- Efficient expansion without the cost and complexity of setting up legal entities
The results | Rapid, risk-free expansion into 4 countries
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Countries launched | 4 (Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Portugal) |
| Contractor onboarding time | <5 days from offer to start |
| Invoice accuracy | 100% on-time & error-free across all regions |
| Legal entity cost avoidance | ~$50K+ per country saved |
| SLA compliance (onboarding/payroll) | 99.5%+ |
| Contractor satisfaction rating | >90% (via onboarding feedback) |
| Risk exposure from misclassification | 0 incidents post-implementation |
The strategic impact
With CXC, GitLab can now:
- Confidently enter new markets without setting up entities
- Ensure legal, tax, and IP protection compliance in every country
- Deliver a world-class contractor experience that reflects their brand
- Focus on growth, not red tape
Need to scale your tech workforce globally without breaking the law?
Talk to CXC today.
About CXC
At CXC, we want to help you grow your business with flexible, contingent talent. But we also understand that managing a contingent workforce can be complicated, costly and time-consuming. Through our MSP solution, we can help you to fulfil all of your contingent hiring needs, including temp employees, independent contractors and SOW workers. And if your needs change? No problem. Our flexible solution is designed to scale up and down to match our clients’ requirements.
