You are not hiring a developer. You are hiring a developer, a landlord, a payroll provider and an HR department. The job title only names the first.
It is easy to miss, because the other three jobs do not appear in the job post. They appear later, one at a time, usually on a day you had planned to spend on something else.
Job two: the landlord
Someone has to make sure your developer has a place to work that works. That means:
- a desk, and internet that holds up through a video call
- power that stays on
- a quiet room for the hard conversations
- someone to call when the connection drops at the worst moment
If the person works from home, the landlord job does not disappear. It moves into their spare room, and you inherit whatever that room is like on the day of your release.
Job three: the payroll provider
Every month, someone calculates the salary, deducts the tax, pays the statutory contributions and files the returns. Every year, someone checks that the structure still matches the law. In India, the law changed substantially in November 2025.
Payroll is the job most companies hand to a platform first. That is sensible, and it is also only one of the three.
Job four: the HR department
This is the one that takes the most time and shows up least on a spreadsheet:
- onboarding in week one
- leave requests and cover
- the first review
- the salary conversation at the end of the year
- the conflict nobody wanted
- if it comes to it, the exit: handover, equipment back, final settlement paid on time
Across a year, these jobs add up to dozens of separate tasks. We count 42 touchpoints from sourcing to exit, and the developer’s actual work is not one of them.
The question changes
Once you see the three hidden jobs, “where can I find a good developer?” stops being the whole question. The better question is: who is going to do the other three jobs, and is it going to be me?
That is the idea behind a satellite office. Hire the office, not just the person. You still choose the developer, you interview them, and you manage their work. The landlord, payroll and HR jobs come with the seat, run by us, on one invoice.
The honest exception
If you already have an office in India, a payroll provider there and an HR person who knows Indian employment law, the three hidden jobs are already filled. Then you really are hiring just a developer, and you should compare salaries and move on.
Most companies with 5 or 50 people do not have those three things. For them, the job title is the smallest part of the hire.
See what the other three jobs look like in practice on what’s included, or talk to us.
Sources
- Labour code changes from November 2025: see sources for post 1