By Tatev Blbulyan, Co-founder & CEO, Meettal
Most US tech founders I speak with start with the same question:
“Where can we find engineers cheaper?”
I understand why they ask it. Hiring in the US is expensive. Budgets are not unlimited. Founders are under pressure to move fast, extend runway, and still build a strong product team.
But this is the wrong first question.
Cost matters, of course. I am not pretending it doesn’t. But cost is not the lens you should start with. Cost is the trade-off you calculate after you understand what kind of team you actually need.
Because when you start with “cheap,” you often end up paying twice. First for the hire that doesn’t hold, and then for the cleanup when the product, the team, or the delivery starts suffering.
The better question is:
What kind of engineering team are you trying to build, and where does that team actually exist?
That question changes the whole conversation. It forces you to think about seniority, timezone, communication style, product maturity, hiring speed, retention, and the type of engineering work this person will really do.
At Meettal, we recruit software engineers across ten markets: Armenia, where we started and where our core expertise still is, the United States, Dubai, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the Nordics.
And after working across these markets, one thing becomes very clear: there is no “best” market. There is only the market that makes sense for your stage, your team, and the kind of problems you need engineers to solve.
Here are the three trade-offs I would look at before choosing where to hire.
1. Seniority depth vs. hiring speed
Some markets help you move fast. Some markets give you very strong senior engineers. Very few give you both at the same time.
If you need to hire fifteen mid-level engineers in six months, Poland is hard to ignore. It is one of Europe’s strongest engineering markets: deep, structured, mature, and very used to working with US and Western European companies.
You can build a serious pipeline there. You can move fast. You will find people who understand distributed work and international product teams.
But the senior end of the market is competitive. You are not the only company looking there. Every serious European startup, scaleup, and international tech company already knows Poland is strong.
If what you need is not volume, but judgment, I would start the conversation differently.
For senior engineers, staff-level people, architects, and the kind of person who can hold technical context for years, Armenia is much more interesting than many founders realize.
The market is smaller, yes. But that is not always a disadvantage. In a smaller market, strong people are more visible. Good engineers know each other. Reputation matters. A structured search can reach the right people without drowning in thousands of irrelevant applications.
This is where Armenia has a real advantage. The seniority depth is stronger than the market size suggests, especially for companies that need experienced engineers who can work with international teams, communicate clearly, and take ownership without being managed every hour.
A simple way to think about it:
If you need more than five engineers and speed is more important than seniority, look at Poland or the Czech Republic.
If you need two engineers, and one of them needs to be the smartest engineer in the room, look at Armenia seriously.
2. Working hours
Timezone looks like a small operational detail in the beginning.
Then six months later, it becomes the thing everyone complains about.
Founders often underestimate how much overlap they actually need with engineers. They think, “We can work async.” And maybe they can. But async only works when expectations are clear, documentation is good, ownership is strong, and the company already knows how to manage distributed teams.
If your team is in California, hiring from Armenia, Poland, the Czech Republic, or the Nordics can still work well. You get several meaningful overlapping hours a day, which is usually enough for real product work if the team is organized.
If your team is in New York, the calculation is easier. Most European markets work. The UK and the Netherlands are especially smooth from a communication and business-hours perspective.
Dubai is a different case. It can work well if your company is connected to both the US and Europe, or if your buyers, partners, or team are already spread globally. But it is not a market where you can just post a job and expect the right engineers to appear.
Before hiring abroad, I would ask one very practical question:
How many synchronous hours do you actually need with this engineer every week?
If the honest answer is “as many as possible,” hire in the US and pay for it.
If the answer is “we need a few strong hours of overlap and the rest can be managed async,” then many more markets open up.
3. The market’s gravity
This is the trade-off people don’t talk about enough.
Every market has gravity.
By gravity, I mean the forces that pull engineers in a certain direction: the companies present in the market, the salaries, the capital, the culture, the industries, and the type of work people are used to doing.
In the United States, the gravity pulls senior engineers toward big tech, well-funded startups, and very strong compensation packages. You can absolutely find excellent people there, but you are competing with companies that have brand, money, and often faster decision-making power.
In Germany, the gravity is different. A lot of engineering talent is connected to enterprise, automotive, industrial tech, and highly structured environments. The engineers can be excellent, but the working culture is often built around depth, precision, and process. If you need someone who will prototype three things in a week, throw away two, and ship the one that works, Germany may not be the easiest place to start.
In Armenia, the gravity is global. Many senior engineers have already worked with US or European teams remotely. They are used to international tooling, product conversations, English-speaking environments, and distributed work. You are not teaching them how global product teams operate. In many cases, they are already there.
That is the part founders usually understand only after their first Armenian hire stays, performs, and becomes someone the team depends on.
Dubai has another kind of gravity. The UAE is investing heavily and pulling talent in faster than the local supply can fully match. That means the best engineers need to be actively approached. A passive job post will not do much there.
This is why “where should we hire?” is never just a salary question.
It is a market-behavior question.
What all good hiring markets have in common
The markets are different, but the method should not change.
Before committing to a country, map the market honestly. Understand how many relevant engineers are actually there. Look at compensation, availability, competition, seniority, and retention risk.
Then source actively. The best people are usually not waiting on job boards.
Evaluate everyone with the same structured rubric. Otherwise, you are not comparing candidates – you are comparing impressions.
And when you present candidates, present real context. Not a pile of CVs. Not “here are ten people, good luck.” A shortlist should explain why each person fits, where the risks are, and what the company needs to know before moving forward.
The market changes.
The standard should not.
When to talk to us
If you are a tech founder thinking about hiring abroad and you are not sure which market to start with, that is exactly the conversation worth having before you commit.
Tell us what you are building, what kind of engineers you need, how your team works, and what your constraints are.
We will tell you where the right team is most likely to be – honestly, before you spend three months hiring in the wrong market.
Hiring for a real role and want it done properly?
Meettal recruits senior engineers, HR leaders and CTOs across Armenia, the UAE, the US, Europe, Singapore, Australia and Taiwan. Twenty minutes with our team and you will know whether we can help. If we cannot, we will tell you who can.
Book a 20-minute call →
