Hire an offshore software developer for your Australian product team
An offshore software developer joins your engineering team to ship features, building web or SaaS products end-to-end across frontend, backend, and infrastructure. Through Lite-Force, they're employed properly via an EOR structure with payroll, compliance, and HR support included. Most hires are live within 2-4 weeks.
A day in the life of an offshore software developer.
Typical responsibilities:
- Feature development: uilding frontend, backend, or full-stack features against product requirements
- Code review: eviewing PRs, providing feedback, and approving merges
- Bug triage and fixing: nvestigating production issues, writing regressions, shipping fixes
- Technical design: ontributing to architecture discussions and design docs
- Testing: riting unit, integration, and end-to-end tests; supporting QA cycles
- DevOps and deployment: I/CD pipeline maintenance, monitoring, release management
- Cross-functional collaboration: orking with PMs, designers, and QA on shared product goals
- Documentation: eeping technical docs, READMEs, and onboarding guides current
Why software development works well offshore.
Software work is asynchronous-friendly.
Modern engineering teams already run distributed, async PRs, written design docs, recorded demos. Once your offshore developer is in the team rituals, location stops mattering.
The whole stack is cloud-native.
GitHub, GitLab, Linear, Jira, Notion, Vercel, AWS, GCP, every modern engineering tool runs in the browser or terminal. Your offshore developer commits, ships, and collaborates exactly like a local one.
Timezone overlap means real-time collaboration.
Philippines hours align with Australian engineering hours. Standups, pair sessions, design reviews, and code reviews all happen live, not waiting on overnight cycles.
Unlocks engineering capacity at SME scale.
Australian senior full-stack developers run $140-$180k+ total cost. Offshore developers let smaller Australian businesses build real product engineering teams rather than living off agency contracts.
What does a software developer cost locally vs offshore?
Indicative comparison based on typical Australian salary ranges for this role.
| Local Australian hire | Lite-Force offshore | |
|---|---|---|
| Base cost | $120,000-$160,000/yr | Confirmed on call |
| Super (11.5%) | $13,800-$18,400 | Included |
| Payroll tax (~5%) | $6,000-$8,000 | Included |
| Leave loading | $2,000-$3,000 | Included |
| Recruitment | $8,000-$12,000 | Included |
| Estimated annual total | $149,800-$201,400 | Get a specific quote |
Indicative comparison based on typical Australian salary ranges for mid-senior full-stack developer roles (sources: Hays IT Salary Guide, Robert Half, SEEK Sydney, Glassdoor, Clicks IT Recruitment). Sydney pays a ~10-15% premium over Melbourne. Specialist roles (ML, infra, security) can exceed this band materially. Lite-Force pricing confirmed on a per-role basis during your discovery call.
What you get with a Lite-Force software developer.
- Full sourcing, screening, and shortlisting
- EOR employment contract structured for local compliance
- Monthly payroll and statutory contributions
- Leave tracking and management
- HR support and regular check-ins
- Replacement commitment within initial period
- 3-7 years professional software development experience
- Strong English (written and verbal, code reviews, design discussions, async docs)
- Stack experience matching your needs (React/Vue/Next, Node/Python/Go/Ruby, Postgres/MySQL, AWS/GCP)
- Git workflow, CI/CD, code review discipline, and modern engineering practices
- Filipino or Southeast Asian, timezone-aligned with Australia
Three steps to your offshore software developer.
Book a discovery call
Tell us about your stack, product, team size, and current engineering bottlenecks.
We source and shortlist
You review candidates with relevant stack experience, run technical interviews, we recommend a paid trial task.
They start
Employment, payroll, and onboarding handled. You manage the work.
Frequently asked questions.
Common: React, Next.js, Vue, Angular (frontend); Node, TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, Java, .NET (backend); Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis (data); AWS, GCP, Vercel, Docker, Kubernetes (infra). Mobile: Swift, Kotlin, React Native, Flutter. Specific stack requirements confirmed during scoping.
Same as a local hire, joining standups, PR reviews, sprint planning, and retros. Most teams onboard offshore developers identically to local: pairing in week one, ramping into the codebase, shipping a first small feature within 2-3 weeks.
Standard process: portfolio/GitHub review, technical interview (live coding or take-home), and a paid trial task (typically 5-15 hours). We strongly recommend the trial task, it's the most reliable signal on real-world output quality.
Same as a local developer, VPN where required, role-based access in GitHub/GitLab, SSO, MFA. For regulated industries (financial services, healthcare) with stricter access requirements, we discuss controls during scoping.
Replacement commitment within the initial engagement period. If technical fit or output isn't right, we source again at no additional placement cost. Details confirmed in your service agreement.