DIY hiring through SethAI. India-handled operations.
You pick the engineer. They're our full-time employee. We run their payroll, PF, gratuity, equipment, health insurance, and every line of Indian labour law. You sign one B2B services contract and pay one foreign-currency invoice. No India entity, no EOR, no payroll burden on your side.
Managed staff augmentation done right. One vendor for talent and operations. Faster than an entity, simpler than EOR-plus-sourcing.
The split, in one sentence
You manage the work. We manage everything around it. The engineer shows up to your standup like an in-house hire, because operationally, on the India side, they are one.
You handle
Pick the engineer
Use SethAI in DIY mode to filter by stack, seniority, and timezone. Interview the shortlist directly. You choose. We don't gate the decision.
Set the scope and the bar
Tickets, sprint goals, code review standards, OKRs. Day-to-day direction is yours. We're not in the Slack, we're not in the standup, we're not in your decisions.
Run the engineer like a member of your team
Direct comms, your tools, your processes. The engineer takes ownership the same way an in-house hire would. You manage the work, not the wrapper around it.
We handle (everything else)
Seven categories of operational and legal work that would otherwise sit on your CFO, your General Counsel, and an India-based HR head you'd have to hire.
Scroll for the line-by-line list.
What we handle, line by line
Every category below is something a US, UK, or Canadian buyer would otherwise have to set up themselves through a local entity, an EOR, an India HR consultant, and a tax advisor. We collapse it into one vendor and one monthly invoice.
Employment & payroll
- •Engineer is a full-time WorkforceNext employee under Indian law (not your employee)
- •Monthly payroll processing in INR, on time, every month
- •TDS deduction and quarterly filing with Income Tax Department
- •Form 16 issued to the engineer annually
- •Salary revisions, bonus payouts, retention adjustments
Statutory compliance
- •Provident Fund (PF) contributions, employer and employee shares
- •Employee State Insurance (ESI) where applicable
- •Professional Tax in the relevant Indian state
- •Gratuity accrual under the Payment of Gratuity Act
- •Labour Welfare Fund contributions
- •Statutory and earned leave tracking
Benefits & retention
- •Group health insurance (engineer + dependents)
- •Term life and personal accident cover
- •Annual leave, casual leave, sick leave per Indian norms
- •Festival bonus, retention bonus structures we've found work
- •Career advisory check-ins to catch flight risk early
Equipment & workspace
- •Laptop, monitor, keyboard, headset, provisioned and shipped on day one
- •MDM-managed device with security baseline (FileVault, password policy, backups)
- •Optional co-working desk in the engineer's city if they prefer it to home
- •Equipment refresh cycle and offboarding return process
Tax, invoicing & FX
- •GST-compliant monthly invoice raised to your entity in your local currency
- •FIRC handling on the India side, so no FEMA/RBI exposure on yours
- •USD, GBP, CAD invoicing supported. SWIFT or Wise
- •Annual TRC (Tax Residency Certificate) and Form 10F for double-tax treaty benefit
Contracts, IP & security
- •Master Services Agreement plus per-engagement Statement of Work
- •Full IP and work-product assignment to your entity (no shared rights)
- •NDA signed by every engineer, mirrored to your terms
- •Background verification (employment, education, criminal, address)
- •DPDP Act compliance for any personal data we hold on your behalf
HR operations
- •Onboarding (offer letter, joining kit, day-one access)
- •Performance review cadence, scaled to your preferences
- •PIP and exit handling under Indian labour law if it ever comes to that
- •Reference letters and Form 16 on exit
- •Replacement at no cost if an engineer leaves in the first 90 days
Who does what: the responsibility table
Print this and give it to your CFO. It's the single page that answers most procurement questions.
| Area | You | WorkforceNext |
|---|---|---|
| Source the engineer | Pick from SethAI shortlist | Source, screen, shortlist |
| Interview & decide | Yes, direct interviews | Coordinate logistics |
| Day-to-day direction | Tickets, standups, code review | Stay out of it |
| Salary & raises | Approve adjustments | Benchmark, run payroll |
| Indian payroll & TDS | Nothing | All of it |
| PF, ESI, gratuity | Nothing | All of it |
| Health insurance & leave | Nothing | All of it |
| Equipment & MDM | Nothing | All of it |
| GST invoicing & FX | Pay one USD/GBP/CAD invoice | Raise compliant invoice in INR + your currency |
| IP transfer & NDA | Sign once at MSA | Per-engineer, mirrored |
| Performance reviews | Provide input | Run the cadence |
| Retention & flight-risk | Flag concerns | Monthly advisory + intervention |
| Exit & replacement | Notify | Handle exit, replace at no cost |
Instead of three different vendors
Most teams hire in India one of three ways. Each comes with a specific tax. Here's how the math compares.
Instead of
Setting up your own India entity
₹15–40 lakh in legal, tax, and HR setup. 4–6 months. Then ongoing compliance overhead, an India-based HR head, and FEMA exposure on your books.
With us
You don't need an entity. The engineer is our employee, not yours. You sign one B2B services contract with our Indian entity. First engineer onboarded inside two weeks.
Instead of
Pairing an EOR (Deel, Remote, Multiplier) with a separate sourcing firm
EORs are a payroll wrapper that lets you employ someone in India directly. You still have to source, screen, and retain talent yourself, and you carry an indirect employer relationship that adds compliance overhead in some structures.
With us
We're not an EOR. We're managed staff aug. The engineer is our employee, you're our customer. You source through SethAI, sign one services contract, and the entire employment relationship sits on us.
Instead of
Traditional Indian staff aug (TCS, Infosys, tier-2)
Pyramid staffing, T&M billing, account-manager buffer, subcontracting risk. You don't pick the engineer. You pay rack rate plus margin on a body shop.
With us
Same legal model (staff aug), done differently. You pick the engineer through SethAI. No pyramid, no buffer, no subcontracting. (See /not-another-body-shop/ for the full breakdown.)
Procurement and CFO questions, answered
Are you an EOR or a staff augmentation company?
EOR solves the legal employment problem. Staff augmentation solves the talent problem. We solve both, plus we manage retention and performance, so you get one engineer, one contract, one monthly invoice, and zero compliance headaches.
What does the engineer's compensation actually cost us?
You pay one all-in monthly fee in your currency. That fee covers the engineer's gross salary, employer-side PF, gratuity accrual, ESI/insurance, equipment amortisation, payroll/compliance ops, and our margin. You don't get separate line items for PF or insurance. It's one number, predictable month to month, indexed to the role and seniority.
Who owns the IP the engineer produces?
You do, fully. The MSA includes a full IP and work-product assignment from WorkforceNext (and from each engineer individually) to your entity. There's no shared ownership, no licence-back, and no India-resident IP retention. The assignment holds under the Indian Copyright Act and is enforceable in your jurisdiction.
What happens at notice / termination?
You give 30 days notice on the services contract (no 12-month lock-in). The engineer remains our employee. We serve them notice per Indian labour law, pay any statutory dues (gratuity if applicable, leave encashment, final settlement), and handle the exit. You don't carry any of that. If you want a replacement instead of an exit, we shortlist within 48 hours and the swap is at no extra fee in the first 90 days.
How do GST and our invoice work?
We raise a GST-compliant B2B services invoice from our Indian entity to your foreign entity. Because the service is exported, it qualifies as a zero-rated supply under Indian GST, so no GST is added to the amount you pay. We handle the LUT (Letter of Undertaking) filing on our side. You receive the invoice in USD, GBP, or CAD and pay by SWIFT or Wise. We handle the FIRC (Foreign Inward Remittance Certificate) on the India side.
What benefits does the engineer actually get?
Group health insurance for the engineer plus spouse and up to two children, term life and personal accident cover, statutory leave (12 casual + 12 sick + earned leave that accrues), full PF and gratuity, festival and retention bonuses, equipment, and access to monthly engineering advisory. The benefit package is one of the reasons our 12-month retention is well above industry. Engineers don't leave for marginal pay bumps when the package is good.
Can we run a background check on the engineer?
We run one before placement: employment verification (last three employers), education verification (degree authentication), criminal record check, and address verification. We share the report with you. If you want an additional check from your preferred vendor (HireRight, Sterling, Cisive), we'll cooperate fully.
What about data privacy and DPDP Act / GDPR?
The engineer handles your data subject to your tools, your access controls, and your data processing terms, same as any in-house hire. WorkforceNext as a vendor only holds engineer-side personal data (their PAN, Aadhaar, salary records) and we comply with India's DPDP Act on that. We sign a DPA with you on request and we can mirror your GDPR requirements where they extend extraterritorially.
Pick the engineer. Skip the entity.
15-min call. We walk you through the MSA, the invoice format, the statutory inclusions, and a sample first-month onboarding plan. You leave with the documents whether you hire us or not.