Before HRemotely existed as a service, Marko built and ran the Serbian engineering team at Tymeshift — a US SaaS company later acquired by Zendesk. The structure, hiring approach, and operational model that HRemotely offers today came directly from that experience.
What follows is an honest account of what that looked like: the phases, the decisions, and the outcomes.
35+
Engineers hired
High
Team retention
Full
Ops ownership
Acquired
By Zendesk
Structure & legal setup
Before any hire, the foundation had to be right. This meant establishing a legal entity in Serbia, structuring employment contracts that were locally valid and legally sound, and understanding the compliance requirements that would govern the team long-term.
Getting this phase wrong creates compounding problems — retroactive tax exposure, invalid contracts, or structural blocks to scaling. Getting it right means you build on solid ground from hire one.
Hiring at scale
Hiring 35+ engineers in a single market requires more than sourcing. It requires understanding the local talent landscape, calibrating expectations on both sides, and running a process that produces reliable signal — not just filled seats.
The hiring process was designed from the start to prioritise retention — bringing in engineers who were a genuine fit for the team's working style, not just technically adequate candidates. This is why retention remained high as the team grew.
Ongoing people operations
Once the team was built, the operational layer had to function without drawing management attention from the US side. Payroll, HR processes, performance conversations, local compliance obligations, and team dynamics — all of it was owned locally by Marko.
The goal was simple: the founding team in the US should be able to trust that the Serbian team is well-run, well-supported, and stable — without having to think about it. That's what full operational ownership means in practice.
Outcomes at a glance
35+
Engineers hired and onboarded in Serbia
High
Team retention as headcount scaled
Zero
Operational overhead passed to US leadership
Acquired
Tymeshift acquired by Zendesk while team was running
Marko took full ownership of our Serbia expansion — from entity setup and compliance to hiring and running the team. We grew to 35+ engineers with strong retention, and we never had to worry about the operational side.
The same approach — properly structured, operationally owned — is what HRemotely brings to every engagement.