Hire offshore AI engineers for your US team

Where can a US startup hire offshore LLM engineers?

A US startup has five main routes. Freelance marketplaces and vetted talent networks supply individuals. Nearshore agencies in Latin America and offshore companies in Asia, such as Webify.AI, supply engineers who join your team. You can also hire directly abroad through an employer of record. They differ in price, overlap and who carries the risk if someone leaves.

We are one of these options, so we won't rank them. Here is how they compare on the points that usually decide it. The last row is the onshore option, for comparison.

Sources: Accelerance, 2026 outsourcing rates and KORE1, 2026 contractor bill rates.

Whichever route you take, test the engineer on real work before you commit. LLM job titles vary a lot. Ask what the person has built with retrieval, agents or evaluation, not just which models they have tried.

Our guide to hiring LLM engineers covers the skills to look for and the interview questions that reveal them.

Our rates

Published prices in US dollars. Monthly plans are 160 hours, about 15% below the hourly rate.

Two-week trial with the developer you choose. No charge if you stop within the first five working days. US Eastern clients get 09:00 to 12:00 US Eastern time through an evening shift, at 15% extra. Full pricing and comparisons.

Do offshore AI developers sign NDAs and work under SOC 2?

We sign your NDA before the first call. We are not SOC 2 audited and have no SOC 2 report. Instead, developers are named in the contract, IP is assigned to you and nothing is subcontracted without consent. Code stays in your repositories, a person reviews AI-assisted code, and client code never goes into public AI tools.

SOC 2 is an attestation report. An independent CPA firm examines a company's controls against the AICPA's Trust Services Criteria. A Type I report covers the design of controls at one point in time. A Type II report covers how they operated over a period.

If your customers or investors require every vendor to hold a SOC 2 Type II report, we don't meet that requirement today. It's better you know that before the first call.

• We sign your NDA before the first call.
• You own all the code: IP is assigned to you.
• Developers are named in the contract and never swapped without your agreement.
• No subcontracting without your consent.
• A person reviews all AI-assisted code, and your code never goes into public AI tools.
• Code lives in your repositories, under accounts you control.
• Data-protection terms are agreed before a developer touches personal data.

Because the engineer works inside your systems, your own security controls apply to them. You decide which repositories, tools and data they can reach. Our security page lists the questions to ask any offshore provider, including the ones we answer no to.

What does HIPAA compliant AI development require?

HIPAA applies when a vendor creates, receives, keeps or sends protected health information (PHI) for a covered entity or its business associate. That usually means a business associate agreement (BAA) and your own compliance review. Webify.AI doesn't claim HIPAA compliance or hold any HIPAA attestation. Talk to us before sharing any PHI.

• Ask your compliance team whether the work will involve PHI at all.
• Where possible, keep PHI out of development. Build and test with synthetic or de-identified data.
• If an engineer must handle PHI, your compliance team decides whether a BAA is needed and whether the set-up meets your obligations.
• Ask any vendor what "HIPAA compliant" means in practice. There is no official HIPAA certification for vendors.

Where data must not leave your own infrastructure, we build offline and on-premise LLM systems that run on your hardware. That can limit what leaves your network, but it doesn't replace your compliance review.

How do contracts, invoices and tax forms work for a US company?

You contract with Webify.AI and pay in US dollars. Hourly plans start at 80 hours a month, billed every two weeks against timesheets. Monthly plans of 160 hours are billed in advance. The work is performed in India by Webify.AI, and we provide a W-8BEN-E form on request for your accounts team.

A W-8BEN-E is the IRS form a foreign entity gives a US payer to document its status. Your accounts team will tell you if they need it. Ask your accountant how it applies to your payments.

1. 1

   Send a brief

   The AI work, your stack, the seniority, your start date and whether you want the evening shift.

2. 2

   NDA, then a call

   We sign your NDA before the first call.

3. 3

   Two profiles within 48 hours

   Two named engineers who match the brief, each with their availability.

4. 4

   Interview and choose

   You interview them yourself and pick one. Nobody is assigned from a pool.

5. 5

   Start the trial

   Two-week trial with the developer you choose. No charge if you stop within the first five working days.