How Seaplane went from compliance challenges to stress-free global growth

Since 2020, Seaplane has been a breath of fresh air for app developers. With its combination of public clouds, bare metal providers, and edge resources, Seaplane delivers a planet-wide software platform for businesses to run entire application stacks globally, wherever and whenever users need. And it’s not just Seaplane’s services that span the globe — the company itself is 100% remote.

Every global team needs dependable, transparent, and employee-friendly global HR. See why Seaplane trusted Remote to help scale its international workforce.

Seaplane at a glance

Headquarters: Mountain View, California, United States

Founded: 2020

Company size: 20+ employees

Industry: Software development

Seaplane’s founders hail from Ireland, Scotland, South Africa, and the American Midwest (and their employees live everywhere in between). According to CEO and co-founder Niall Dalton, Seaplane’s distributed team strengthens its business.

“We know just by looking around the room that a deeper and more diverse well of personal experiences and professional insights would make for a better product and a stronger organization overall. Our technology is global, so it’s only natural that our team should reflect that.”

Even after Seaplane built a strong remote culture with a team spanning multiple time zones, the company still experienced resource-draining logistical headaches when onboarding workers in different countries. With their Series A financing right around the corner, the company’s leaders knew that rapidly hiring international workers would soon become a critical need. Seaplane needed to streamline its global hiring — immediately.

Future-proofing HR for Seaplane’s global team

How did Seaplane ensure it could quickly hire internationally while navigating compliance with confidence, bolstering its unique company culture, and managing payroll in multiple countries? The solution, according to Niall, came via Remote’s international employer of record solution.

We wanted to have employees in every time zone, which requires juggling many different countries, laws, and languages. It wasn’t really a matter of “if” our international hiring would get too complicated — it was a matter of when.

Niall knew Remote would help the company avoid the headaches of international growth, allowing Seaplane to extend its global team without facing unnecessary challenges.

“We wanted to be proactive in managing that complexity by getting a solid system in place before there was any pain involved.”

Seaplane needed a partner that shared its values of equity, empathy, and inclusion. With Remote, Seaplane gets the best of both worlds: a values-driven partner and the best EOR solution on the market.

• Remote’s employment and compliance experts on the ground around the world give Seaplane the flexibility to hire anywhere.

• Seaplane can now onboard global team members in a fraction of the time.

• With Remote’s easy-to-use self service platform, Seaplane’s HR team no longer struggles managing international employees.

How Remote empowered Seaplane to grow internationally

Before partnering with Remote, one of Seaplane’s biggest challenges was hiring internationally while navigating through the red tape of employment regulations. Added to that was the crucial need to ensure an equitable experience for all of its employees — not an easy task when compliance and benefits packages vary widely from country to country.

For Seaplane, being a globally equitable, inclusive company meant getting it right “from start to finish.” Seaplane needed a partner who could not only handle employment compliance, global payroll, and benefits, but also a company with shared values.

When Niall spoke with Remote’s CEO, Job van der Voort, he knew he had found a kindred spirit.

“I was excited by his approach and enthusiasm. We were both heading up young, remote-only startups right as the pandemic took hold. During our conversation it was clear that Remote, like Seaplane, is very people-first.”

Niall and the other founders at Seaplane knew they had a momentous decision to make when choosing an EOR partner.

We also considered Pilot, Deel, and Oyster, but ultimately Remote’s approach suited us best: from the clean and simple interface, to the focus on employee experience, to transparency in billing and benefits. There’s also excellent support for both employees and for admins.

From the shared company ethos to the robust platform features, Remote was the solution Seaplane needed to take its business to Series A and beyond. No matter the size and scope of Seaplane’s future international expansion, Remote’s product will scale and evolve with it.

Seaplane’s streamlined hiring with Remote

With its Remote partnership, Seaplane no longer has moments of panic when considering how to hire so many more global team members in the months to come. Remote has given Seaplane’s team the self-service tools they need to hire the people they want, when they want them, without worrying about the paperwork.

“It is a huge weight off our shoulders, which is good considering the million and one other things we need to be doing as a young startup. Keeping our focus on finding the right talent with the confidence that we can easily hire them is critical for Seaplane.”

Another advantage is the cost calculator that allows Seaplane to quickly and easily see the details and requirements of hiring talent in a new country.

“The cost calculator helps us structure a compensation package in a matter of minutes, so we can extend offers quickly. From an administrative point of view, managing costs and time spent on admin is always top of mind. The same flat fees for great benefits, across all locations, is great! We love that the invoices are simple and include everything (salary, mandatory social contributions, benefits costs, etc.).”

Seaplane’s employees are also seeing a noticeable financial impact from the partnership with Remote.

Payroll is simple, and it’s easy to add incentives or manage expenses. Compared to other HRIS tools, the interface is clean, intuitive, and constantly improving. We can make great international hires fast, and pass on the savings we get from using Remote to our teams as employee rewards.

What’s next for Seaplane’s global hiring?

Seaplane’s fantastic product and decision to “act locally, deliver globally” has been a runaway hit. The company has recently raised Series A funding from Sequoia, Atlantic Bridge and 8VC, and is poised to grow considerably in the months and years to come.

Seaplane has global job opportunities for talented candidates and is looking to expand its engineering-led organization within the same vision on which it was founded.

“We’re being very mindful about growing in a sustainable way. We don’t want to hire for the sake of hiring or because we just raised a round of funding. We’re really proud of the positive and empowered culture we’ve built, and we want to keep that feeling of inclusion and empathy even as our growth becomes more exponential.”

Along the way, Remote will continue to provide support to Seaplane with robust employer of record services and a shared vision for equitable, remote-first work cultures.

Do you want to enjoy stress-free international hiring like Seaplane? Contact us today to schedule a consultation with one of Remote’s global hiring experts. If you’re ready to get started, you can set up your profile now and begin onboarding employees and contractors around the world in minutes.