How Zapier hires worldwide — without compliance guesswork, manual data entry, or administrative friction.

Zapier is an AI orchestration platform that enables organisations to build and automate workflows, deploy AI agents, and connect systems across 9,000+ apps. The company has always been all-remote and distributed, founded on the idea that geography shouldn't determine who can be hired. If the right engineer was based in Poland, Zapier wanted the flexibility to employ them there, or wherever they lived.

The challenge: Compliance risk across borders

Putting that principle into action required hiring beyond the few countries where Zapier already had legal entities. Each new market brought distinct employment laws, tax obligations and compliance requirements, and getting any element wrong created genuine legal exposure. As Laura Del Gaudio, Zapier's Associate General Counsel for Global Employment, explains, "It's really hard to understand compliance globally across hundreds of countries." Zapier adopted an Employer of Record model to close that gap and reduce the risk of misclassification when hiring outside its own entities.

Payroll faced a related problem. As Zapier moved into unfamiliar markets, new entities sometimes went live faster than the lean payroll team could develop local expertise, leaving the team exposed to rules and regulations they hadn't yet mastered.

The solution: One partner for EOR, payroll and HR data

Zapier didn't want another supplier to manage — it needed a partner that would grow alongside its team. It found that partner in Remote, which now supports three integrated layers of Zapier's employment stack: Employer of Record, Global Payroll and a native BambooHR integration.

"What we were looking for was a true partner, not just a vendor-customer relationship."

Laura Del Gaudio, Associate General Counsel, Global Employment

Remote Employer of Record

Remote's EOR allows Zapier to hire compliantly in markets where it has no legal entity, with Remote taking on the contractual responsibility of the employer relationship. That assurance gives Zapier the confidence to hire in more countries.

Remote Global Payroll

In countries such as India and Spain, where Zapier had limited payroll experience, Remote's in-country teams support Zapier's payroll function directly and guide them through unfamiliar regulations. A built-in upload feature also handles Zapier's variable monthly payments, replacing previous manual entry.

BambooHR integration

Zapier uses BambooHR as its system of record for HR data, so a native integration with Remote was essential from day one. With the integration active, updates flow automatically between the two systems: new hires, terminations, address updates and salary changes all sync without anyone editing a spreadsheet.

The impact: Faster hiring, leaner payroll, deeper automation

With Remote deployed across EOR, payroll and HR systems, each area of the business sees different, measurable benefits.

Global hiring: from research to reassurance

Where compliance enquiries once required hours of independent research, Zapier's legal team can now obtain a clear answer quickly from Remote’s responsive team. "Normally, I would have to spend several hours researching; working with Remote, it was less than a half an hour of my time, and I was confident in the information I was getting," Laura says. That certainty comes not just from speed: because Remote is contractually the employer of record, the accountability for getting it right also sits with Remote.

"As an solicitor, I like to see that stuff in writing. They took that on. That is their role. That's why you use a provider like Remote."

Laura Del Gaudio, Associate General Counsel, Global Employment

The result: in the last 6 months alone, Zapier has hired into 8 new countries through Remote's EOR, with further entities, including Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, now moving onto the platform.

Payroll: manual entry replaced, local expertise trusted

On payroll, the upload function that removed manual data entry has produced a tangible time saving: Zapier's team estimates it at up to ~80% of the time previously spent on variable monthly payments. "We don't have to do anything manually anymore, which is great," the team says.

That operational efficiency is matched by a growing reliance on Remote's local payroll specialists, especially in markets Zapier was entering for the first time.

"I speak to Remote’s local teams on a regular basis and get so much help and support from them that I would be truly lost without them."

Fiona Wilson, Senior Global Payroll Specialist

The mix of automation and local know-how has removed payroll as a barrier to where Zapier can expand next.

Integrations: Remote is built to be built on

The BambooHR integration manages the core HR data sync automatically, but Zapier went further. Its People Ops team built a series of Zaps, using Remote’s open API to automate their entire expense workflow in days. From review to approval to posting expenses in Remote, the end-to-end process now runs without manual intervention.

"Our people ops team have built a number of Zaps and agents, which allow us to review expenses with a one-click approval. And once they're approved, they automatically sync to Remote with the API. And that means they're automatically in payroll without having to review them."

Fiona Wilson, Senior Global Payroll Specialist

"It's honestly been a true pleasure to work with the Remote team. Just being able to have that confidence is great for our team’s day to day. That's why we wanted Remote, and they've come through for us on that."

Laura Del Gaudio, Associate General Counsel, Global Employment

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