How Zapier hires around the world – without the compliance guesswork, the manual data entry or the administrative friction.

Zapier is an AI orchestration platform that enables businesses to construct and automate workflows, deploy AI agents, and link systems across 9,000+ apps. The company has always operated fully remotely, founded on the belief that geography shouldn't determine who gets hired. If the ideal engineer was based in Poland, Zapier wanted the flexibility to employ them there, or anywhere else.

The challenge: Cross-border compliance risk

Turning that belief into practice required hiring beyond the few countries where Zapier already maintained legal entities. Every new market brought its own employment statutes, tax obligations and compliance demands. Getting any of it wrong could create real legal exposure. As Laura Del Gaudio, Zapier's Associate General Counsel for Global Employment, puts it, "It's really hard to understand compliance globally across hundreds of countries." Zapier chose an Employer of Record model specifically to close that gap, lowering the risk of misclassification that comes with hiring outside its own entities.

The payroll function faced a similar problem. As Zapier expanded into new territories, entities sometimes went live faster than the lean payroll team could develop the local expertise needed, leaving the team exposed to unfamiliar local rules and regulations.

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

Zapier wasn't looking for another vendor to manage. It wanted a partner prepared to work alongside its team as the company scaled, and it found that partner in Remote, which now underpins three connected layers of Zapier's employment stack: Employer of Record, Global Payroll, and a native integration with BambooHR.

"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 assuming the contractual responsibilities of the employer. That assurance gives Zapier peace of mind as it hires in additional countries.

Remote Global Payroll

In markets such as India and Spain, where Zapier had limited prior payroll experience, Remote's in‑country teams support Zapier's payroll function directly and guide them through unfamiliar rules and regulations. A built‑in upload feature also handles Zapier's variable payments each month, replacing what used to be manual entry.

BambooHR integration

Zapier runs BambooHR as its system of record for HR data, so a native integration with Remote was essential from the outset. Once connected, updates flow automatically between the two systems: new hires, terminations, address changes and salary updates all sync without anyone touching a spreadsheet.

The impact: Faster hiring, leaner payroll, deeper automation

Where Remote covers EOR, payroll and HR systems, the benefits appear across different parts of the organisation.

Global hiring: from research to reassurance

Where compliance questions once meant 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 confidence comes from more than speed: because Remote is contractually the employer of record, the accountability for getting it right sits with Remote too.

"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 six months alone, Zapier has hired into eight new countries through Remote's EOR, with further entities, including Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, now moving onto the platform.

Payroll: manual entry removed, local expertise relied on

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

That efficiency is matched by a growing reliance on Remote's local payroll experts, particularly 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

Automation combined with local expertise has removed payroll as a constraint on where Zapier can expand next.

Integrations: Remote is designed to be built on

The BambooHR integration handles the core HR data sync automatically, but Zapier didn’t stop there. Its People Ops team pushed further by creating 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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