Przemysław Zalewski

Hire developers from Poland

Hire a software developer from Poland

What a senior developer costs in seven countries, why companies hire developers in Poland, and how one senior working with AI agents compares with an agency, a freelancer or an employer of record. Every number has a source. My base rate: 45 USD an hour excl. VAT.

See price and start date →

Przemysław Zalewski

Sound familiar?

Risks of hiring a developer from Poland in 2026, and how I close them

Will a Polish contractor pass our NIS2 supplier review?

Poland’s NIS2 law took effect on 3 April 2026, and NIS2 makes covered companies manage security across their suppliers, contractors included. A contractor who cannot answer your security questions becomes a gap in your own supplier review.

My security and trust pages answer the usual supplier questions up front: where code and data live, who has access, how access ends, NDA as standard. From 2022 to 2024 I handled Sandtime’s security reports myself: I fixed what was real, explained the protections already in place, credited researchers in a public Hall of Fame and applied one bounty policy to everyone.

Is the remote developer I’m hiring really who they say?

On 13 October 2026 the US Justice Department announced charges against North Korean IT worker schemes that used stolen or fabricated identities to land remote jobs at more than 70 US companies, with company laptops kept in US “laptop farms”. Remote hiring now starts with proof of identity.

You can check me before the first call on my trust page: Polish business register entry, NIP, D‑U‑N‑S number, 15+ years of public work and LinkedIn recommendations. The person on the call is the person who writes your code, in your repository and accounts. When hiring, I vetted candidates myself: I checked their public profiles, GitHub history and LinkedIn against what they claimed.

Will a contractor ship AI code nobody checked?

In the Stack Overflow 2026 survey 73% of developers use coding assistants and agents daily, yet 48% say they trust AI when they can easily validate the answer. Someone has to do that checking before the code merges.

I run agents under rules that block a merge mechanically: lint, tests and security gates in CI. In 2026 about two thirds of merged PRs across two products were built with coding agents, and nearly all went through my review or merge.

Facing one of these? Book a free 30‑min call →

What a senior developer costs, country by country

Three views, because no single number tells the whole story: what experienced developers report earning, what employers pay per hour including social contributions, and what senior freelancers charge.

Median yearly pay, back-end and full-stack developers with 10+ years of experience

CountryUSD a yearAnswers
United States162,0001,530
United Kingdom104,829488
Germany87,011538
Poland81,870147
France75,410241
Spain71,929149
India34,872139

My calculation from the public Stack Overflow 2025 survey data: yearly compensation converted to USD by Stack Overflow, respondents who describe themselves as back‑end or full‑stack developers with at least 10 years of work experience. Self-reported; employees and contractors are mixed, and in Poland many seniors work on B2B contracts. Stack Overflow’s own salary pages show five of these countries by role without the experience filter.

Hourly labor cost in the information and communication sector, 2025

CountryEUR per hour
France59.2
Germany58.5
EU average48.2
Spain34.8
Poland29.3

Eurostat: the employer’s full cost per hour worked, including social contributions, across all jobs in the sector, developers and everyone else. The US, UK and India are not covered.

Senior freelance developer rates

WhereUSD per hour
United States95⁠–⁠150
Germany85⁠–⁠140
United Kingdom78⁠–⁠125
Western Europe (region)70⁠–⁠120
Eastern Europe (region)40⁠–⁠85
India25⁠–⁠60

Arc.dev, a hiring platform, May 2026, from a survey of 5,302 freelancers and market benchmarks; the regional rows are averages for all levels. A vendor source, so read it as a range. For comparison, my base rate is 45 USD (40 EUR, 180 PLN) an hour, from 36 to 54 USD by difficulty.

Poland sits between Western Europe and India on price, and inside the EU on law, time zone and contracts. The gap to Germany and France is real, the gap to the US is large, and India is cheaper still: what you trade is time‑zone overlap, legal setup and how much management the work needs. An example: a 3‑month build with me is about 501 hours for $22,500 net ($7,500 a month). The same hours from a senior US freelancer come to about $47,600 to $75,200 at the Arc.dev rates below.

Why companies hire developers from Poland

English

Poland ranks 15th in the EF English Proficiency Index (2025, score 600). Senior developers work in English daily: code, documentation, calls.

EU law and data protection

Poland is in the EU, so GDPR applies directly. For clients in the EU there is no data transfer to arrange, and contracts follow EU rules.

Time zone

Central European Time: the same working hours as Germany, France and Spain, one hour ahead of the UK, and about three shared hours with the US East Coast. My own hours, including evening calls for US clients, are on how I work.

Simple contracting

Most senior developers in Poland run their own business and invoice monthly (B2B). You need no Polish entity and no payroll; EU businesses get a reverse-charge invoice without VAT.

Agency, freelancer, employer of record or direct hire?

Looking at agencies? See the software house rankings: Polish agencies checked in the court register, their filings, client reviews and employee reviews, with paid directory placements excluded.

AspectSoftware houseFreelancer (B2B)Employer of recordDirect hire
You getA team with a project managerThe person you talk toAn employee in Poland, employed on paper by the EORYour own employee
StartsFast, with people on the benchWhen the person is freeAfter recruiting, then weeks of onboardingAfter recruiting and setting up a Polish entity
You pay forRate covering margin, management and benchHours, often with a weekly capSalary, employer costs and a monthly EOR feeSalary, employer costs, entity, accounting
Fits whenYou need several roles at onceYou need one senior who decides and deliversYou want someone long term without a Polish companyYou are building a team in Poland for years

Software house

You get
A team with a project manager
Starts
Fast, with people on the bench
You pay for
Rate covering margin, management and bench
Fits when
You need several roles at once

Freelancer (B2B)

You get
The person you talk to
Starts
When the person is free
You pay for
Hours, often with a weekly cap
Fits when
You need one senior who decides and delivers

Employer of record

You get
An employee in Poland, employed on paper by the EOR
Starts
After recruiting, then weeks of onboarding
You pay for
Salary, employer costs and a monthly EOR fee
Fits when
You want someone long term without a Polish company

Direct hire

You get
Your own employee
Starts
After recruiting and setting up a Polish entity
You pay for
Salary, employer costs, entity, accounting
Fits when
You are building a team in Poland for years

Why me

I am a senior full‑stack engineer in Wrocław with 15+ years of shipping software, working in English with clients in the US and the UK. I build with coding agents every day; the cost estimator shows how that multiplier works and what it depends on. My working rules, in short:

  • NDA is standard; no project, name or screenshot shown without written consent.
  • Code and data stay in your repository and accounts, with AI training turned off.
  • Every project ends with a handover someone outside the project can run from.
  • A stack you can hire for, not an experiment.
  • Autonomy and review matched to your risk appetite, from prototype to regulated.

All principles, the three risk levels and the AI policy →

Patriot Mail: an AI email client through CASA Tier 2 and onto the App Store

The problem
A greenfield AI‑native email client for web, iOS and macOS, built at Sanddev, needed Google’s CASA Tier 2 security assessment before it could read Gmail, and it had to work for older people.
What I did
I was the principal engineer at Sanddev. I wrote the delivery plan, shaped the product vision and treated prompt injection through untrusted email as a design constraint before any model touched a mailbox. CASA and OWASP ASVS controls became a Playwright suite that runs on every pull request. WCAG 2.2 AA sits behind an automated axe gate.
Result
I led CASA Tier 2 to a pass in January 2026, with third-party pentest findings fixed, and led the yearly reassessment, validated in October 2026; the questionnaire turned into a check on every PR. Live on the App Store on iOS and macOS since April 2026. Text scaling to 200% and a calm‑email mode shipped for older users. At that reassessment five items came back for missing evidence; I fixed the code first, then resubmitted updated evidence, and all five were accepted on 27 October.

CASA Tier 2 iOS + macOS WCAG 2.2 AA Open ↗

See also: SaaS & MVP · Mobile & desktop apps

Offer: From an AI‑built MVP to a product people pay for

An AI coding agent as a team member, under enforced rules

The problem
Coding agents write code faster than a team can review it. A team of four wanted the speed without a slop swamp on main.
What I did
I authored the rule set shared by Claude Code and Codex: mechanical checks over written rules, lint and test gates for security, API surface and CSP, agents working on main with hooks, every PR reviewed by a human, AI‑assisted content disclosed as such.
Result
In 2026 about two thirds of merged pull requests across two products were built with coding agents, and nearly all went through my review or merge. I merged 260+ PRs of my own and reviewed 300+ of other engineers’. My commits across those two products went from under 1,000 in 2025 to 7,500+ by October 2026.

~2/3 PRs with agents 300+ reviews 7,500+ commits in 2026

See also: AI & agents · Full‑stack & custom software

Offer: AI engineer for your team (Node.js, LLM agents)

An MCP server from first merge to first external users

The problem
Users of Sandtime.io, the time tracker I built at Sanddev, used by 4,000+ freelancers and teams, wanted to log time from their AI assistants. The API existed, the agent surface did not.
What I did
I set the tool surface, removed destructive tools, routed every operation through the existing REST controllers so an agent gets no wider access than a person, and instrumented adoption per client in PostHog from day one.
Result
First external users. A bot-protection rule that rejected MCP clients by user agent was found and removed the same day because the dashboard showed it.

MCP OAuth adoption dashboard

See also: AI & agents · PostHog & product analytics

Offer: Your company systems inside Claude and ChatGPT (MCP)

Want a number before the call?

Pick the work, from a PR review to an MVP, and the configurator shows the hours, a price range and the earliest start.

See price and start date →

How it works

Three steps from this page to a running project.

  1. 1

    A 30-minute call

    You describe the product and the problem. I ask the questions I would ask on day one.

  2. 2

    Scope in writing

    Within 24 hours after the call you get a short written plan: what we build first, what we measure, how we work together and what it costs. No slide deck.

  3. 3

    Working software in week one

    Deployed, measured and open for your review. After that, the numbers set the pace.

Book a free call Email me instead

Fit check

Is this a fit?

A good fit when

  • You need a senior who owns delivery, not a pair of hands
  • The product has to ship and be measured, with or without a product manager
  • A solo engagement, or one team of up to four that I lead directly
  • TypeScript, React, Node.js, Cloudflare, Postgres, PostHog, and Python when the work needs it

Probably not when

  • A program that needs a ten‑person vendor team
  • A stack built around Java or a cloud I do not work in
  • Body leasing by the hour with no say in how the work is done

Good to know

Facts about working with a Polish contractor

Code rights do not transfer automatically

Copyright in code passes to the employer automatically only for employees. With a B2B contractor, the contract must transfer it in writing, field of use by field of use (Polish Copyright Act).

Future works cannot be assigned wholesale

A transfer covers only fields of use known at signing, and a clause handing over all future works is void for those works (Polish Copyright Act, art. 41).

No labour-code notice periods

A B2B services contract follows the Civil Code rules for mandate, so either side may end it at any time unless the contract says otherwise (Civil Code, art. 746 and 750).

Christmas Eve is a public holiday since 2025

Poland has 14 statutory public holidays, and 24 December became one in 2025 (Public Holidays Act).

Reverse-charge invoices carry fixed wording

A Polish reverse-charge invoice must state “odwrotne obciążenie” (VAT Act, art. 106e).

One week a year the time gap shifts

The EU ends summer time on the last Sunday of October and the US on the first Sunday of November, so the overlap with US teams moves by an hour for that week (EU Directive 2000/84, 15 U.S.C. 260a).

FAQ

Questions

How much does it cost to hire a software developer in Poland?
A senior developer with 10+ years of experience reports a median of about 82,000 USD a year in the Stack Overflow 2025 data, and senior freelancers in Eastern Europe charge roughly 40 to 85 USD an hour. My base rate is 45 USD, 40 EUR or 180 PLN an hour, from 36 to 54 USD by difficulty (pricing). Sources are in the tables above.
Is Poland a good choice for nearshore software development?
For companies in Europe it is the closest match on time zone, law and English at a lower cost than Germany or France. For US companies the overlap is a few hours a day, which works well with written specs and async reviews.
Do developers in Poland speak English?
Poland ranks 15th in the EF English Proficiency Index 2025. In software, English is the working language for code, documentation and client calls.
How do contracts and invoices work with a Polish freelancer?
A business‑to‑business contract and a monthly invoice in USD, EUR or PLN, whichever is easier for you. EU businesses with a VAT number get reverse-charge invoices without VAT; businesses outside the EU (UK, US and elsewhere) get invoices without Polish VAT. You do not need a Polish entity. Details on pricing.
Should I use an employer of record instead?
If you want a full‑time employee for years and have no Polish company, an employer of record is a fair option. For one senior who builds and decides, a B2B contract is simpler and starts sooner.
Can I start with something small?
Yes. The usual first step is a review of one pull request (2 to 4 hours, 72 to 216 USD excl. VAT) or a one‑week code audit (1,080 to 2,160 USD excl. VAT). You see how I work before committing to anything bigger.
Who owns the code a Polish B2B developer writes?
Not the client automatically; that rule covers employees only. The contract must transfer the rights in writing and name the fields of use (Polish Copyright Act).
What notice period applies to a Polish contractor?
No labour-code notice: under the Civil Code either side may end a services contract at any time unless the contract sets a period (Civil Code). That is why good contracts agree one.
Will a Polish contractor pass our NIS2 supplier review?
Poland’s NIS2 law took effect on 3 April 2026, and NIS2 makes covered companies manage security across their suppliers, contractors included. A contractor who cannot answer your security questions becomes a gap in your own supplier review. My security and trust pages answer the usual supplier questions up front: where code and data live, who has access, how access ends, NDA as standard. From 2022 to 2024 I handled Sandtime’s security reports myself: I fixed what was real, explained the protections already in place, credited researchers in a public Hall of Fame and applied one bounty policy to everyone.

Sources

  1. Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025, public results (Apache‑2.0 repository, ODbL data)
  2. Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025, Work: salaries
  3. Eurostat, labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity (lc_lci_lev), 2025
  4. Arc.dev, “How Much Do Freelance Developers Cost?”, May 2026
  5. EF English Proficiency Index 2025, Poland

In 30 minutes you will know if we are a fit

You bring the problem, I bring the questions. Want a number first? The configurator shows hours, a price range and the start date.

Book a free 30‑min call Email me instead

or write to ciunkos@gmail.com

After you book you get a calendar invite. Nothing else to fill in.

My pledge

  • Reply within 24 hours. I reply within 24 hours on working days, personally, not a bot. Weekend messages: by Monday noon.
  • Late means free. If I am late, the first hour of work is free. You do not have to ask.
  • Scope in writing within 24 hours. A free 30‑minute call with no company deck, then the scope and the price in writing within 24 hours. You decide.
  • The person who does the work. You talk to the person who does the work. No sales layer, no handoff.
  • Follow‑up only with news. I follow up only when I have something new for you. Never a “did you see my offer”.
  • Honest “not a fit”. If I am not the right person, I say so on the call and point you to someone who is.

Calls this week · work can start now · B2B contract · Wrocław, Poland (CET), remote

You own the code, domain and accounts from day one. Nothing is held hostage.