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74% of employers worldwide struggle to fill positions in their companies. This challenge is even more pressing in the IT sector. With 76% of hard-to-fill roles, hiring experienced software engineers is a true talent race. Is there a magic wand to overcome this? Even better: with a 250,000 tech talent pool and a thriving tech economy, Romania is ranked as the #10 most attractive offshoring destination in Europe. But what exactly makes Romanian software developers stand out from the crowd?
I’m Maryna Panchuk, Head of IT Recruitment at Alcor—a tech R&D accelerator that helps product tech companies launch their R&D teams in Eastern Europe and Latin America. With our all-in-one solution that combines seamless Employer of Record (EOR), Silicon Valley-grade recruitment, and full operational support, our clients scale their teams from 10 to 100 elite developers within a year.
This article covers everything you need to know about the Romanian software developer portrait, reasons to work with these experts, a comparison of hiring costs in Romania and the US, as well as the most effective way to collaborate with local talent. Keep reading to discover all that—and even more, including relevant data on the average software engineer salary in Romania.
Key Takeways
- Romanian developers are well-educated specialists with solid tech backgrounds and expertise in AI, cybersecurity, and fintech. They also hold the top position in the CEE region in terms of English proficiency. In addition, Romanian engineers are known for their strong business culture, team-oriented mindset, and commitment to creating a positive work environment.
- Among the key reasons to hire talent in Romania are its vast pool of 250,000+ tech specialists, a thriving tech ecosystem, government-backed IT tax incentives, and time zone overlap with Western markets.
- One of the most attractive features of this destination is Romanian developers’ salary rates, which are approximately 40% lower than in the US—without compromising quality.
- The most common cooperation models to hire Romanian developers include building an in-house team or turning to outstaffing/outsourcing vendors. But if you’re looking for the most comprehensive and scalable solution, consider setting up your own R&D center, which can cut costs and ensure high-quality product development.
Romanian Software Developer Portrait
Romania is now the #5 country in the region for the best tech talent. But what’s behind this impressive ranking? Let’s take a closer look at what sets Romanian developers apart.
- STEM education: Around 27 universities in Romania offer engineering, programming, cybersecurity, and other tech-oriented programs, graduating up to 10,000 Bachelor and Master engineers annually. Among the most prominent institutions are the Politehnica University of Bucharest, the Politehnica University of Timisoara, and the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca — all recognized in the QS World University Rankings 2025.
- Tech expertise: Ranked #1 in Europe and #6 globally in terms of certified tech specialists per 1,000 inhabitants, Romanian developers possess strong hands-on programming skills and outstanding expertise in AI, cybersecurity, IoT, FinTech, embedded software development, and the future of programming. Proficiency in languages such as Java, JavaScript, С/C++, C#, and Python strengthens their tech stack and further boosts their professional profiles.
- English proficiency: #1 in CEE and #12 worldwide, Romania boasts a high knowledge of English. Besides this, many Romanian IT specialists are often fluent in French, Italian, or even German, making cross-border communication seamless.
- Soft skills: Romanian developers foster a work culture deeply aligned with international business values. On the one hand, they respect formal structures and willingly adhere to clearly stated rules. On the other hand, they value personal connections and mutual trust, enabling them to adapt to Western workplace ethics and collaboration styles quickly. Their strong communication skills, openness, and readiness to work in teams make them valuable assets for any international project.
Reasons Tech Businesses Work with Romanian Developers
The reasons to hire Romanian coders or turn to dedicated teams in Romania are countless, but I am going to focus on those that matter the most to product tech companies and startups from abroad:
Big development pool
In 2025, Romania is home to 250,000 tech specialists and 3 in Eastern Europe by the number of people employed in the tech field, after Poland and Ukraine. Most developers are located in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, and Iași, which serve as the leading tech hubs, while Timișoara and Sibiu are considered emerging ones.
Developed tech landscape
Today, Romania ranks 8th regionally in the Global Startup Ecosystem Index. The country hosts over 7,290 software enterprises, 1,662+ startups, 3 unicorns, UiPath and eMAG, and MultiverseX, with a total of $21.2 billion in enterprise value. Top sectors? IT&C, fintech, gaming, media, and marketing. Thanks to thriving tech hubs in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, and Iasi, along with a favorable A3 business environment, the country opens up opportunities for tech companies like yours to enjoy beneficial business expansion.
Attractive tax incentives
Thanks to government tax incentives for the tech industry, your company can benefit from an additional 50% deduction on R&D expenses and accelerated depreciation for R&D equipment. You can also qualify for a 10-year profit tax exemption if your company is exclusively focused on innovation and R&D, maximizing long-term financial gains.
Perfect time zone overlap
Romania is located in the GMT+3 time zone and is situated in the heart of Eastern Europe.
But how can you actually benefit from this? If you are…
- Europe-based tech company: Romania is only 2–4 hours away by plane from France, Italy, Spain, and all the rest of Western & Nordic Europe while sharing the same time zone as most EU countries. This allows for real-time cooperation and ensures smooth collaboration across your teams.
- US-based tech company: With a general time overlap of 7–8 hours with major American cities like New York, Washington D.C., and Chicago, Romania creates a round-the-clock development cycle for your product and a true win-win situation for your tech company. While you’re resting at night, Romanian developers will be working on your tasks, which will be fulfilled by the time you start your new day.
Competitive employment costs
Did you know that you can save up to by hiring tech talent from Romania? Plus, you won’t have to overpay for hiring services and employee benefits, which will cost you twice less compared to hiring specialists in the US:
- Annual income: The average salary of a senior developer in Romania is $71,600, while their counterparts in the United States make as much as $118,600 annually.
- Recruitment fees: When working with a hiring agency, you typically pay a one-time fee based on the tech engineer’s annual salary. In Romania, as in much of Eastern Europe, this fee usually ranges from 15% to 25%, depending on the position and tech stack. In the US, it’s higher, around 25% to 35% of the developer’s annual salary.
- Benefits package: In Romania, the cost of a basic benefits package is about $6,350 per tech professional/year, whereas in the US, it’s more than twice as high, approximately $15,400 per year.
To sum up: When estimating the average budget your tech company might spend on a senior software engineer, the figures are approximately per year in the US, compared to $92K per year in Romania.
Are you curious about the Romanian software developer’s salary? Let’s take a look at the rates across different tech sectors.
Romanian Developer Salaries
Let’s take a look at the Romanian software developer salary in different tech spheres.
| Sphere | Average Gross Annual Income, USD |
| Cloud Engineer | $84,000 |
| Blockchain | $82,000 |
| Video Game | $52,000 |
| Java | $81,600 |
| RPA (Robotic Process Automation) | $78,000 |
| Web | $72,000 |
| VR | $77,000 |
Sources: Glassdoor, Erieri
The highest-paying spheres are Cloud and Blockchain: they top the ranks with an average of $84,000 and $82,000 programmer salary in Romania. Java, RPA, and VR come next, with yearly wages amounting to $81,600, $78,000, and $77,000, respectively. Finally, a Video Game software developer’s salary in Romania is considerably lower—$52,500 annually.
Now, how does a software engineer’s salary in Romania reflect against remuneration in the USA?
Romanian vs American Developers: Salaries Contrast
Despite the fact that both Romanian and American developers possess excellent tech expertise, the difference in salary levels is quite striking. So, let’s take a look at the table with data on the average annual salary of different developers in Romania and the US. Please note that middle developers typically have 3–5 years of experience, while senior developers have 5–8 years of experience.
|
Positions |
Middle |
Senior |
||
|
Romania |
USA |
Romania |
USA |
|
|
PHP Developer |
$48,000 |
$84,000 |
$72,000 |
$102,000 |
|
Python Developer |
$48,000 |
$106,800 |
$81,000 |
$126,000 |
|
C/C++ Developer |
$54,000 | $96,000 | $78,000 | $114,000 |
|
Mobile Developer |
$57,600 |
$102,000 |
$81,600 |
$114,000 |
|
Game Developer |
$52,500 |
$100,000 |
$74,500 |
$140,000 |
|
Data Scientist |
$42,000 |
$108,000 |
$54,000 |
$126,000 |
|
DevOps Developer |
$60,000 |
$108,000 |
$81,600 |
$138,000 |
|
ML Developer |
$54,000 |
$102,000 |
$78,000 |
$132,000 |
|
Embedded Developer |
$50,400 |
$93,600 |
$74,400 |
$110,400 |
|
AI Developer |
$54,000 |
$108,000 |
$78,000 |
$132,000 |
As you can see from the compensation table comparing Romanian vs American developers, Romanian developers’ rates range from $42,000 to $81,600, whereas in the United States, the average salary stands between $84,000 and $140,000. The 40% gap between the rates of senior Romanian app developers and Romanian game developers and the salaries of their American counterparts is quite significant.
Conclusion: Software development in Romania is more cost-efficient than in the United States, yet without compromising quality.
Romanian Developers: Key Things to Consider Before Hiring
Once you’ve set your mind to hiring seasoned software developers in Romania, you should ask yourself the following questions:
- What technical skills do you lack in your company?
- How many programmers do you need to hire?
- What level of seniority should they have?
- How much money are you ready to spend on salaries and employee maintenance?
- And the most essential one: Are you prepared to manage them yourself or via a third party?
The answers to these critical questions will help you understand which cooperation model will suit you best—outsourcing, outstaffing, building an in-house team, or maybe something else…
Your Own R&D Center and Other Ways to Hire Romanian Developers
Let’s take a look at the key metrics to consider when choosing the ideal cooperation model — and find the one that fits best for working with Romanian programmers.
1. Building your own R&D center
As an innovative tech R&D accelerator, Alcor offers a comprehensive solution for companies that want to build their own R&D teams in Romania, Poland, Ukraine, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia. With us, you get much more than just recruitment services:
- EOR in Romania: A comprehensive service package that includes 100% legal and compliance support, developer onboarding/offboarding, payroll processing, and employee benefits management—all without the need to set up your own legal entity.
- A to Z tech hiring: The first 5 Silicon Valley-caliber coders during one month of collaboration and 30 developers in 3 months. The cherry on top: 98.6% of our candidates successfully pass the probation period and stay with our clients for an average of 2.5 years.
- Vital operational support: The office lease, equipment procurement, and WFH setup–everything needed for a comfortable and efficient work environment.
Need proof that the solution works? Here’s a real case of BigCommerce, one of the biggest e-commerce solutions providers in the world.
After years of challenges with outsourcing providers, the company found Alcor’s game-changing R&D center solution. We hired 30 talented Eastern European developers for them within just 6 months. Besides tech recruitment, we also found a perfect office for their R&D team, took care of payroll and taxes, and managed all legal operations, including compliance with GDPR requirements. And the best part — the company went public in 2020 and gained recognition thanks to its talented Eastern European team.
2. Using recruitment services
Recruitment service providers are companies that take on the hiring process end-to-end to hire perfectly fitting developers in Romania. You can assign your recruitment partner to consult you on the Romanian tech market, headhunt rare software engineers, perform executive searches to find C-suite experts, onboard new hires, and draw retention plans.
However, it’s important not to overlook the drawbacks of this model: the lack of Employer of Record services and, most importantly, the need to register a legal entity and manage essential operational services on your own or outsource all these tasks to several different providers. So, what should you do?
Your best solution: Partner with those who provide a comprehensive solution, like Alcor. We handle everything from tech hiring to legal and compliance support. Our clients save up to 3.5 months on establishing a legal entity — because we’ve already done it for them!
That’s exactly how Tonic Health, a Silicon Valley product tech company developing software for patient data collection, benefited. By launching an R&D center and running an employer branding campaign for Tonic Health, we helped them tackle offer rejections from senior tech specialists and start hiring 5–6 developers each month.
3. Hiring Romanian developers in-house
Big technological companies such as Google, Samsung, Huawei, and Amazon established their R&D branches in Romania to hire local developers in-house. They spent months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to form departments of competent recruiters, lawyers, and payroll specialists, open their legal entities, and test different strategies to streamline the expansion process.
Your best solution: If you don’t have enough time to recruit Romanian coders on your own or the internal capacity to manage all the admin processes, it’s better to consider other cooperation models. With Alcor, you can hire Romanian developers via our legal entity and delegate all these back-office tasks to us so you can stay focused on what matters most—developing your product!
4. Cooperating with outstaffing vendors
This engagement model applies not only to IT giants but also to middle-sized or even small-sized companies. The main idea of outstaffing is to cooperate with an outside provider from Romania that lets you lease a dedicated software team. This development team is often already formed by your vendor, so you don’t have to worry about recruitment or training.
On the flip side, such teams demonstrate low dedication to the client’s product and are more challenging to manage because they don’t perceive you as their primary employer. Romanian developers hired via outstaffing will probably require more investments than you initially planned if your project needs adjustments and fixes. However, the biggest risk is the potential loss of your core internal expertise and investments, as it’s not your own team developing the software. And if you decide to buy out these specialists and bring them in-house, you’ll have to spend thousands of dollars per developer.
Your best solution: With Alcor, your development team belongs to you from day one and is fully integrated into your culture and practices. Plus, with zero buy-out and setup fees and clear, risk-free cooperation, this offer becomes even sweeter.
5. Working with outsourcing providers
IT outsourcing is often mistaken for outstaffing, while in reality, this model offers you the chance to delegate custom product development to your provider fully. You might save costs and free up more time for other core tasks that you’re responsible for if you decide to opt for IT outsourcing to Romania. But in the long run, you may face hidden costs for the services you didn’t request if your provider is unreliable.
Moreover, it is a common practice for outsourcing providers to sell junior talents at the rates of mid-level specialists. Furthermore, such cooperation might even put your sensitive data and IP rights protection at risk if the security of your vendor’s system is weak. For many product software companies, outsourcing might not be the best option to hire Romanian developers.
Your best solution: Maintain transparent communication with your provider, clearly define the scope of services in advance, and don’t forget about information security—always sign NDAs with developers. At Alcor, we ensure 100% legal compliance, protect your confidential information, and provide a full liability shield.
To sum up, choosing the right model to hire developers in Romania comes down to finding the best fit for your needs, budget, level of control, and security you need.
As you can see, with the perfect mix of cost-efficiency, quality, and speed, the R&D center model is the go-to solution for tech product companies. Want proof? 93% of our clients are satisfied with the results.
Ready to build your own R&D team in Romania? Let’s have a chat!
References
- ManpowerGroup Global Talent Shortage 2025
- The 2023 Kearney Global Services Location Index
- Emerging Europe: Future of IT 2024
- EduRank
- EF English Proficiency Index
- Cultural Atlas
- Global Startup Ecosystem Index
- Vestbee Romanian Startup & VS Ecosystem Report
- IBIS World
- Coface Business Risk Dashboard
FAQ
How many developers are there in Romania?
As of 2025, Romania has more than 250,000 software engineers, and its talent pool grows each year with 10,000 fresh tech specialists. Moreover, Romania ranks #3 in Europe in terms of the number of people employed in tech.
Why should you hire Romanian programmers?
Reason 1: Coders in Romania are well-educated thanks to the variety of educational opportunities in Romania and the European Union.
Reason 2: Western companies find them easy to communicate with due to their similar work ethics and high level of English.
Reason 3: Companies can benefit from low payroll income taxes and some of the lowest salaries in the CEE region, making Romania one of the most financially attractive tech hubs in Europe.
What is the difference between Romanian & American developer rates?
The rates of developers in Romania are usually lower by up to 1.8 times than the rates of American programmers. For example, a senior data scientist in Romania earns $71,600 per year in general, while a senior data scientist from America receives $132,000.
What is the most secure & efficient way to hire developers in Romania?
The best way for tech companies to collaborate with Romanian developers is by building their own tech R&D centers. This approach gives you a Silicon Valley-grade development team fully dedicated to your product from day one, full protection of your intellectual property rights, and 100% employer of record and operational support — all under one roof.