DEV Community: Henry Bui

How to Hire Developers in Vietnam: A Step-by-Step Guide

Henry Bui — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 06:32:49 +0000

A practical playbook for international recruiters: from choosing a hiring model to a developer's first productive week.

You have a role to fill, a budget that does not stretch to San Francisco or London rates, and a colleague who keeps saying "have you looked at Vietnam?" The talent is real. Vietnam has an estimated 530,000 software developers, according to Ministry of Information and Communications data, and its universities and training centers add tens of thousands of IT graduates every year.

What most recruiters lack is not interest but a map. How do you legally employ someone? Where do candidates actually look for jobs? How long does it take before they can start? This guide walks you through the process in the order you will actually face it.

Step 1: Decide How You Will Employ Developers in Vietnam

Before you write a job description, settle the legal model. It shapes your costs, your timeline and what you can promise candidates.

Your own legal entity: Best for teams of 15 or more that plan to stay. Setting up a company takes months and requires local accounting and HR support, but gives you full control.
Employer of Record (EOR): A local provider employs the developer on your behalf, handles payroll, social insurance and contracts. This is the fastest compliant route for your first one to ten hires.
Outstaffing or dedicated teams: A Vietnamese software company employs the developers and assigns them to you full time. Common with firms in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Da Nang.
Independent contractors: Simple, but risky for long-term, full-time roles. Vietnamese labor law looks at the substance of the relationship, and developers themselves often prefer a proper employment contract because it includes social and health insurance.

If you are unsure, start with an EOR. You can migrate to your own entity later without losing the people you hired.

Step 2: Define the Role for the Vietnam Market

Job descriptions written for a US or European audience often miss what Vietnamese candidates scan for first. Be explicit about:

Salary range, in VND or USD, and whether it is gross or net: Many Vietnamese candidates still negotiate on net (take-home) pay. Stating "gross" clearly avoids an awkward surprise at the offer stage.
Tech stack and product: Recent Vietnam IT market surveys consistently find that working on an interesting product ranks among developers' top reasons for choosing a job.
English requirement, described honestly: "Daily standups in English with a UK team" is far more useful than "fluent English."
Work arrangement: Remote, hybrid or office, plus the expected meeting hours given the GMT+7 timezone.
Benefits: Private health insurance, a 13th-month salary and a laptop policy are expected by mid-level and senior candidates.

Step 3: Find Developers in Vietnam Through the Right Channels

Vietnam's hiring market runs on a mix of channels. Relying on LinkedIn alone will show you only a slice of the talent pool, typically the more senior and English-confident end.

Local IT job platforms: Most active job seekers in Vietnam start on local tech job boards, which list salaries and are browsed daily.
LinkedIn: Strong for senior engineers, tech leads and people already working for foreign clients.
Facebook groups and developer communities: Vietnamese developers are very active in Facebook groups and on community platforms such as Viblo. A well-written post with a salary range can outperform a paid ad.
Referrals: Personal networks matter a lot in Vietnam. A referral bonus for your first hires can unlock their former colleagues.
Tech events: Meetups in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, often run by Google Developer Groups and AWS user groups, are good for employer branding.

Step 4: Run a Fast, Respectful Interview Process

Good developers in Vietnam often receive several offers at once. A process that takes six weeks will lose candidates to local companies that move in ten days.

Keep it to three or four stages: screening call, technical assessment, technical interview, and a final culture or manager conversation.
Cap take-home tests at three to four hours: Long unpaid assignments are a common reason candidates drop out.
Give feedback within 48 hours after each stage, even if it is a no.
Allow candidates to answer technical questions in writing or code where possible. Many Vietnamese developers read and write English more comfortably than they speak it, so a purely verbal interview can understate a strong engineer.

Step 5: Make an Offer That Lands

A competitive offer to hire developers in Vietnam usually includes more than base salary:

Monthly gross salary, benchmarked by role and seniority. Recent surveys put the median back-end developer at roughly 37.8 million VND per month (about $1,450).
13th-month salary or Tet bonus. Not legally required, but widely expected and usually paid before Lunar New Year.
Statutory insurance. Employers contribute about 21.5% on top of salary (up to a statutory cap) for social, health and unemployment insurance, plus a 2% trade union fee.
Private health insurance, a learning budget, and a clear annual review date.

Put the offer in writing quickly and walk the candidate through the gross-to-net calculation. That small step builds a lot of trust.

Step 6: Plan for Notice Periods and Start Dates

Under Vietnam's 2019 Labor Code, an employee on an indefinite-term contract must give 45 days' notice, and one on a fixed-term contract of 12 to 36 months must give 30 days. Realistically, plan for six to ten weeks from first contact to start date.

Also check the calendar. Hiring in the weeks just before Tet (Lunar New Year, which falls on February 6 in 2027) is slow, because most candidates wait to receive their Tet bonus before resigning. The weeks right after Tet are the busiest job-switching period of the year.

Step 7: Onboard for Retention From Day One

The first month determines whether your new hire stays for years or quietly starts interviewing again.

Ship the laptop and accounts before day one.
Assign a buddy who overlaps with the developer's working hours.
Agree on response-time expectations for chat and code review across timezones.
Hold weekly one-to-ones for the first two months, where feedback flows both ways in private.

Practical Takeaways

Use an EOR for your first hires; build an entity once the team is proven.
Publish a salary range and say clearly whether it is gross or net.
Source beyond LinkedIn: local job platforms, Facebook groups and referrals.
Keep interviews to three or four stages with feedback inside 48 hours.
Budget roughly 21.5% employer insurance plus a 13th-month salary.
Expect six to ten weeks to start date, and plan around Tet.

Hiring developers in Vietnam rewards recruiters who do their homework. The process is not complicated, but it is different: the channels, the calendar and the offer structure all have local rhythms. Get those right and you gain access to a young, ambitious and fast-growing engineering community that is increasingly building products for the world.

If you want to hire tech talent in Vietnam in 2026-2027, consider using vietnamdevs.com platform.

We're the platform that focuses on tech talent who are English speakers, living in Vietnam.

Sources: Vietnam Ministry of Information and Communications workforce data; Vietnam Labor Code 2019; Vietnam Social Insurance Law 2024; Vietnam IT salary and recruitment market surveys 2025-2026.

How to write a tech CV that good?

Henry Bui — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 21:12:29 +0000

If you are pursuing a career in tech, you may need to create a CV for catching and impress the employers. A CV allows you to detail your career accomplishments and educational history to show you’re qualified for the role. Understanding how to format a CV will help you create a compelling document that leaves a positive impression on the hiring committee. In this article, I will describe tell you how to write a good one.

Tech industry is not the same when compare to others, it mainly focus on technical(trending technology, programming,...).

Competition in the labor market these days is enormous, especially for tech jobs. To write a good CV, you need to understand what employers are looking for. Despite of multiple CV be sent to them everyday, most of employers won't read the full CV one by one, they only have a quick look or even using scan tools and catch the keywords that matching their job posting.

So how to write a tech CV that makes employers easy to read and choose you. Here is some basic steps:

1. Make a header clear and simple enough

The header should be simple and clear enough. It should only listing some basic information like full name, date of birth, phone, email, avatar(if possible).

Full Name: you should write it in the CamelCase. Eg. Henry Bui
Date of Birth: companies care about candidate's age in some special roles so please also attach it to your CV.
Phone: many international companies open their office abroad, you should write your phone number with country's dial code so they easy to read and contact you. Your country's dial code can be easy search on internet, this is example for Vietnam.
Email: must have, this is the main way the employer will contact to you.
Avatar: even if it is optional but I would recommend you add it to your CV. It helps employer have a first look at you and increase the chance to get their attraction. Please make sure that use the formal avatar. Keep your face looking straight, bright and radiant and don't laugh too much or make your face looks really silly.

2. Write a short summary to tell who you are

Your professional summary is like a short biography that introduces you to the employer. It should highlights your top qualifications and describes your desired career path.

Tips: don't use too much buzzwords, should included the number and percentage of anything you want to highlight.

Eg: "I am Senior Software Engineer with 8+ years of experience in developing reliable and highly scalable software applications. Mentored and led teams of 10 junior developers to create successful project designs, software testing and quality assurance plans. Implemented cost saving strategies, clear UI/UX design standards and software validation testing, leading to improved customer satisfaction and increased efficiencies."

3. Your Experiences

This is the most important section you should focus on in your whole CV. You should provide as much as work experiences to the employers so they can see your full career path.

Some info you can’t miss in this part:

Your companies, roles and time period.
What you’ve archived while working at those companies?
Research/volunteer jobs you did to contribute to the company/community.
Your skills, technologies were used to finish the job, try to include skills that relate to the job description to make yourself a more desirable candidate.

Most of employer prefer to see your recently company and work so I would suggest order the experiences to show the latest company first.

4 . Education and Certificates(if available)

Most of company now doesn’t care too much about your university but not all. Some still care and ask for the proven.

The most attractive things are the related certificates you have to prove that you’ve got enough skills to work for them.

And also those certificates help the company get more contract from clients so of course you will be more attractive in the employer eyes.

If you have any award or honors, you should also mention it in this section. Please make sure remove the expired certificates due to it’s not necessary and sometimes make your CV too long.

5. Additional Information

This is the last section in your CV, you can add more information about yourself to let employer know more about you. It can be one of these:

A blog you usually use to share your knowledges.
A StackOverflow profile to show that you contribute to the DEV community.
A Github profile with active contributions to the OSS projects.
List of your personal projects.

In summary, just add whatever you want to show to the employer that you have experiences enough to fit with the opening position, and also willing to help other people grow in this tech industry.

By following these tips, including highlighting your relevant skills and experiences, tailoring your CV to each application, and showcasing your projects and achievements, you'll increase your chances of getting noticed by potential employers. Remember, your CV is your first impression to the employers, so make it count!