11 Reasons Why Australia & New Zealand Hire Remote Software Developers from the Philippines

*Updated February 07, 2024


Since 2010, many entrepreneurs and founders, particularly from Australia and New Zealand, have found a solid strategic partner in Arcanys – so much so that they made us among the Philippines’ top IT staff augmentation providers of highly talented software developers on the review platform Clutch.

How have we managed to do so? We don’t have any top-secret recipes, but we believe these 11 reasons make us a perfect match with Australian and New Zealand businesses.

1. The Philippines is closer than you think.

Cultural fit. The Philippines is one of the closest countries to Australia and has adopted many customs, beliefs, and pop culture of most Western nations, unlike other Southeast Asian countries. The youngest generation in the Philippines grew up learning English and being immersed in Western influences, increasing their language proficiency and cultural affinity even more. In fact, most Filipinos are near-native English speakers, and their speech comes with a neutral accent, which many businesses often struggle to find when outsourcing to other countries.

2. There is little to no time difference with Australia and New Zealand.

It’s only a few hours away by plane—direct to Manila. As a matter of fact, Australia and the Philippines have a 0 to 2 hours difference between them, depending on which state or territory you are in. And only 4 hours difference with New Zealand. Regardless, we can work almost round the clock in complete sync. In fact, 4 hours of work every day would already be more than enough for a successful collaboration with the appropriate processes in place.

3. At Arcanys, we know how you work and what you want.

Arcanys has Swiss founders and a well-rounded team of expats—including architect-level senior engineers, who have had many successful partnerships with Australian and New Zealand businesses. Take for instance the solid alliances we’ve forged with SaaS companies like the fintech Payment Logic or the event management leader Register Now. By supplementing their respective teams with the resources that precisely have the skills, experience, and mindset they need, these two Australian companies have grown much faster, for a fraction of the cost of hiring local employees.

In fact, our co-founder Fred Joye had a chat with Payment Logic Co-founder & CTO Mark Nimco a while back about their incredible growth story and the partnership we built together. Watch the entire insightful talk below:

And of course, with several years of experience building and managing IT companies, we at Arcanys also bring and implement standard international best practices and processes, transparency, and great attention to detail into all the projects we undertake.

4. The country has amazing local talents.

In the Philippines, we see a consistent flow of skilled IT graduates each year. And with a thriving IT-Business Process Management (IT-BPM) sector driving demand, these professionals are quite popular assets. They bring not just technical expertise but also a solid grasp of the English language and Western culture. They're known for their reliability and strong work ethic, making them valuable players in the global IT scene.

At Arcanys, we only hire team players who are passionate about their work. And since we put a lot of effort into finding the right people, we equally strive to keep them. Moreover, we regularly offer our employees incentivized training to learn the latest cutting-edge technologies. On top of that, we boast a strong retention rate, which is probably because of our meticulous and unique process of attracting and retaining great people.

5. Cutting corners is not in our DNA.

We’re not all things to all people. We specialize in technical team extensions and custom software development projects, and we do it well. In fact, we deliver great outcomes without hidden costs or excuses.

And in addition to regular reporting, we utilize a dynamic way to manage projects with Agile Software Development methodologies such as Scrum, Kanban, or XP-practices. Moreover, we use top-of-the-line tools such as Jira, Gitlab, and AWS—to name a few. We also have Project Coordinators who can help with requirements and specifications, project planning, follow-up communications, and sometimes architectural guidance as well.

6. We've built (and keep fostering) a strong company culture.

We strive to create a great working environment that offers not only skill-based compensation and challenging projects but also other amazing perks to keep Arcanytes motivated. We offer extensive opportunities for personal and professional development to all employees such as flexplace and flextime, free membership to a gym of your choice, fun company events, allowances for daily lunches, monthly team building activities, home office setup, work-from-home expenses, and other benefits such as healthcare for the entire family.

As a matter of fact, we are now Great Place to Work certified and we've been voted among the Best Workplaces in IT-BPM for 2023 in the country.

On top of that, we have flat management and an open-door policy that eliminates any power index. This empowers every Arcanyte with the capability to approach anyone in the company if they have concerns or issues for quick resolutions. No wonder they’re happy to share their work experiences and more with other professionals in the industry. Just check out the reviews below. Just check out the reviews below:

7. Transparency and clear communication are top of our game plan.

We have not only excellent English speakers and well-oiled processes and reporting systems but also an innovative management style. All these enable us to maintain seamless, transparent communication with clients—as though everything’s getting done right in your own office.

“I think the most important thing for anybody taking on outsourcing is communication, and I can't stress that enough. With you and your team, everything is so clear. I’ll have one of the team members write a response to something that I might need, and they send me a documented email worded perfectly in perfect English. I mean there's no language barrier. It's like we're in the same town chatting every day. In most companies, unfortunately, you don't get that, you know.”

~ Geoff Robinson, CEO of Koobani


“Well, I think I’ve always been able to communicate very well and effectively with our team members. One of the other, maybe pleasant, surprises for someone who hasn't considered outsourcing is that the team are fluent English speakers and generally communication is not an issue.”

~ Mark Nimco, Co-founder & CTO of Payment Logic

8. Part of the promise: Accessibility, flexibility, and speed.

We have significant experience not only in building tech teams from scratch but also in easily ramping them up or down whenever necessary. And with our in-house recruitment specialists, we maintain a diverse pool of talented programmers, testers, and other tech experts who are ready to be deployed as needed. And since we've worked with several startups before, we know the importance of starting quickly and using time efficiently!

9. Clients are happy to collaborate with us.

We have been working in IT outsourcing for quite some time. In fact, as software engineering specialists since 2010, we’ve been trusted by several hundreds of entrepreneurs from all over the globe. We've built (and continue to do so) robust custom web and mobile solutions that efficiently address every aspect of our clients' technical business needs, no matter how complex they may be. Not to toot our own horn, but you're quite welcome to check out our client reviews in Clutch.

By partnering with valued businesses, including large organizations such as L'Oréal, General Electric, and BNP Paribas, we have become highly proficient in developing custom software solutions and building dedicated technical teams that last. Over the years, we have sharpened our tech expertise and increased our knowledge in Angular, Node.js, AWS, Azure, .NET, Python, iOS, Android, Ionic, C++ and more. We have also expanded our range of services, to give our clients a more extensive offer and make their lives as comfortable as possible with QA & testing, UX/UI design, SysOps, AWS support, technical support, customer support, or even CTO on-demand.

10. Filipinos make excellent, dependable, and dedicated tech teammates.

Perhaps it’s simply a way of life here, but Filipinos know the value of hard work and take great pride in what they do. With their positive work attitude and reliability, as well as their innate service-oriented culture and work ethics, they consistently strive to deliver excellent outcomes and solutions to clients. 

Not only that, at Arcanys, we effectively retain our employees by making sure they're always happy working for us. How? We take care of them and offer them various benefits. And we know they're happy because they recommend us to their friends. In fact, about one in three new hires are employee referrals.

11. You get to explore cost-efficient strategies and reinvest your savings.

In outsourcing, we not only offer the best value for money but also deliver outstanding results, enabling you to incorporate sufficient resources without going over the budget and do things the way you want to do them.

More importantly, we only take projects we believe in, so we don't hesitate to invest our time and resources in them, sometimes powering ambitious founders through tech resources investment. We always strive for excellence in everything we do–after all, if you're going to do something, then you might as well do it right and do it well. Don't you think?

What about you? What are you looking for in a tech partner? Feel free to reach out and start a conversation!