Papaya Gaming – High-bar tech recruitment in Poland for a global Israeli gaming provider

Tatia Tatoshvili

Last updated on October 10, 2025 | 15 min read

Introduction

Scaling a high-performance team in the gaming sector is about more than filling seats. It requires securing niche skill sets, aligning with demanding technical standards, and meeting the expectations of a fast-moving, global audience.

When Papaya Gaming, a fast-growing Israeli gaming powerhouse behind titles like Bubble Cash and 21 Cash, set out to build a software team in Warsaw, Poland, they partnered with DevsData LLC for expert recruitment across both their B2C mobile games and B2B casino platforms. This case study explores how DevsData successfully delivered a full spectrum of high-level hires, including QA, design, backend, Unity, and data engineering, helping Papaya Gaming scale in one of Europe’s most competitive talent markets.

Client overview

Papaya Gaming, headquartered in Israel, is a global gaming company specializing in high-performing mobile games and B2B casino platforms. With nearly 500 employees and an annual revenue of approximately $35 million, the company is making a significant impact in the regulated gaming space. With a strong focus on innovation, user engagement, and regulatory compliance, Papaya operates at the intersection of entertainment and technology, serving millions of users globally.

As both a publisher of proprietary mobile games and a backend provider for casino platforms, the company demands exceptional technical precision, especially in areas tied to payments, data handling, and cross-platform performance. To support its international expansion, Papaya Gaming set up a key engineering hub in Warsaw, Poland. To build this team, the company partnered with DevsData LLC to source and recruit elite talent across quality assurance, development, design, and data disciplines, ensuring every hire could meet the demands of a fast-moving, regulation-aware, and globally competitive gaming environment.

Challenge

As Papaya Gaming ramped up its strategic presence in Poland, the company encountered a unique set of recruitment challenges. These were shaped by the niche nature of the roles, the demands of a regulated global gaming environment, and Papaya’s uncompromising standards for technical and creative excellence.

Multi-disciplinary, high-responsibility role requirements

Papaya Gaming wasn’t hiring for routine roles. Instead, the company sought elite professionals across multiple technical and creative domains, each with deep specialization and prior experience in gaming, fintech, or mobile-first product ecosystems. The positions demanded strong domain expertise, architectural thinking, and the ability to contribute to core systems in a distributed, compliance-heavy environment.

Papaya Gaming was not looking to hire a single specialist. Instead, it set out to establish a complete, integrated team in Warsaw spanning engineering, quality assurance, design, and data. Each role came with demanding requirements, and together they formed the backbone of a new hub that had to operate at the same standard as the company’s Tel Aviv headquarters.

Bringing together such a diverse mix of senior specialists required more than filling isolated roles. DevsData LLC treated this as a team-building mission, ensuring every hire complemented the others and contributed to a cohesive, performance-driven engineering culture in Warsaw.

Gaming sector complexity and regulatory oversight

As a hybrid gaming provider, building both its own mobile titles and supplying platforms for online casinos, Papaya Gaming faced stringent regulatory requirements. This demanded a higher standard of code reliability, testing rigour, and operational transparency. Candidates had to be comfortable navigating compliance-focused environments while maintaining high development velocity and user experience standards.

Sourcing in a competitive, talent-constrained market

Even in a tech-forward city like Warsaw, candidates matching Papaya’s talent bar were rare. Many had long-standing commitments or were hesitant to move without strong technical leadership and compelling projects. The need to engage top performers, often passive candidates, called for tailored outreach, refined positioning, and extensive pipeline curation.

Strategic importance of the Polish team

The Warsaw office wasn’t intended to be a satellite, it was a core extension of Papaya’s global team. New hires had to demonstrate long-term commitment, cultural adaptability, and the maturity to influence internal workflows and cross-functional processes.

Given the complexity and stakes of these hires, Papaya Gaming required a recruitment partner with proven expertise in sourcing elite tech talent, conducting deep technical evaluations, and navigating high-pressure hiring cycles in competitive sectors. DevsData LLC was selected to lead this effort.

DevsData LLC’s approach and solution

At DevsData LLC, we view recruitment as a long-term enabler of product excellence rather than a simple resourcing function. For Papaya Gaming, a global gaming provider with strict regulatory requirements and exceptionally high hiring standards, we implemented a bespoke recruitment framework designed for precision, speed, and scalability across development, quality assurance, design, and data roles.

Tailored methodology

This methodology drew on insights from similar high-complexity engagements. For Txodds Ltd., a London-based sports betting data provider, we recruited a senior DevOps engineer to strengthen compliance-ready infrastructure and support large-scale, real-time gaming data platforms in a tightly regulated environment. In parallel, our long-term partnership with Kroll, Inc., involving backend and big-data projects tied to sensitive financial data, shaped our expertise in building secure, compliance-ready pipelines and engineering teams. These experiences strengthened our ability to combine passive candidate sourcing, rigorous technical screening, and agile, feedback-driven processes, capabilities that proved critical in meeting Papaya Gaming’s exceptionally high bar.

Dedicated recruitment team

Recognising the Warsaw hub’s strategic importance, we formed a cross-functional unit with sector-specific expertise. The team handled account management, sourcing, and technical interviewing while continuously advising on salary benchmarks, talent availability, and market positioning. This setup ensured close alignment with Papaya’s Tel Aviv leadership and provided the agility needed to scale hiring across multiple disciplines.

Multi-layered recruitment strategy

The solution was designed to balance market reach, velocity, and compliance. We focused sourcing efforts on Poland’s leading tech hubs, with selective outreach to nearby markets for niche requirements. Accelerated hiring with scheduled interviews and quick feedback helped Papaya Gaming secure candidates ahead of competitors, while structured onboarding shortened time to productivity.

To maintain transparency and accelerate decision-making, we introduced live dashboards, integrated communication channels, and weekly syncs with Papaya’s leadership. Every candidate interaction reflected Papaya’s high standards, with clear communication of role expectations, regulatory context, and company values. This emphasis on premium candidate experience strengthened employer branding and improved offer acceptance rates.

Strategic advisory role

Beyond filling roles, DevsData LLC acted as a consultative partner, refining role definitions, benchmarking compensation, and advising on employer positioning. Our team worked closely with Papaya’s leadership to:

• Refine role definitions to better reflect the unique blend of technical depth and gaming-sector expertise required.
• Benchmark compensation against both Polish and Israeli market data, ensuring offers were competitive while aligned with budget constraints.
• Advise on employer positioning in a talent-constrained market, helping Papaya communicate its culture, mission, and growth trajectory in a way that resonated with top candidates.

This consultative layer was critical. It allowed Papaya to compete for senior professionals who already had multiple offers, while also building a repeatable hiring framework for future growth. By aligning talent strategy with business objectives, DevsData LLC became not just a recruitment vendor, but a long-term partner in scaling Papaya’s European operations.

Results

Through DevsData LLC’s tailored recruitment strategy, rigorous role-specific evaluations, and strategic advisory support, Papaya Gaming successfully scaled its Warsaw-based engineering and creative teams with high-performing professionals across multiple disciplines.

The partnership directly supported the company’s ability to maintain product excellence, meet regulatory standards, and accelerate development velocity in a competitive, global gaming market. Papaya Gaming expressed strong satisfaction with the quality, speed, and alignment of the hiring process.

This collaboration, one of several with leading Israeli tech firms, continues to strengthen DevsData LLC’s footprint and reputation within Israel’s highly competitive technology landscape.

Key achievements:

During the engagement, DevsData LLC successfully delivered seven critical hires spanning backend development, QA (manual and automation), Unity, design, and data engineering. Each professional was integrated into Papaya Gaming’s Warsaw hub and began contributing to key initiatives within their first quarter. To achieve this, over 350 candidates were screened, with a highly targeted selection process resulting in a candidate-to-interview ratio exceeding 70%, significantly reducing the workload for internal teams.

The hiring strategy proved highly effective, securing an 80% offer acceptance rate through clear role positioning, fast feedback cycles, and strong alignment with Papaya Gaming’s mission. All seven hires remained with the company beyond their first year, demonstrating high engagement and a strong cultural fit.

This success enabled Papaya Gaming to scale strategically in Poland without compromising on quality, while accelerating product development and reinforcing its global reputation in the gaming space.

Business impact

The partnership between Papaya Gaming and DevsData LLC delivered meaningful outcomes at a critical phase of the company’s European expansion. By successfully hiring senior professionals across backend development, quality assurance, data engineering, Unity development, and design leadership, Papaya Gaming could reinforce its Warsaw operations without stretching its Tel Aviv-based core teams.

Crucially, DevsData LLC’s strategic advisory role created value that extended beyond immediate hires. By refining job profiles, benchmarking compensation across Poland and Israel, and strengthening employer positioning in the competitive Warsaw talent market, DevsData enabled Papaya to attract senior candidates who were otherwise hesitant to move. This consultative guidance gave Papaya a sustainable framework for future growth, not just a one-time hiring solution.

The new hires took ownership of performance-sensitive, regulated systems, particularly in payments infrastructure and QA pipelines, allowing Papaya’s internal teams to accelerate game development cycles and improve platform stability. Within months of onboarding, the company saw notable gains in release efficiency, system reliability, and design throughput across its mobile gaming products.

Beyond immediate operational improvements, the engagement established long-term strategic value. DevsData LLC became a trusted talent partner, delivering a repeatable, high-precision recruitment process aligned with Papaya Gaming’s rigorous standards and cross-border collaboration model. This helped foster a unified engineering culture across offices, ensuring the company could continue scaling without compromising on speed, accountability, or technical excellence.

Case match: Is your company similar to Papaya Gaming?

A short 3-question diagnostic:

1. Are you expanding your engineering, QA, or creative teams in Central or Eastern Europe?
2. Do your projects require senior talent capable of operating in regulated, high-performance environments?
3. Have you struggled to find multi-disciplinary candidates with both deep technical skills and strong cross-team communication?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above, DevsData LLC can help you scale efficiently and without compromise, just as we did for Papaya Gaming.

Looking to build a world-class tech team? Reach out to DevsData LLC at general@devsdata.com or explore our tailored recruitment solutions at www.devsdata.com.

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Tatia Tatoshvili Copywriter and Marketer

Tatia Tatoshvili is a Marketing and Communications professional with deep expertise in digital strategy and project management. Tatia’s experience includes implementing strategic marketing campaigns, elevating brand visibility, and building partnerships that expand education and job opportunities in the digital sector. She is passionate about fostering innovation and advancing digital literacy to create lasting impact.

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