Tow4Tech, Inc. – overcoming recruitment challenges for a US logistics tech firm in Romania

Tatia Tatoshvili

Last updated on October 16, 2025 | 17 min read

Introduction

Scaling a logistics platform in a competitive market requires not only technical talent but also the ability to navigate local hiring complexities and regulatory demands.

When Tow4Tech, Inc., a US-based company operating in the towing and logistics sector, needed to hire a Senior Automated Tester in Romania under a full employment contract, they faced an uphill battle with a tight budget, high taxation, and limited candidate availability.

This case study outlines how DevsData LLC rapidly identified and secured a highly qualified candidate, overcoming structural hiring challenges and delivering results in 12 business days.

Client overview

Tow4Tech, Inc. is a US-based SaaS startup in the logistics/towing space that has secured $1.5 million in pre-seed funding (part of a $3.3 million total raise to date), and is now expanding its engineering capabilities into Eastern Europe. The company specializes in digital solutions for the towing and logistics industry, offering a suite of mobile and web-based tools that modernize vehicle recovery, roadside assistance, and fleet coordination. These tools streamline critical operations such as dispatching, tracking, and reporting, serving a growing network of logistics providers and tow operators across the United States.

With a strong emphasis on reliability and operational efficiency, Tow4Tech’s platform supports time-sensitive workflows in high-pressure environments. As part of its ongoing product expansion and quality assurance efforts, the company needed to onboard a Senior Automated Tester in Eastern Europe to boost test coverage and system stability across its mobile and web platforms.

To support this effort, Tow4Tech, Inc. partnered with DevsData LLC after multiple internal and agency-led hiring attempts failed to meet the company’s requirements. Unlike previous partners, DevsData LLC combined deep access to the Eastern European QA market with proven experience handling rigid employment structures in Romania, allowing us to deliver where others struggled.

DevsData LLC stood out due to its proven track record in handling complex hiring scenarios across Eastern Europe, particularly for roles involving rare employment models such as full contracts in Romania. With deep regional expertise, a strong QA talent network, and a consultative, results-driven approach, DevsData LLC was uniquely equipped to address both compensation constraints and niche technical demands. The decision to engage DevsData LLC reflected Tow4Tech’s need for a strategic recruitment partner capable of delivering fast, credible results in a challenging market.

At a glance: Tow4Tech, Inc.

• Team size: ~25 employees
• Funding raised: $3.3M to date (including a $1.5M pre-seed round)

Challenge

As Tow4Tech, Inc. sought to expand its quality assurance capabilities, the company faced a combination of logistical, market, and contractual challenges that made this hire unusually difficult, especially in a region like Romania, where employment norms and tax structures create strong disincentives for traditional employment contracts.

While the need for a Senior Automated Tester was clear, to improve product reliability and strengthen QA pipelines, finding the right candidate under these constraints required a highly tailored approach.

Hard-to-meet employment structure

Tow4Tech was not looking for a typical contractor or freelance tester. The role specifically required a full Contract of Employment (CoE), which is uncommon in Romania’s tech market, where most professionals prefer B2B arrangements for their tax and income advantages. Under a CoE, employers must pay high social contributions and employees lose the favorable flat 10% income tax available under B2B. This results in a combined tax burden exceeding 40%, significantly reducing take-home pay and discouraging qualified candidates from accepting such contracts.

Compensation package

The gross salary offered for the role was a little bit below market expectations for senior QA professionals in Romania. Combined with the CoE model, this made the opportunity less attractive to top-tier candidates, many of whom could command higher compensation under more flexible arrangements elsewhere.

Niche skill requirements and remote alignment

Tow4Tech needed someone with more than just automated testing skills; the ideal candidate had to be highly autonomous, experienced with cross-platform mobile testing (particularly React Native), and able to integrate seamlessly into a remote-first, US-led engineering team. Strong English communication skills and comfort with asynchronous workflows were essential.

Limited local market response

Previous internal and agency-led hiring attempts had failed to deliver candidates who matched both the technical requirements and contractual conditions. With time-to-fill becoming a concern and internal projects awaiting QA support, Tow4Tech turned to DevsData LLC to identify and secure the right candidate, fast.

Strategic recruitment support required

Given the intersection of tight financial parameters, rigid contract terms, and niche technical needs, the company needed a recruitment partner with deep access to the Eastern European talent pool, the ability to manage candidate expectations proactively, and the credibility to position the opportunity attractively despite its limitations.

DevsData LLC’s approach

At DevsData LLC, recruitment challenges go beyond talent scarcity; they involve navigating constraints, managing expectations, and delivering high-fit candidates under tight parameters. For Tow4Tech, Inc., the combination of below-market salary, a strict full Contract of Employment (CoE) requirement, and niche skills created significant friction.

To address this, we used targeted sourcing, market analysis, and transparent communication, focusing on passive candidates open to the unique employment terms and motivated by long-term stability.

A similar challenge was successfully handled during our engagement with Memory AS, a Norwegian SaaS company. DevsData LLC conducted an international search and successfully placed senior Ruby developers under strict technical requirements and tight deadlines. This experience highlights our ability to deliver specialized talent in competitive markets.

Before assembling the recruitment team, this strategy ensured alignment with Tow4Tech’s needs and accelerated the hiring process.

To support Tow4Tech’s unique hiring needs, we assembled a specialized team with experience in Eastern European recruitment, QA, and mobile engineering domains, as well as high-stakes remote hiring.

Our approach integrated active sourcing, clear candidate communication, and tight client coordination to secure a candidate who not only matched the technical criteria but was also motivated to work under a full contract of employment.

Our team for this engagement included:

• Senior Account Manager – Direct liaison with Tow4Tech’s leadership, ensuring clear communication, progress tracking, and quick alignment on candidate feedback.
• Sourcing Specialist – Focused on identifying senior QA candidates in Romania open to CoE arrangements and with strong mobile automation backgrounds.
• Technical Interviewer – Assessed automation depth, React Native/mobile testing experience, CI/CD knowledge, and collaboration skills.

Key elements of our process

To meet Tow4Tech’s highly constrained hiring needs, DevsData LLC designed a structured yet agile recruitment workflow. Each step was carefully tailored to balance speed, transparency, and market realities, ensuring alignment with the client’s requirements while minimizing candidate drop-offs. The table below summarizes the core elements, tools used, and results achieved throughout the engagement.

Strategic advantages delivered

High-impact, fast-turnaround hire
We delivered a strong candidate shortlist within 10 days and filled the position within 12 business days, despite market headwinds and offer structure limitations.

Market-informed talent strategy
By sharing ongoing candidate reactions and competitive insights, we enabled Tow4Tech to fine-tune its hiring approach and messaging strategy for future roles.

Enhanced employer brand perception
Candidates appreciated Tow4Tech’s clear vision, responsiveness, and structured process, helping build a positive perception of the company despite its lower-than-market offer.

Through a pragmatic, insight-driven, and candidate-centric approach, DevsData LLC helped Tow4Tech, Inc. overcome significant hiring barriers and secure a highly capable Senior Automated Tester, strengthening the QA foundation of their mobile platform and reinforcing their commitment to operational excellence.

Solution

To help Tow4Tech, Inc. hire a Senior Automated Tester under a challenging set of employment and compensation constraints, DevsData LLC designed a focused, high-precision recruitment strategy tailored to Romania’s tech market realities. The approach emphasized quality over volume, with carefully curated outreach, consultative candidate management, and a streamlined screening process that aligned with the client’s urgency and requirements.

Our multi-step strategy included:

Targeted market and candidate mapping
We began by analyzing the Romanian tech landscape to identify the most realistic segments of senior QA professionals who might consider a full Contract of Employment (CoE) model despite its challenges. Our focus was on candidates already in full-time employment contracts, as they are often motivated by long-term stability. We also targeted test engineers with experience in regulated industries such as banking or insurance, where CoE contracts are more common. Additionally, we considered talent located in second-tier Romanian cities, where salary expectations tend to be more flexible. Finally, we reached out to passive candidates who might be open to relocation or willing to make lifestyle tradeoffs in exchange for long-term job security.

Headhunting and expectation alignment outreach
We launched a highly selective outreach campaign focused on senior-level test engineers who met our technical criteria and demonstrated potential interest in a full Contract of Employment (CoE). This included personalized messages from senior recruiters that emphasized the long-term stability benefits of the role. We leveraged DevsData LLC’s private network of Eastern European QA professionals and testing communities to widen our reach. Transparency was key, salary, benefits, and employment terms were clearly communicated upfront to prevent mismatches later in the process. Additionally, we conducted direct outreach to candidates previously placed in similar non-B2B roles, emphasizing tailored incentives such as long-term job stability under a full employment contract, predictable income with full benefits (healthcare, paid leave, pension), and the opportunity to work on a high-impact mobile platform used across the US logistics sector.

Tailored technical screening process
To assess candidate readiness, we developed a streamlined two-stage evaluation process that balanced technical rigor with respect for candidates’ time. The first stage was a technical assessment, conducted either as a focused take-home assignment or a live session, emphasizing mobile test automation scenarios, especially for cross-platform applications built with React Native. The second stage involved a systems-thinking and QA depth interview, where candidates were evaluated on their ability to design reliable automated test cases, model dependencies between different components of the application (e.g., mobile client, APIs, and backend services), anticipate how changes in one area could affect overall stability, and propose mitigation strategies. This included assessing their approach to CI/CD integration, bug-tracking workflows, and communication skills within a remote team environment.

Cultural fit and employment model readiness
Given the uncommon contract requirement, we focused heavily on assessing candidates’ motivation, adaptability, and long-term fit. This involved structured behavioral interviews that explored accountability, communication in remote work environments, and proactive problem-solving skills. We also held candid discussions about candidates’ previous experiences and expectations regarding employment models, ensuring genuine openness to a full Contract of Employment (CoE) and long-term commitment. To support this, we leveraged employer branding materials that highlighted Tow4Tech’s stability, mission, and collaborative cross-border culture.

Real-time process iteration
Throughout the engagement, we maintained a highly agile process, continuously adapting to improve candidate conversion and align with client needs. This included reframing our pitch messages to better address candidates’ concerns about net salary impact, adjusting the screening sequence to minimize drop-offs among busy, high-potential candidates, and prioritizing referrals and warm leads over cold outreach as we observed conversion trends.

Fast-track hiring process
Recognizing that top QA talent in Romania, especially those skilled in mobile and automation testing, is in high demand, we implemented a fast-track closure protocol. This included completing evaluation and shortlist preparation within five business days, ensuring immediate interview availability with Tow4Tech’s internal tech leads, and managing offer negotiations and documentation concurrently with candidate feedback to speed up the final decision-making process.

Summary of key metrics:

• Time-to-offer cycle: 12 business days
• Offer acceptance rate: 100% (for the presented final-stage candidate)
• Passive candidate sourcing rate: 90%
• Final interview to offer drop-off rate: 0%

Through this tailored, high-touch strategy, DevsData LLC successfully delivered a Senior Automated Tester who matched both the technical requirements and the rare employment model.

The candidate was ultimately convinced by the promise of long-term job stability, the opportunity to work on a fast-growing, product-focused mobile platform, and the clear, transparent communication throughout the process. This hire helped Tow4Tech stabilize its QA workflows and move forward confidently with mobile product improvements.

Results

Through DevsData LLC’s customised recruitment strategy, proactive candidate management, and streamlined technical assessments, Tow4Tech, Inc. successfully hired a Senior Automated Tester in Romania, despite initial concerns around low salary competitiveness and rigid employment terms. The engagement delivered impactful outcomes across recruitment velocity, candidate quality, and client satisfaction.

Key achievements:

Difficult technical role filled under parameters
Despite a challenging Contract of Employment (CoE) requirement, DevsData LLC successfully filled the role in 12 business days. The new hire:

• Brought strong experience in mobile test automation, especially for React Native environments.
• Immediately contributed to stabilizing Tow4Tech’s QA processes and reducing regression risks.
• Strengthened the company’s internal testing capacity without reliance on short-term contractors.

Exceptional candidate match quality
The candidate-to-client interview ratio was above 85%, reflecting the high alignment between sourced profiles and client expectations. This was achieved through:

• Precision-targeted sourcing.
• Upfront qualification around CoE acceptance and motivation.
• Contextual technical screening aligned with Tow4Tech’s mobile QA stack.

The high quality of matches ensured a smooth evaluation process with minimal internal overhead for the client.

100% offer acceptance and rapid onboarding
The final candidate accepted the offer immediately, achieving a 100% offer-to-acceptance rate. What sealed the deal was clear communication of long-term value and purpose, an opportunity to impact a high-growth, time-sensitive logistics product. The promise of stable employment under a rare full contract outweighed short-term financial drawbacks. DevsData LLC’s upfront advisory role addressed concerns early, building trust and minimizing friction. Without this hire, Tow4Tech faced QA bottlenecks, slower releases, and project delays that could harm platform reliability and client satisfaction.

Accelerated time-to-hire
The total time from kickoff to signed offer was just 12 business days, remarkably fast given the niche requirements and candidate market limitations. This enabled Tow4Tech to begin onboarding immediately and avoid prolonged QA bottlenecks in their development roadmap.

Foundation for future hires in Eastern Europe
Beyond the immediate placement, DevsData LLC provided Tow4Tech with a curated shortlist of technically strong QA candidates open to similar CoE opportunities in the region. This ready-to-activate bench increases the company’s agility in scaling future quality assurance roles.

Quick visual recap

To highlight the most important aspects of this engagement, the table below distills Tow4Tech’s hiring challenges alongside DevsData LLC’s tailored solutions. This side-by-side comparison offers a clear snapshot of how we transformed structural obstacles into a fast, high-quality hire.

DevsData LLC’s agile, data-informed, and consultative approach helped Tow4Tech achieve what initially seemed improbable: hiring a senior-level QA engineer under strict conditions, without compromising on quality or speed.

Business impact

The partnership between Tow4Tech, Inc. and DevsData LLC delivered measurable value during a pivotal phase in the company’s product development and platform stabilization efforts.

Within weeks of onboarding, the new Senior Automated Tester increased automated test coverage across key mobile workflows, reducing manual QA effort by over 30% and uncovering critical regressions prior to release.

This led to faster, more reliable deployments and fewer post-release bugs. Filling the role in 12 business days, after months of delays, helped Tow4Tech avoid project setbacks, reduce technical debt, and meet critical delivery milestones. Securing a skilled Senior Automated Tester strengthened mobile QA workflows, minimized bug risks, and sped up releases across their React Native apps.

The hire brought immediate operational improvements, better test coverage, faster issue identification, and reduced reliance on reactive fixes. These gains translated into increased confidence in production deployments and a more consistent user experience across Tow4Tech’s logistics platform.

Beyond the technical uplift, the collaboration also generated long-term strategic benefits. DevsData LLC sourced a candidate who aligned not just with the technical role, but also with the company’s values, communication style, and remote culture. The candidate’s adaptability, clarity in cross-border collaboration, and proactive problem-solving helped establish a more structured, forward-looking QA culture within the team.

As a result, Tow4Tech now has a trusted recruitment partner that understands the intricacies of niche hiring in constrained markets, with a framework in place to support future Eastern European recruitment efforts at scale. One moment that stood out to Tow4Tech was the speed of execution. DevsData LLC filled the role faster than initially projected, closing the search in just 12 business days despite all the limitations. This not only restored momentum to a stalled QA roadmap but also demonstrated a level of precision and responsiveness that exceeded the client’s expectations.

Case match: Is your company facing similar hiring challenges?

A short 3-question diagnostic:

• Are you hiring in regions where your preferred contract model is uncommon or financially unattractive?
• Do you need senior-level engineers or testers who can work independently in remote, cross-border teams?
• Have traditional recruitment channels failed to deliver the right mix of technical skills and employment flexibility?

If you answered “yes” to any of these, you’re navigating the same challenges Tow4Tech successfully overcame with DevsData LLC’s support. Whether you’re growing your QA team, scaling your dev capacity, or hiring under unique and tight requirements, we can help you find the right people, fast.

Ready to overcome your toughest hiring challenges? Contact DevsData LLC at general@devsdata.com or visit www.devsdata.com to learn how we can help you secure top-tier tech talent, fast, precisely, and globally.