Founder-led · US–China engineering teams
I help US software companies with an existing product and technical leadership plan and build dedicated engineering capacity in China. My focus is recruiting coordination and cross-border team operations, so your technical leaders have a clearer process for adding capacity and managing collaboration.
I'm Hao. My background connects US business priorities with China-based product and engineering teams.
The model I run today: production and user data in the US; the China team works in test and staging with masked data.
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Pacific
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Beijing time
01The problem
Senior engineers in the US take months to hire and cost $150k+ fully loaded. Early-stage roadmaps can't wait.
Time zones, unclear requirements, no one accountable for follow-through. The code isn't the problem; the operating layer is missing.
Contractors paid informally, no employment contracts, no IP assignment. It surfaces at the worst moment: your next fundraise or a customer's security review.
02Services
Hiring is only part of the work. A dedicated team also needs clear responsibilities, practical onboarding, predictable communication, and an agreed path for resolving blockers. The proposed approach brings those pieces together while your technical leadership retains control.
Service 01
Built against AI-assisted interview fraud. In my current role, live interviews can be held with an in-person proctor sitting beside the candidate, and a paid, real-world work sample tests the work itself, not interview polish.
Your call, always: the final technical interview and hiring decision are made by you or your designated technical lead.
Service 02
Onboarding coordination
Accounts, devices, and communication norms.
People management & retention care
Day-to-day management and the follow-through that keeps people.
Delivery coordination & reporting cadence
Weekly reports, monthly reports, quarterly reviews.
Security & device coordination
Access, equipment, and the standards you approve.
Scaling & replacement coordination
Adding people, or replacing them, without starting from zero.
03Evaluation
What a screened candidate summary could look like when it lands on your tech lead's desk.
Chengdu · 8 yrs · SaaS dashboards
› Root cause: the export job re-queried every row per tenant.
› Fix: batch by tenant, stream to S3. p95 dropped in staging.
› Open question for you: keep CSV, or move to Parquet?
Xi'an · 5 yrs · API-heavy products
Gate 1
Gate 2
Gate 3
Wuhan · 6 yrs · CI pipelines
Gate 1
Gate 2
Gate 3
Three screening gates
Async written communication exercise
Remote work still runs on writing.
Paid real-world work sample
Real task, real pay, real signal.
Proctored live interview + reference checks
AI translation supported; an in-person proctor beside the candidate. Final call stays with your tech lead.
Fluent spoken English isn't the gate — AI translation supports live meetings and interviews. Clear async writing still is: remote work runs on writing.
Illustrative sample — created to demonstrate the proposed workflow. Not a client deliverable or evidence of past results.
04Planning estimates
Move the slider. The numbers are planning estimates, not a quote.
Estimated annual cost
Estimated difference per year
$465,960
Estimates for planning only, based on typical market ranges. Your actual cost depends on the roles and the agreed scope — book a call for a written quote.
Get my exact quote05The 24-hour relay
5pm your time
Your day ends
Priorities are set.
Your evening / China morning
The team picks up the sprint
Builds, tests in staging.
9am your time
You review finished work
Not status updates.
06What you receive
A predictable cadence, so you always know where things stand without having to ask.
Weekly progress report
Acme SaaS · Week 14
Shipped
In progress
Blockers
Next week
Illustrative sample — created to demonstrate the proposed workflow. Not a client deliverable or evidence of past results.
07First engagement
A first engagement would begin with a limited, agreed scope. Before recruiting or onboarding starts, we would clarify the role, technical ownership, operating requirements, and the conditions needed to proceed.
Define the engineering capability, expected ownership, budget assumptions, and collaboration requirements with your technical lead.
Document the work included, the responsibilities on each side, commercial terms, and the outputs to review. Any hiring or employment route must be assessed before implementation.
Depending on the scope, these might include a role brief, evaluation criteria, candidate screening summaries, or an onboarding and communication plan.
Review the evidence, unresolved questions, operating requirements, and costs before committing to a broader arrangement.
The scope, timing, fees, and any employment arrangement would be agreed separately. Candidate availability and hiring outcomes are not guaranteed.
Clear lines, written down before anything starts. Your technical leadership keeps the technical calls; I run the coordination around them.
| Responsibility | Owner |
|---|---|
| Product roadmap, architecture, engineering standards | Your technical leadership |
| Final technical interview and hiring decision | You or your designated technical lead |
| Code review and technical acceptance | Your designated technical lead |
| Recruiting coordination, screening, and evaluation logistics | Hao, within the agreed scope |
| Cross-border communication, operating issues, and risk follow-up | Hao — coordinates and provides visibility within the agreed scope |
| Employment, payroll, labor, and tax obligations | Allocated by the actual legal contract structure (see the note on employment) |
08Two ways in
Start with a small engagement whose scope is agreed in writing up front — a role brief, an evaluation design, or a recruiting exploration. Review the agreed outputs, then decide whether to expand.
Discuss your team needsA free 30-minute review of how your China-based engineers are currently set up: contracts, IP assignment, payroll, social insurance. We'll tell you plainly what would break in your next diligence — and what it takes to fix it.
Book my free check09Security & IP
Built for the question every CTO and every acquirer eventually asks: where does the code live, who owns it, and who can touch what?
Production servers and user data stay in the US. The China team works only in test and staging environments, using masked real data. This is the model I run today in my current role — not a ready-made promise for a new engagement.
Every engineer signs an IP assignment through their employment contract, so code ownership is documented and carried by the employment structure.
MFA and least-privilege access as the operating standard, with access revoked on or before the last day.
For a new engagement
Before engineers receive access, we agree these together. Your technical leadership approves the standards; implementation responsibilities are documented for the agreed arrangement.
A one-page summary of the architecture, IP terms, and who owns what — built to forward to your CTO.
10Comparison
No column of perfect checkmarks here, including ours. Every cell should hold up when your CTO asks about it.
| Direct US hiring | Freelance platforms | Offshore dev agency | Global EOR platform | BRIDGEPOD | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time to start | Months for senior roles | Varies by freelancer | Per project kickoff | Employment setup only | Set by the agreed scope |
| Who manages the engineers day-to-day | You | You | The agency, per project | You — employment only | Your tech lead on technical work; Hao on operations |
| IP & compliance handled | Under US employment; no China-side structure | No employment or IP structure | Per agency contract, project-based | Employment only | Arranged through licensed partners, coordinated by Hao |
| Security architecture designed for you | Your own setup | No | Agency's standard setup | No | Agreed with your tech lead before onboarding |
| Coordinator in your timezone | No coordination layer | No | Varies | No delivery coordination | Yes — Hao, Seattle-based |
11For engineers
A real employment contract
With full social insurance, arranged through a compliant employment structure.
A company-provided encrypted laptop
Provided through the employment and operating arrangement.
US-product experience
Work on real US software products, in a writing-first async culture with AI translation for live meetings.
A named local coordinator
Someone who knows your name — not a ticket queue.
A clear growth path
Senior → lead, inside long-term teams. Not project hopping.
12Founder
As the operations coordinator for a US SaaS company, he manages a China-based product team end to end: recruiting, day-to-day people management, and all device and hardware administration — and reports delivery progress to US leadership every week, with a full operations review every month.
His current team is 8 people — 3 full-stack engineers, 1 front-end engineer, 2 QA engineers, 1 product manager, 1 intern — run by one coordinator, with production and user data in the US and the China team working only in test environments with masked data.
BRIDGEPOD is that operating system, offered to US software companies as a founder-led service.
BRIDGEPOD is pre-launch, and I'm currently in conversation with my first prospective clients.
“I make the 12-hour time difference work for you, not against you.”
The team I coordinate today
13FAQ
Let's talk
Tell me what you're building. Or skip the form and write to hao50427126@gmail.com.