A Pacific island resort built a remote infrastructure and AI team with Canadian engineers

Summary

A private island resort in the South Pacific needed engineers to run its technology infrastructure and to build AI tools for guest experience and operations. Local tech talent was scarce, and hiring internationally meant dealing with foreign payroll, tax and employment law.

The resort engaged a remote Canadian team through InfraDev: infrastructure engineers and AI developers employed under our Employer of Record service, plus specialist contractors under consulting management. Cost per engineer fell from about $165,000 to $112,000 a year (USD, fully loaded, including our fee), and time to hire dropped from 45–60 days to 18–24.

The challenge

The resort needed people to manage networks, servers, the property management system and other digital operations, and it had committed to using AI to improve service and efficiency. Neither skill set was available locally in the numbers it needed.

It had found strong candidates in Canada, but had no Canadian entity, no payroll set-up and no familiarity with CRA requirements or provincial employment standards. Its estimate for setting up in Canada was four to six months and $50,000–$80,000 before the first hire. Because hospitality is seasonal, it also wanted to scale the team up for projects and down afterwards without a permanent structure.

Our approach

Infrastructure engineers as employees

Core infrastructure engineers and systems specialists became InfraDev employees in Canada, assigned exclusively to the resort. We handle their contracts, payroll, source deductions and remittances, benefits, and provincial employment standards. The resort directs their work and integrates them into its own workflows.

AI developers

AI developers working on guest-experience and operations tools were engaged the same way. Their agreements assign all code, models and deliverables to the resort, and include confidentiality and data-protection terms suited to systems that handle payment and guest data, such as PCI DSS requirements.

Specialists through consulting management

For short, independent pieces of work, such as a security audit, a migration, or a focused machine-learning project, we engaged contractors under consulting management: we hold the contract, handle invoicing and tax forms, and document why each engagement is genuinely independent.

Working across time zones

We helped the resort set communication norms, tools (Slack, Jira, GitHub) and meeting times that work across the time difference, with asynchronous handoffs where live overlap is limited. Competitive Canadian benefits (health, dental, retirement savings matching and paid vacation) helped attract candidates; retention over the first 18 months was 94%.

The numbers

Figures are in USD.

	Before	With InfraDev
Fully loaded cost per engineer (annual)	About $165,000	About $112,000, including our fee
Time to hire	45–60 days	18–24 days
Entity setup	$50,000–$80,000 estimated, one-time	None
Entity maintenance	$15,000–$25,000 a year estimated	None
Payroll and HR administration	$8,000–$12,000 per employee a year	Included in our fee
CRA and provincial payroll issues	Not applicable	None reported

What other remote operators can take from this

• An Employer of Record removes the entity from the critical path. Hiring started in weeks, not months.
• Mix employment and contracting deliberately. Employ the people who do ongoing, directed work; use consulting management for genuinely independent projects.
• Plan the time-zone model up front. Agree on overlap hours and asynchronous handoffs before the first hire starts.
• Savings depend on the comparison. This resort compared against major international markets. Against comparable U.S. roles, 10–40% is typical, not guaranteed.

Questions about remote Canadian tech teams

Does the client need a Canadian entity? No. InfraDev is the employer in Canada; the client directs the work.

Who owns the code and models the team builds? The client. Employment and contractor agreements assign intellectual property to the client.

Can the team scale with projects? Yes. Employees can be added through the same agreement, and short projects can use contractors under consulting management.