Nearshore software development
Nearshore software development for EU & UK product teams
Simatech is a nearshore software development company in Bulgaria. Senior engineers in your timezone, EU contracts, and a shippable increment every two weeks — at roughly one-third the cost of a London or Amsterdam build.
EU-domiciled · GDPR-native · CET/CEST working hours · English-first
What nearshore software development means with us
Nearshore means your engineers sit one or two hours from your clock, under EU law, on your process — not eight timezones away behind a ticket queue.
Custom product development
Greenfield SaaS, internal platforms and customer portals built end to end — discovery, architecture, delivery, run.
Legacy modernisation
Strangler-fig migrations off monoliths, PHP and .NET rewrites, database and cloud replatforming without a big-bang cutover.
Team augmentation
Senior engineers embedded in your existing squads, working your board, your standards and your definition of done.
AI feature engineering
RAG, agents, evaluation harnesses and guardrails built into real products — not demos that never reach production.
Engagement models
Pick the shape that fits the problem. All models are fixed monthly, invoiced from an EU entity, cancellable with 30 days notice.
Staff augmentation
from €7.5k / engineer / month
One or more senior engineers inside your team. You own the backlog and ceremonies; we own quality and continuity.
Managed squad
from €18k / month
PO, Scrum Master and senior engineers as one accountable unit with a sprint goal and a shipping cadence.
Fixed-scope build
from €35k / project
Defined outcome, defined budget, defined date — after a fixed-fee scoping sprint that de-risks the estimate.
Looking for a full managed squad? See our nearshore development team →
Stacks we build in
Deep in a handful of stacks rather than shallow in twenty.
Backend
PHP (Laravel, Symfony), Node/TypeScript, Python (FastAPI, Django), .NET
Frontend
React, Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind, React Native
Data & AI
Postgres, Neo4j, pgvector, OpenAI/Anthropic APIs, MCP, LangGraph
Platform
AWS, Azure, Docker, Terraform, GitHub Actions, observability with OpenTelemetry
What nearshore software development costs
Indicative fully-loaded monthly cost for one senior engineer, including employer taxes, tooling and management overhead.
| Location | Senior engineer / month | Timezone overlap |
|---|---|---|
| London / Amsterdam in-house | €12k–€16k | Full |
| Nearshore Bulgaria (Simatech) | €7.5k–€9k | Full (CET/CEST) |
| Offshore Asia | €4k–€6k | 2–4 hours |
How an engagement starts
01
Week 0 — Discovery call
30 minutes on the outcome, constraints and current stack. You leave with a written view of whether nearshore is even the right answer.
02
Weeks 1–2 — Scoping sprint
Fixed-fee: outcomes, backlog, architecture, risks and a costed delivery plan. Every artefact is yours whether or not we continue.
03
Week 3 — Squad kickoff
Named engineers, your tools, your repos, your CI. Sprint one starts with a real sprint goal, not onboarding theatre.
04
Every two weeks — Shipped increment
Reviewed, tested, deployed. Burn-up and roadmap visible to your leadership continuously.
Why teams pick nearshore over offshore
- 0–1h
- Timezone gap to London, Amsterdam, Berlin and Zürich
- ≈40%
- Typical saving versus an in-house Western European hire
- 2 wks
- From kickoff to first shippable increment
- EU
- Contracts, data residency and GDPR by default
Frequently asked
+What is nearshore software development?
Nearshore software development means outsourcing engineering to a nearby country with a shared or adjacent timezone and legal framework. For EU and UK companies that usually means Central and Eastern Europe — in our case Bulgaria, an EU member state on CET/CEST.
+How is nearshore different from offshore?
Offshore usually means a 4–8 hour timezone gap, non-EU contracts and asynchronous handovers. Nearshore keeps the working day, the legal framework and the data inside the EU, so review cycles happen the same day rather than the next one.
+How much does nearshore software development cost?
A senior nearshore engineer from Bulgaria is typically €7.5k–€9k per month fully loaded, versus €12k–€16k for the equivalent in-house hire in London or Amsterdam. A full managed squad starts at €18k per month.
+Who owns the code and IP?
You do. All work-for-hire IP transfers on payment, with no shared components and no vendor lock-in.
+Can you work inside our existing process and tools?
Yes. We work in your Jira, Linear or GitHub, follow your definition of done and join your ceremonies. We never require a migration to our tooling.
+How do you handle GDPR and data residency?
We contract from Sima Tech Ltd (Сима Тек ООД), UIC 206762842, VAT BG206762842, an EU entity. We sign your DPA, keep data in EU regions and can work entirely inside your cloud accounts.
+How quickly can a nearshore team start?
A scoping sprint can start within 10 business days of signature; a full squad is typically productive within two sprints of kickoff.
Get a costed nearshore plan
Book a 30-minute discovery call. If it's a fit, we can start a fixed-fee scoping sprint inside two weeks.