How Event Connections Broke Through the UK Developer Bottleneck
TL;DR - Key Results:
- ⏱️ 492 estimated hours saved in recruitment
- 🙋 5+ developers hired in the Philippines without visiting
- 🔥 Initial team of 3 developers sourced and onboarded in two weeks
The customer
Event Connections is a specialist event services provider offering tailored registration platforms, delegate management, and on-site solutions for conferences and exhibitions. Trusted by clients across the corporate, public, and voluntary sectors, they focus on delivering efficient, technology-driven event experiences at scale.
Matt Smith, Director at Event Connections, leads the company’s technical strategy and oversees the development of their bespoke event registration and delegate management platforms. With increasing demand, Matt recognised the need for long-term engineering support that could help drive a major platform upgrade - without slowing down day-to-day delivery.
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The problem
As Event Connections set out to modernise its core systems, they faced a major hurdle: their only developer was also the Company Director, limiting capacity to lead a significant upgrade. They needed experienced engineers who could commit long-term to a small team and navigate the complexities of a mature, custom-built platform.
But hiring locally proved difficult. The UK .NET recruitment market was heavily influenced by the financial sector, pushing up salary expectations and making retention uncertain. Many candidates either exceeded budget or preferred larger teams - conditions that didn’t suit a growing SME. These constraints left the company stuck: unable to carve out time for redevelopment while demand continued to rise for their existing platform. Without the right people in place, the much-needed upgrade remained out of reach.
Key operational challenges:
- Limited in-house development capacity
- Difficulty attracting long-term talent to a small, remote-leaning team
- A UK recruitment market dominated by high-salary financial sector roles
Finding people who were skilled, would be interested in working with a small team, were affordable, and likely to stay for long enough to make an impact, was a challenge.
The solution
To overcome local hiring challenges and accelerate their platform upgrade, Event Connections partnered with Cloud Employee to grow their development team. Within two weeks, three experienced engineers from Manila were onboarded - each carefully selected to align with the company’s tech stack and values. With shared UK working hours and integrated communication tools, the developers quickly became part of the team’s daily rhythm.
A few months into the partnership, Director Matt travelled to Manila to meet the team in person - a step that strengthened relationships and boosted project momentum. These in-person visits are now a regular part of how the team operates, reinforcing alignment and shared ownership. With Cloud Employee’s continued support and an embedded team culture, Event Connections is now confidently rebuilding its platform into a more scalable, secure, and future-ready solution.
Event Connections' developer resourcing partnership with Cloud Employee included:
- Fast, aligned hiring: Three developers onboarded within two weeks - fully aligned with the company’s tech stack, working style, and long-term goals.
- Embedded collaboration: Developers adopted UK hours and integrated seamlessly into Event Connections’ tools, culture, and workflows from day one.
- Stronger delivery capacity: Internal teams continued to support the legacy platform while CE developers focused on building a new, scalable system in parallel.
Cloud Employee enabled us to consider a team of 2-3 developers, for the same cost as one junior in the UK - but with an increased likelihood of team retention, the benefit of a wider peer community, and experienced recruiters.
The impact
Working with Cloud Employee has enabled Event Connections to push forward with the development of a new, modern platform while internal teams remain focused on supporting clients and maintaining legacy systems. The added capacity has not only accelerated long-term projects but also introduced new technologies and architectural improvements that will enhance performance, scalability, and security.
Beyond delivery, the partnership has brought valuable structure and cultural alignment. Cloud Employee’s ongoing support - both technical and strategic - has helped shape a cohesive, people-first team environment across locations, allowing the business to operate more efficiently and plan for growth with greater confidence.
Key impacts achieved through partnering with Cloud Employee included:
- 👨🏽💻 Expanded technical scope, introducing new technologies that improved system stability, security, and scalability
- ⏱️ Freed up internal capacity, allowing the UK team to focus on delivery while CE developers advanced long-term projects
- 📈 Improved team structure guidance, through strategic input from CE’s support team on hiring, retention, and team growth planning
This partnership has enabled Event Connections to scale their development efforts without compromising internal delivery.
With the right support in place, they’ve been able to explore technical ambitions while creating a more sustainable, scalable team structure.
We have been able to consider technologies and scopes that weren’t possible before. These will bring us an increase in stability, security and scalability to match our growing demands.
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