Cloud Employee vs. Andela
📌 TL;DR
Andela is a global talent marketplace connecting businesses with vetted engineers across Africa and emerging markets. It offers flexible hiring models—from contract to full-time—and focuses on skills alignment through an AI-powered matching engine.
Cloud Employee provides a complementary but distinct model. It delivers full-time, embedded engineers through a CTO-led vetting process, combining transparent monthly pricing, 97%+ retention, and dual-region access across the Philippines and Latin America.
Andela helps companies quickly source remote engineers. Cloud Employee builds long-term, integrated engineering capacity with full visibility, retention, and continuity.
Engineering Scale Meets Strategic Integration
Technology leaders now face three interlinked pressures: talent scarcity, delivery speed, and team continuity. The appeal of global talent sourcing is clear — yet the challenge remains in maintaining alignment, retention and predictable cost when hiring remotely.
Andela and Cloud Employee both address this global engineering challenge—but via different models. Andela offers a talent-marketplace approach and flexible engagement; Cloud Employee focuses on embedding engineers into your team, offering transparency, retention and integration. This review examines how each model works, their respective strengths and strategic benefits for US/Canada engineering teams.
Andela in Context
Founded in 2014, Andela describes itself as “the world’s largest marketplace for vetted technical talent.” Key features include:
- An AI-powered matching engine (Andela Talent Cloud) that aligns candidates to roles via “Adaptive Hiring”.
- Flexible engagement models: individual contractors, full teams, or managed projects.
- A strong brand particularly across Africa and emerging talent hubs.
Strengths of Andela
- Scale of network: ability to source talent across their geographies.
- Flexible hiring models to meet variable needs.
- Established vetting process and enterprise-ready infrastructure
However, for engineering teams with high demands for alignment, retention and cost transparency, the marketplace model may bring trade-offs such as resource sharing, variable cost clarity and retention risk.
Cloud Employee’s Approach: Embedded, Transparent & Retention-Led
Cloud Employee is designed for organisations that prioritise hiring and retaining top-talent, engineering continuity, integration into existing teams, and cost predictability via its staff augmentation model.
Key features of Cloud Employee’s model:
- CTO-led vetting process, including live pair programming and architecture review, to ensure engineers align with client standards and culture.
- 1-2 week average time-to-hire, enabling swift scaling while maintaining quality.
- Transparent, all-inclusive monthly pricing:
- LATAM engineers ≈ US$6,000/month
- Philippines engineers ≈ US$4,500/month
These rates cover salary, HR, benefits, compliance, infrastructure and support — no hidden fees.
- Dedicated, full-time engineers, embedded in your delivery team (not shared across clients).
- Focus exclusively on software engineering, enabling depth of hiring and team alignment.
- Structured HR & learning-and-development programmes, underpinning a 97%+ retention rate beyond 2 years.
This model gives CTOs in the US/Canada the ability to scale globally while maintaining domestic-level team cohesion, cost clarity and long-term accountability.
Shared Principles, Distinct Delivery
Both Andela and Cloud Employee are built on the principle of unlocking global engineering talent—but they deliver it differently.
- Andela emphasises scale, flexibility and network breadth.
- Cloud Employee emphasises scale, quality, integration, transparency and retention.
For US/Canada engineering teams that view offshore or nearshore talent as strategic rather than opportunistic, the embedded model of Cloud Employee provides deeper alignment with internal processes, culture and product ownership.
Pricing Comparison: Cloud Employee vs. Andela
*Costs are approximate based on public sources; always verify with provider.
Cloud Employee Case Studies
Willo
- Hired 10 developers in the Philippines without visiting.
- Enabled rapid scale-up of remote team with full integration into delivery. Read the Case Study.
CleanLink
- Engaged 3 engineers in two weeks, supported by 7-year ongoing collaboration and full infrastructure support. Read the Case Study.
Executive Insight
Our clients want engineers who will stay, grow and deliver. With Cloud Employee’s embedded model, transparent cost structure and retention focus, we enable CTOs to scale global teams without losing alignment or visibility.
— Seb Hall, CEO, Cloud Employee
Conclusion
Andela provides scale, flexibility and access to global engineering talent, making it a strong option for organisations that need rapid resourcing. Cloud Employee offers the same ability to ramp up quickly, but is purpose-built for technology leaders who require embedded, dedicated engineers, transparent cost models and long-term continuity.
For US/Canada CTOs and CIOs seeking to build sustainable, high-performing global engineering teams, Cloud Employee offers a model that combines nearshore efficiency with on-shore integration and control.
Information is based on publicly available sources as of October 2025 and reflects Cloud Employee’s interpretation of each company’s service model.
FAQs
- Andela operates as a global marketplace, matching companies with vetted engineers across many geographies and offering variable engagement types.
- Cloud Employee operates as a global marketplace with talent access across LATAM, Philippines, and Europe, and delivers dedicated, full-time engineers embedded in your team, managed day-to-day by you, backed by transparent monthly pricing and a retention-oriented HR model.
This difference matters because it affects team coherence, knowledge retention, cost predictability and long-term delivery quality.
Andela’s vetting process includes AI matching, advanced assessments and training programmes.
Cloud Employee utilises CTO-led live pair programming and architecture interviews, ensuring engineers align not just technically but also culturally and operationally with your team.
“What I love about Cloud Employee is that you’ve taken all of that hard work off my shoulders. When I was presented with a shortlist of candidates, I knew they were all technically proficient. I knew that they would fit in as part of the team.”
— Marcus Kilgour, CTO, Salmon Software
“We actually hired the whole team remotely, having never met them. And we made a bunch of really good hires.”
— Euan Cameron, CEO & Founder, Willo
These testimonials highlight Cloud Employee’s ability to provide vetted engineers who then integrate into teams and deliver long-term value.
For engineering teams looking for integration, retention and cost transparency, Cloud Employee is a leading alternative to Andela.
It offers:
- Dedicated engineers exclusively working for you.
- Transparent monthly pricing with no hidden fees.
- Multi-region access with pre-vetted top-tier talent (LATAM, Philippines, and Europe) for time zone flexibility.
- Retention-led model that supports team stability and knowledge continuity.
While Andela is a strong contender for flexible global talent, Cloud Employee is tailored for organisations where engineering capacity is strategic, not transactional.
Know your options:
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