Our new developers were able to hit the ground running, we've worked with them for over two years now, and they are truly part of our team.
Alison WhittleProduct Delivery Manager, BladeFSIn-house feel, nearshore
n8n Developers
n8n appeals to British teams for a plain reason, it can be self-hosted, so workflow data stays inside infrastructure you control. We embed developers who build dependable automations and integrations on it, and who treat data handling with the seriousness UK firms have to.
- Strong in n8n, workflow logic and system integration
- Applied to operations, product and data pipelines
- Working to the British day, inside your internal teams
API IntegrationsData TransformationsError RecoverySelf Hosted ManagementScheduling
Our Service
Vetted on architecture, not node-dragging
The CTO-led process sets workflow modelling and logic challenges, then live pairing with a senior engineer. n8n's power is also its risk, custom code nodes and self-hosting mean real engineering decisions, so we select for people who make those decisions well and explain them clearly.
- Matched for n8n, APIs and automation pipelines
- Proven against hands-on workflow challenges
- Employed, onboarded and retained by Cloud Employee
Employed and retained by Cloud Employee
n8n work we take on
- Create maintainable workflows and logic paths.
- API IntegrationsConnect SaaS tools and custom APIs.
- Data TransformationsAdd mapping, routing, and filtering.
- Error RecoverySet up retries, fallbacks, and alerts.
- Self Hosted ManagementConfigure and maintain instance setups.
- SchedulingAutomate time based triggers.
The alternative
Get speed, fit and in-house feel without the hiring grind.
Cloud EmployeeIn-house hiringDev agenciesFreelancers
Speed to hire✓-✓✓
Flexibility to scale✓-✓✓
Developer fit (embedded)✓✓✓-
Full-time, only for you✓✓--
No overhead or upfront fees✓--✓
Solid lime = yes · outline lime = partial · grey dash = no
Vetting
You see two people - not 200 CVs.
Engineers vet engineers
A senior engineer runs a live technical conversation on the candidate's real stack, not a recruiter working from a keyword list.
Live coding, not take-homes
Real problems solved in front of an assessor, with anti-cheating checks. You see how they actually work, not what they submitted overnight.
A full profile, not a CV
Every candidate arrives with a CV, interview summary, coding-test breakdown and rate in pounds. You decide on evidence.
Every tab is a stage a candidate has to clear. Six of them, all run by our own internal engineers at Cloud Employee, before you see a name.
- Overview
- CV
- Tech interview
- Coding test
- Psychometric
- Soft skills
Scored by people. We use AI to cross-check our own consistency - never to decide who reaches your shortlist.
✓Luka M.
VettedSenior Software Engineer · TypeScript · Python · Cloud · 6 yrs · Zagreb, Croatia (GMT+1)
Assessment
Six years in production Python, the last three on LLM systems - retrieval pipelines, eval suites, and agent tooling for UK fintech. Owns delivery end to end.
Stack
Python · LangGraph
English
C1 fluent
Overlap
8 hrs UK
Notice
2 weeks
AI in practiceShips with Copilot and Claude Code daily, and rewrote 40% of the generated code in his observed task - the judgement is his, the tooling only makes him faster.
Career history
2023 - now
Senior AI Engineer
UK payments platform · 40-person product team
Built the retrieval assistant now resolving 30% of tier-1 tickets; owns its eval suite and guardrails.
2020 - 2023
Backend Engineer, Python
Travel booking SaaS · Zagreb
Moved fraud scoring onto a real-time feature pipeline; cut false declines by 18%.
2019 - 2020
Data Engineer
Agency · Python, Postgres, AWS
- Python
- FastAPI
- LangGraph
- pgvector
- Evals & tracing
- AWS
- Docker
Technical interview
Assessed by Marco R., Principal Engineer
12 Jun 2026
55 min · live call
"Walked me through an assistant that was quietly hallucinating refund policy, how he caught it in evals, and what he got wrong on the first fix. Hire-ready for a senior seat."
Live coding test
Repair a leaking retrieval pipeline
88
score
Tests passed
21 / 21
Time used
62 of 90 min
Anti-cheat flags
0
retrieval.py · submitted diff
- hits = index.query(q, k=50)+ hits = index.query(rewrite(q), k=50, filter=tenant)+ hits = rerank(hits, q)[:8] # recall 0.62 -> 0.91+ assert_context_budget(hits, max_tokens=6000)
Psychometric · technical thinking
How he reasons under a real deadline - not a personality quiz.
Top 9%of engineers
we test
A 45-minute reasoning test, scored against the 4,000+ engineers we have already placed. Our assessors do the marking - AI only flags where our own scoring looks inconsistent.
Soft skills · working with your team
Spoken English
C1 · assessed on call
References
2 of 2 verified
"He raised the payment edge case nobody else had spotted, in writing, two days before release."
This is what you receive - not a CV.
Ask our AI anythingWhy Cloud Employee?
Committed capability, flexible terms
You get a full-time engineer without a permanent-hire commitment, one monthly fee, a rolling contract, 30 days notice. Because the developer is our employee rather than your contractor, IR35 never enters the conversation. A UK-based client success manager keeps the relationship working.
- Sits across operations, support and product work
- HR, compliance and admin carried by us throughout
- Two-week money-back guarantee plus free replacement
Fully supported
We handle the rest so your engineers can focus on building.
Performance reviews
Payroll & complianceEquipment
WorkspaceIn-house, without the friction
No upfront fees. No lock-in contracts.
- No placement or upfront fees
- Rolling 30-day contract, cancel anytime
- One monthly rate, everything included
Ready to find your engineer?
Tell us exactly who you need.
In 90 seconds
Two matched engineers in 7 days. No fees, no obligation.
What role are you hiring for?
Pick one to start - you'll see matching engineers at the end.
- Founded in 2014
- 97% stay 2+ years
- Replace if it isn't working
Got questions?
The questions CTOs and founders ask.
01How much does it cost to hire an n8n developer in the UK?
Usually between 50 and 75% below the full cost of a comparable British hire, once salary, employer national insurance, pension, recruitment fees and overheads are all counted. UK-based n8n specialists are part of what we place, so that option is genuinely open. In practice most clients land in Eastern Europe, the Philippines or Latin America for the same calibre at materially less cost, and Eastern Europe fits a British working day almost exactly. The aim is the strongest quality-to-cost ratio we can find, capable automation engineers at a sustainable price.
02What is n8n and why do teams choose it?
n8n is a workflow automation tool you can self-host, connecting APIs and services through a visual, node-based editor, with real code available whenever the built-in nodes run out. Teams choose it over hosted rivals for two reasons above all, control and cost. Self-hosting keeps sensitive data inside your own infrastructure, which regulated and privacy-conscious companies need, and removes the per-operation pricing that makes high-volume automation expensive elsewhere. It has also become a favourite for AI workflows, with nodes for models, agents and vector stores, so teams orchestrate LLM steps beside ordinary API calls.
03What skills should I look for in an n8n developer now?
Look for a genuine developer, not just a workflow builder, because n8n rewards JavaScript skill and infrastructure competence in ways hosted platforms do not. Function nodes and custom nodes mean real code lives inside serious n8n work, so TypeScript or JavaScript fluency is the floor, alongside API literacy, authentication flows, webhooks, pagination, rate limits. Self-hosting adds an operations layer too, Docker, backups, upgrades, which a hosted-only candidate may miss. With AI in the picture twice, assistants writing node code and AI steps running inside workflows, the differentiator is verification judgement.
04How do I assess an n8n developer, and what should I ask?
Test an n8n candidate on integration reasoning and operational care, the two things production automation actually demands. Give them an unfamiliar API's documentation and ask them to design a workflow against it, watching how they handle authentication and failure paths before any nodes get placed. Ask what running n8n in production involves, a strong candidate talks about hosting, upgrades and monitoring unprompted. Bring AI into it directly, ask where they would put an AI node inside a workflow and how they would contain the risk.
05Are n8n developers in demand, and is it worth building on?
Demand for n8n skills is rising quickly, pushed by two currents at once, cost-conscious teams leaving per-task pricing and the platform's popularity for AI workflow orchestration. It has become a common backbone for teams wiring LLMs into business processes while keeping data on their own servers, which hosted rivals cannot always offer. The market is younger and smaller than for mainstream development skills, but it is growing from real production need rather than hype. Worth building on, yes, when data control, volume economics and custom code inside workflows match constraints you actually have.
06Do your developers use AI tools, and how do you know the code is sound?
Yes, at two levels, our n8n developers use AI assistants to build, and build workflows containing AI steps, and each level gets its own verification discipline. Assistant-written function code is reviewed and tested like any code before deployment. AI steps inside workflows get treated as unreliable components by design, constrained outputs, validation rules, human checkpoints where a wrong classification would do damage. We assess these habits during vetting, live with a senior engineer, and whether a candidate uses AI tooling well is an explicit criterion.
07How does Cloud Employee vet n8n developers?
n8n developers pass the full CTO-led vetting we apply to software engineers, because self-hosted automation is software engineering, whatever the visual canvas suggests. Four stages, a technical assessment, live pair programming with a senior engineer, a cultural fit screen and our psychometric assessment built for software engineers. The pairing covers real code and operational thinking, JavaScript under the nodes, security around credentials, judgement about failure. We screen and match with AI assistance, and keep every hiring decision human.
08How quickly can a developer start, and how does the engagement work?
You are typically interviewing matched candidates within 7 working days of a requirements call, and developers are often embedded and pushing code within about two weeks. From there it is a rolling monthly contract with 30 days' notice, one monthly fee, and no placement charges. You can scale up or down as the work changes, and you pay nothing to interview.
09What happens if the developer is not the right fit?
There is a two-week money-back guarantee, and if you want to continue we replace the developer free of charge. In practice this rarely comes up, because you interview a shortlist of two candidates who have already passed a CTO-led technical assessment and a live pair programming session, so the fit question is largely settled before anyone starts.
Proof, not promises
Hear from our customers
In their words
What the difference feels like
Alison WhittleProduct Delivery Manager, BladeFSWhat I love about Cloud Employee is that you have taken all of that hard work off my shoulders.
Marcus KilgourCTO, Salmon SoftwareWorking with Cloud Employee developers is great, because they're not afraid to push back. They're proactive, they're positive, and they feel like part of the team.
Doran EskinaziHead of Engineering, HealthpointeWe actually hired the whole team remotely, having never met them. And we made a bunch of really good hires.
Euan CameronCEO, WilloCloud Employee provides a level of professionalism, communication and support we haven't found elsewhere.
Trevor SathorManaging Director, Square EyeWorking in tandem with Cloud Employee we have successfully released a major version of our main software product during a critical period for us.
James StringerManaging Director, CleanLink