Staff augmentation
Senior engineers who join your stand-ups and work in your tools.
Best when
You have a roadmap and need more capacity or a specific skill.
A software engineering team for German and Austrian companies
elitics works for companies in Germany and Austria from Prishtina, Kosovo. The team shares your time zone, invoices in euros without VAT under the reverse-charge rule, and covers GDPR with a data processing agreement and the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. Start with one senior engineer or a full product squad.
- shared hours on a 09:00–18:00 day, all year
- 9 h
- invoices in euros, no exchange-rate risk
- EUR
- UStG reverse charge: no VAT on our invoices
- §13b
- EU Standard Contractual Clauses for GDPR
- SCC
Your working day is our working day
Prishtina, Berlin and Vienna are on Central European Time and change their clocks on the same dates, so a 09:00–18:00 day is fully shared in summer and winter.
Prishtina team dayYour working dayShared hours
- Berlin09:00–18:00 your time9 h Shared: 09:00–18:00 your time
- Munich09:00–18:00 your time9 h Shared: 09:00–18:00 your time
- Vienna09:00–18:00 your time9 h Shared: 09:00–18:00 your time
Hours on the scale are Prishtina time. Working days are 9 hours long, including a break.
Public holidays differ. Kosovo observes days that Germany and Austria do not, such as Independence Day (17 February), Constitution Day (9 April) and the two Eid holidays, whose dates move each year. German and Austrian regional holidays do not apply in Prishtina. Plan cover for these days in the first sprint.
Contracts under German civil law
German law distinguishes two contract types, and the engagement model decides which one applies.
- Dienstvertrag for team extension and squads
- Engagements billed for time worked are service contracts (Dienstvertrag, §611 BGB): you pay for qualified work rather than a defined result. Our team-extension contracts run month to month with transparent time tracking.
- Werkvertrag for fixed-price projects
- A fixed-price MVP or project is a contract for a result (Werkvertrag, §631 BGB). Scope, milestones and acceptance (Abnahme) are written into the contract, and each payment follows an accepted milestone.
- Labour leasing (AÜG)
- If your managers would direct individual engineers like employees, ask your legal adviser whether the setup could count as labour leasing under the Arbeitnehmerüberlassungsgesetz. A squad that elitics manages against agreed outcomes keeps the engagement clearly a service contract.
- Intellectual property
- An NDA and an IP assignment are signed before work starts. All code, designs and documentation belong to you and live in your repositories.
VAT and invoicing
Kosovo is outside the EU, so our invoices to German and Austrian businesses carry no VAT. You account for it under the reverse-charge rule.
- Reverse charge in Germany
- For services a foreign business supplies to a German company, the place of supply is Germany (§3a(2) UStG) and the recipient owes the VAT (§13b UStG). You declare it in your VAT return and, if you are entitled to deduct input tax, reclaim it in the same return.
- Austria
- Austrian VAT law works the same way for business customers: the service is taxed in Austria and the recipient accounts for the VAT (§3a(6) and §19 UStG 1994).
- Invoices in euros
- Kosovo uses the euro. Rates, invoices and payments are in euros, so your budget carries no exchange-rate risk.
- What we need from you
- Your company name, address and VAT identification number, so each invoice shows the reverse-charge note your accountant expects.
GDPR when your engineers are in Kosovo
Kosovo has no EU adequacy decision. Access to personal data from Prishtina is a transfer to a third country and needs safeguards under Article 46 GDPR.
- Data processing agreement
- We sign a data processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR that sets out what we process, on whose instructions, and with which technical and organisational measures.
- Standard Contractual Clauses
- The transfer is covered by the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Commission Implementing Decision 2021/914), usually module 2 (controller to processor), together with a transfer impact assessment.
- Data stays in your EU region
- Production systems can stay in your EU cloud region, for example Frankfurt. Engineers work through your accounts and access controls, and test environments use anonymised or synthetic data where possible. Remote access still counts as a transfer, so the clauses apply either way.
- Kosovo’s own data protection law
- Kosovo’s Law No. 06/L-082 on the Protection of Personal Data is modelled on the GDPR and supervised by the Information and Privacy Agency.
What it costs
Team extension from €45–65 per engineer-hour, dedicated squads from €15,000 per month, and fixed-price MVPs from €15,000. You receive a written proposal and estimate within 24 hours of the first call.
Dedicated squad
A cross-functional team (product, engineering, QA, DevOps) that owns a product or feature.
Best when
You want a product built or rebuilt without growing headcount.
Build-Operate-Transfer
Your own development center in Kosovo, set up and run by us.
Best when
You plan a long-term engineering presence in Europe.
How an engagement starts
- 01
First call
You talk to our engineering lead about the product, your team and your deadlines.
- 02
Proposal within 24 hours
A written proposal with the model, the team, the timeline and the price.
- 03
Contracts signed together
Master services agreement, NDA, IP assignment, data processing agreement and the Standard Contractual Clauses.
- 04
Work starts
Individual engineers start within about 48 hours of you approving their profiles. Squads start on the date agreed in the proposal.
Guides for this decision
- GDPR and Outsourcing Software Development to KosovoHow to outsource software development to Kosovo under the GDPR: no adequacy decision, a DPA, Standard Contractual Clauses, a transfer impact assessment.
- Staff Augmentation vs Dedicated Team: How to ChooseStaff augmentation or a dedicated team? Compare who directs the work, who carries delivery risk, how costs behave and the signs you picked the wrong model.
- Fixed Price vs Time and Materials ContractsFixed price or time and materials for software development? Where the risk sits, the change-request trap, hybrid contracts and what to write into each one.
Tax and legal sections reviewed by our legal counsel on 4 November 2026. General information, not legal advice.
Common questions
Do we pay VAT on elitics invoices?
Not to us. Invoices to businesses in Germany carry no VAT. You report it under the reverse-charge rule (§13b UStG) and, if you can deduct input tax, reclaim it in the same return.
Is it GDPR-compliant to work with developers in Kosovo?
It can be, with the right documents. Kosovo has no EU adequacy decision, so we sign a data processing agreement and the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, and you document a transfer impact assessment.
Which contract type applies to staff augmentation?
Time-based team extension is a service contract (Dienstvertrag, §611 BGB). Fixed-price projects with defined deliverables are contracts for work (Werkvertrag, §631 BGB) with formal acceptance.
Does the team work the same hours as we do?
Yes. Prishtina is on CET and CEST like Germany and Austria and changes clocks on the same dates, so the whole working day overlaps all year.
Can we meet the team in person?
Yes. Prishtina has direct flights from several German cities and from Vienna, and citizens of Kosovo have travelled visa-free in the Schengen area since January 2024, so engineers can also come to you for workshops.
Let’s build what comes next.
Tell us what you need to build or scale. You will get a proposal and estimate within 24 hours.