How Tunga Selects Professionals and Verifies Who They Are
Hiring someone you have only met on video raises two questions: can they do the work, and are they who they say they are. Everyone who joins Tunga's pool shares proof of identity, then goes through a multi-stage test cycle with several personal conversations and interviews, a review of their code on GitHub, and screening for cheating; the cycle also tests communication and how someone reads a working situation. Since Tunga was founded in 2015, it has not had a case of identity fraud. After that you interview the people Tunga proposes and choose whom to work with, and in the first 4 weeks either side can end the engagement at one working day's notice.
Why identity became a hiring question
Remote hiring through freelance channels has been targeted with false identities. In April 2025 Google's Threat Intelligence Group reported that North Korean IT workers were applying to European companies as remote freelancers. In January 2025 the FBI advised companies to tighten identity checks and to have personal contact with candidates during hiring.
What matters is how well the person was checked before they started. A candidate hired directly from a freelance platform has had the checks that platform does, and no more.
What happens before someone is proposed to you
Everyone who joins Tunga's pool shares proof of identity at the start, before any test. To get in at all, a professional needs at least 3 years of hands-on development work and good English. For each role the selection then runs in this order:
1. Pre-qualification. Tunga checks each applicant's experience against the role. Those who do not meet the minimum stop here.
2. An interview on communication and situational awareness. A personal conversation about how someone explains their work, asks questions and reads a working situation. It takes place before the tests.
3. Tests. Technical tests, and soft-skills tests where the role asks for it.
4. A quality check by a talent manager. The talent manager reviews the test results. Candidates below the required score do not go forward.
5. The shortlist. Only then is someone proposed to you.
Alongside this Tunga reviews code the candidate has written on GitHub, and screens every step for cheating. Tunga can ask a candidate to redo their test work or explain their reasoning in a follow-up interview. Work done by someone else, live help during an interview, or AI-generated code that is not disclosed leads to disqualification, a ban from new roles, or removal from the pool.
Not everyone gets in. Many of the professionals in the pool have worked for European or American clients before.
Why you still interview the people yourself
Tunga's selection decides who can be proposed; you decide who works with you. For each role Tunga turns your profile into a briefing and presents a shortlist, usually 3 candidates or more; you decide whom to interview and whom to work with. The person you interview is the person who does the work.
Some clients add their own tests, such as a technical assignment or a session working through code together. That is no problem, and Tunga can set it up with the candidates on the shortlist.
The first 4 weeks work as a real trial: you or Tunga can end the engagement at one working day's notice. After that the notice period is 4 weeks, for both sides.
What selection does not cover
Selection tests what can be tested before the work starts. What a team needs in its own context, such as its codebase, its way of working and its pace, shows in the first weeks. That is why a delivery manager with experience in onboarding works alongside you and the professional in the first weeks, and checks in with both sides at least once a month after that.
Communication and speaking up are a known difficulty in cross-border teams, and Tunga does not treat them as settled at selection. Professional and communication skills are part of the Tunga Academy, and delivery managers keep working on them with professionals who are already placed.
How to check any partner's selection
The same questions work for Tunga and for any other partner:
- Do candidates prove their identity, and when in the process?
- Is there personal contact before someone is proposed, or only tests?
- Is the test work checked as the candidate's own?
- Do you interview the exact person who will do the work?
- What happens if the person turns out not to be a fit in the first weeks?
The full set of 8 questions, with what a good answer looks like, is on the page 8 Questions to Ask a Nearshore or Offshore Development Partner Before You Sign.
When this is not enough
- Formal security clearance. If your sector requires a government-issued clearance for everyone with access, selection by a staffing partner does not replace it.
- A criminal-record or employment-history check. This is not part of the standard selection. Tunga can arrange one on request, but a check as it works in Europe does not exist in the same form in every country, so agree up front what it will and will not cover.
- Nobody to interview. If nobody on your side can judge a candidate's work in an interview, the shortlist step loses its value. The first role is then a tech lead or product owner who reports to you.
Where Tunga fits
Tunga takes the staffing side off the plate of companies that need digital professionals: software engineers, AI operators, product managers and other digital roles, from across Africa. The client directs the work. Tunga handles finding and vetting, contracts, payments and compliance, onboarding, keeping people, and replacing them when someone leaves or it isn't working. The professionals are independent freelancers contracted by Tunga and work remotely from their own country; the client has one contract, with Tunga, and a delivery manager who checks in with both sides. In 2025, about 1 in 56 placements ended because the professional left for another job. Founded in 2015; 3,500 professionals across 38 African countries and 300+ client companies, as of September 2026.
Tunga is not the right fit when the role has to be on site, when the work means talking to your clients in a language other than English or French, or when saving on cost is the main reason you're looking.
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