Boston Dynamics takes robotics global with strategic market growth

The challenge: building a global team as fast as the business was growing

When Boston Dynamics made the leap from specialized R&D organization to global commercial enterprise, the people operations function had to scale just as quickly as the products hitting the market. The company needed field engineers, sales teams, and support staff in close proximity to customers across Europe and Asia—and it needed them fast.

The challenge wasn't just speed. The highly specialized nature of robotics meant that the talent Boston Dynamics needed was often located outside the U.S., in countries where the company had no legal entity and no existing HR infrastructure. Setting up entities market by market wasn't financially viable for one or two hires—but leaving those roles unfilled wasn't an option either.

The team needed a global employment partner that could:

• Hire specialized robotics talent compliantly in new markets without entity setup
• Deliver an employee experience strong enough to protect the Boston Dynamics brand
• Navigate complex, fast-moving employment regulations across multiple jurisdictions
• Integrate seamlessly with existing HR systems to avoid fragmented employee lifecycle management
• Accelerate compliance research as the global footprint continued to expand

The solution: a global hiring platform built for global scale

G-P EOR: the foundation for global hiring
Boston Dynamics' partnership with G-P began with a straightforward need: rehiring former employees in Canada without the overhead of entity setup. That first experience set the tone for everything that followed.

As Boston Dynamics deployed Spot and Stretch to customers worldwide, G-P EOR became the engine behind their international hiring strategy. The company used G-P to compliantly hire, onboard, and manage employees across nine markets—Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, Poland, and the U.K.—without establishing a single local entity.

In one case, the team needed to hire a professional with rare expertise in robotics animation, based in Denmark. G-P's existing entity infrastructure made it possible to move immediately.

"We didn't have entities there, and we didn't necessarily want to spend the resources to set ourselves up to hire one or two people within a given country," said Eduardo Ramos, Sr. Staff Total Rewards Analyst at Boston Dynamics. "That's where G-P really comes into play—we're able to piggyback off of their robust global infrastructure and hire our folks through their entities."

An employee experience worth protecting
For a company with Boston Dynamics' name recognition, employee experience isn't just an HR priority—it's a brand imperative. G-P's in-region support model ensured that EOR employees felt like full members of the Boston Dynamics team, with access to benefits, payroll support, and HR guidance in their own language and time zone.

"They want to be employees of Boston Dynamics," said Salamone. "When we talk to them about our EOR arrangement with G-P, we can tell them with confidence they'll have just as good of an experience — and probably better — than if we employed them directly. They get support in their own time zone, in their own language, with people who really understand what it means to be an employee in that country."

That commitment to experience extends to high-stakes situations. When a new hire experienced a medical incident prior to onboarding, G-P's expertise proved essential.

"We had a new hire through G-P who had a medical incident prior to onboarding — it was a very complicated situation," added Salamone. "Were it not for the guidance of G-P, we probably would have made some mistakes along the way. For us, it's not just about compliance and regulation. It's also about the experience of the individuals."

Workday integration: one connected system for the full employee lifecycle
To ensure EOR employees had a consistent experience from day one, Boston Dynamics integrated G-P directly with Workday.

G-P Gia: AI-powered compliance at the speed of business
As the global footprint expanded, so did the complexity of staying current on employment regulations across multiple jurisdictions. Boston Dynamics turned to G-P Gia, G-P's AI-powered global HR agent, to bring the same speed and precision to compliance research that their robots bring to the warehouse floor.

The team embedded Gia as the default first step in their compliance and HR research process—from pre-hire due diligence in new countries to day-to-day policy questions, onboarding checklists, visa guidance, and employee investigation support.

Beyond research, the team uses Gia to draft onboarding workflows, generate employee FAQs, manage compliance for new office openings, and work through HR documents and dashboards with significantly less manual effort.

The impact: faster growth, stronger compliance, one connected experience

Together, G-P EOR, Workday integration, and G-P Gia have given Boston Dynamics an end-to-end global employment solution that keeps pace with one of the world's fastest-moving robotics companies. The results speak for themselves:

• Hired specialized robotics talent across nine countries without establishing local entities
• Delivered a best-in-class employee experience that protects the Boston Dynamics brand globally
• Integrated G-P with Workday for seamless, full-lifecycle employee management
• Reduced compliance research from hours to seconds with Gia
• Maintained a best-in-class legal and compliance framework as the business scales
• Navigated complex, high-stakes employment situations with G-P's expert guidance

Looking ahead, Boston Dynamics plans to expand further into Asia—and with the G-P platform behind them, they're positioned to move as fast as the market demands.

"Don't wait. The longer you wait, you're just losing out on the opportunity for you to drive your business goals forward," Ramos concluded.