Case Study

We do not name the client or group affiliation for confidentiality reasons. The numbers are verifiable.

The Starting Point

A mid-sized engineering services company in plant engineering and process technology, a subsidiary of a German industrial group. The company could not recruit enough piping, design, and E&I engineers for its growing project pipeline in Germany. Vacancy times ran four to six months, while project pressure kept mounting.

The Implementation

The company built a dedicated team in Tunisia — starting with three engineers and scaling to six within five months. The line-up: four piping and design engineers plus two E&I engineers from electrical, measurement, and control engineering. The seniority mix was one junior, four mid-level, and one senior. The team was fully integrated into the client's IT environment and worked on a regular cadence with the German team.

The Results

What Stood Out

Onboarding time for domain-specific knowledge — in this case, design software and plant planning — was roughly one to three months. That is comparable to onboarding a new hire in Germany. Every engineer needs ramp-up time, whether they come from Stuttgart or Tunis.

The only structural adjustment was the project language. The team switched from German to English. For engineering documentation, technical reviews, and quality checks, it worked smoothly. For external communication in German — with end clients or authorities, for example — a German-speaking point of contact within the company remains necessary.

Back to the report overview.

Next chapter: The Case for Tunisia — and Against It.