Prototyping hardware in Shenzhen without moving there

“Can we iterate in Shenzhen without anyone on our team living there?”

Yes, if three people cover the ground: an engineer who reviews your design for manufacture and talks to the board and enclosure shops, a buyer who sources parts, and someone who checks and ships each build. Put design ownership in writing before any file goes out.

The table splits one loop between them and your own engineers. Below it you’ll find a six-week example and the checks that matter for IP and for export. For hiring in China in general, start with How to hire a freelancer in China without speaking Chinese.

Who does what in one prototype loop

The engineer is an engineering hire. The buyer and the checker do sourcing and quality control work, and packing a parcel for a carrier sits under logistics. On a small project one person may cover two columns. Keep them apart in the brief anyway: each one is a set of tasks someone has to price.

The engineer is the hire that matters most, and the one to make first if you start with a single person. Look for someone who has taken boards through bring-up themselves, and ask to see a change list or a bring-up report from a past job with the client’s details removed. On a call, ask what they do when a new board won’t power up. You’ll learn more from the answer than from a CV. Vetting a freelancer in China walks through testing that before you sign.

The buyer turns your BOM into parts on a bench. Some parts can come from Chinese wholesale sites, and How to buy on 1688 explains how ordering works there. A buyer who also checks suppliers is doing a sourcing agent’s job on a small scale, so the same rules apply: pay them yourself and ask them to take nothing from suppliers, as How to hire a freelance sourcing agent in China sets out.

The checker reports what is actually on the bench, and the report is only as good as your drawing: give them the dimensions to measure and the photos you want, with the pass and fail lines in writing.

Your own team keeps the design decisions and the test plan, and it holds the shipping paperwork. The “reply window” in stage 3 is the hours you promise to answer within. Shops ask questions during their working day, and a question that waits overnight costs a day. Working across time zones with a freelancer in China shows how to set the window, and the handbook chapter on working together deals with the rest of the routine. Before the design package goes out, have the engineer open the shared folder and the call link from Shenzhen; the work tools a freelancer in China can reach covers the common ones.

The loop, week by week

Example. A four-person product team in Munich is on the second revision of two boards, a main board and a small sensor board, with a 3D-printed enclosure. Every duration below is an assumption of this example, not a lead time any shop has quoted. Your real durations come from the quotes in week 2.

The example assumes:

• the design package is complete when it leaves Munich;
• board fabrication and assembly take two weeks from the order, and the printed enclosure parts arrive within that time;
• all parts but one are in stock in China, and the buyer finds an alternate for that one;
• the team answers shop questions within one working day;
• the courier leg to Munich takes under a week.

1. Week 1, package and review. Munich sends the schematics, layout files, BOM, enclosure CAD and test plan. The engineer sends back a design-for-manufacture review. The buyer flags two parts with long waits and proposes alternates. The team accepts one and keeps the other.
2. Week 2, quotes. The engineer asks the board, assembly and enclosure shops for quotes, in Chinese, and sends a shortlist with notes in English. The team approves it, and the buyer orders the parts.
3. Weeks 3 and 4, build. Parts go to the assembly shop. The engineer answers the shop’s questions, or passes them to Munich with a one-line summary. Munich replies inside its window.
4. Week 5, check. The engineer powers up the boards and runs the first tests from the plan. The checker photographs each unit, measures the enclosure against the drawing and logs any mismatch. If a board fails, the notes and photos go to Munich that day, not at the end of the week.
5. Week 6, ship and feedback. The checker packs and labels the units and hands them to the courier the team booked. The engineer writes the change list for revision C in English and Chinese, and the buyer updates the BOM. Munich decides what goes into the next round.

Six weeks is just how this example works out. Of the things you control, a complete package in week 1 and quick answers in weeks 3 and 4 move the dates most.

Keep the design yours

Do these three things before the first file goes out.

1. Assign the copyright in writing. China’s Copyright Law lists engineering and product design drawings and computer software among protected works (art. 3). A commissioned work belongs to the person who made it unless the contract says otherwise (art. 19), and a transfer of the economic rights needs a written contract (art. 27). That covers layout files, firmware and enclosure drawings your freelancer makes. Paying for them doesn’t make them yours.
2. Agree who may apply for patents. For a commissioned invention, the right to apply for a patent belongs to the inventor unless the parties agree otherwise (Patent Law art. 8). An assignment of that right needs a written contract and registration with CNIPA, China’s patent office, and takes effect on registration. A transfer from a Chinese party to a foreign one also follows formalities set by other laws (art. 10).
3. Send each shop only the files its step needs. A board shop needs fabrication files and a BOM, not the enclosure CAD. An enclosure shop needs the enclosure files, not the firmware. Only your engineer holds the full set.

If your tests include user trials with people in China, the testers’ names, recordings and answers are personal information, and China’s Personal Information Protection Law sets the grounds on which they may be processed (art. 13).

Who owns commissioned work in China explains the copyright rule in full. The services agreement checklist lists the assignment, invention and confidentiality clauses to put in your contract.

Getting prototypes out of China

This page classifies nothing. Each item says where the rule sits, so that your carrier or your lawyer can apply it to your parcel. If someone else on your team books the courier, send them this section.

• Lithium batteries. ICAO’s Technical Instructions for the Safe Transport of Dangerous Goods by Air, 2025-2026 edition, valid until December 31, 2026, give lithium ion batteries their own UN numbers and packing instructions: UN 3480 for batteries on their own, UN 3481 for batteries packed with or inside equipment. China’s civil aviation test standard for lithium batteries in air transport (MH/T 1052-2013) lists the UN 38.3 tests, T.1 to T.8, and asks for a UN 38.3 test report from the lab that ran them. A cell in the prototype changes how the parcel can ship. Ask the cell’s supplier for that report and tell the carrier before you book. The carrier decides.
• Export control lists. China’s Dual-use Items Export Control List (Ministry of Commerce and three other departments, Announcement 2024 No. 51, in force December 1, 2024) sorts controlled items into ten categories, among them electronics, telecommunications and information security, sensors and lasers, and navigation. If a prototype carries a radio module, encryption or an unusual sensor, check the list, and the 2026 license catalog built on it (Announcement 2025 No. 91), before it ships.
• Technology, not only boxes. China also controls the export of technology. Under the Catalogue of Technologies Prohibited or Restricted from Export (2023, adjusted in July 2025), the Ministry of Commerce says a prohibited technology may not be exported, a restricted one needs a license, and a freely exportable one is exported under contract registration. Ask your lawyer whether the transfer of a design made in China needs a registration.
• Courier samples. Under a customs announcement of 2018, a courier parcel of goods worth 5,000 yuan or less, not counting freight and insurance, is declared as a low-value “C class” express shipment, unless it needs a license, an export tax refund, the collection of export proceeds, or inspection and quarantine. Customs’ service guide lists an invoice among the documents for that declaration. Write a true value and a plain description on it.

The customs paperwork itself belongs to your team and your carrier, as the matrix shows. The checker hands the parcel to the courier and signs nothing for the export.

What a loop costs

A loop has three kinds of cost. The freelancers’ fees are set in their bids, one price per milestone. The shops and the parts are best paid directly to the companies that invoice them, not through a freelancer. The courier is booked and paid by your team.

For the fees, the official reference points for engineering pay are on What developers in China cost, and the handbook’s chapter on paying a freelancer in RMB covers how the money gets to them. For the city itself, one figure:

When you do need to be there

Some moments still need you, or someone with your authority, in the room. Setting up a production line is one: once a design moves from prototypes to a line, the questions come faster than any reply window can handle. A supplier dispute is another. A freelancer can carry your message, but they can’t settle the dispute on your behalf the way you can face to face. And if a certification test requires the applicant to witness it, a freelancer can’t stand in for you.

For a factory visit that doesn’t need you, send someone in your place.

Post the first loop as a brief, with your design package attached. Start a brief.