How to Hire Dedicated Offshore Developers: A Step-by-Step guide

You already have a great and seemingly profitable idea for implementing some digital solution. However, your company's main focus is something other than software development, or even if you have IT specialists on staff, they have their own set of tasks that they are required to perform on a day-to-day basis. In this case, the optimal solution to the situation would be to resort to outsourcing and, in particular, hire dedicated developers. Below, in our guide to hiring dedicated developers, you will be able to find out how to do it properly.

Accelerate Your Software Development with Offshore Developers

You may be wondering why you should hire a dedicated software development team. The answer to this question is straightforward: to speed up the development process and, as a result, bring the product launch date closer. The fact is that the process of staffing an offshore team takes no more than a couple of weeks and even less, if the offshore contracting company has a large talent pool. Thus, work on your project will begin in less than a month.

When Should You Consider Hiring Offshore Developers?

The option to hire dedicated development teams is sometimes the only way for companies with a need to launch their own digital solution. This can be explained by several reasons:

• due to a limited budget – you can choose specialists with the skills you need from another region, where average market rates are lower than in your region;
• due to limited in-house human resources – you will not have to organize job places for them and deal with numerous bureaucratic procedures;
• due to limited time – if you needed to start working on the project “yesterday”, choosing to offshore will help you overcome this challenge.

As for dedicated developers, this type of collaboration involves risk sharing between the contractor and the client. But, as an advantage, the client gets the opportunity to fully control every step taken by the team and, thereby, influence the development results in real-time.

Exploring Different Models for Hiring Offshore Developers

Besides hiring dedicated software developers, you can also consider several other types of offshoring.

Staff Augmentation

This type of outsourcing involves expanding the client’s company’s in-house team with remote specialists to perform short-term duties. At the same time, control over the extended team lies entirely with the client, as well as the risks associated with its activities.

Managed Team

When you hire offshore programmers according to the managed team model, it implies transferring all processes for creating a digital solution and the risks associated with them to an outsourcing provider. Typically, this type of service is used for long-term cooperation when the client does not have the necessary competencies and/or the ability to constantly monitor the development progress.

Project-based Model

This type of offshoring means collaborating with IT specialists to complete specific short-term tasks. Typically, these tasks have clear milestones and requirements for the results obtained.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Hiring Offshore Developers

Let's find out how to hire dedicated offshore developers in our comprehensive guide.

Clarify Your Expectations

First, you will need to understand how much of the risk you are willing to take on and how much to transfer to your dedicated offshore team. This way, you will be able to understand which cooperation model is closer to you (the list of the most popular ones is presented in the previous paragraph) and narrow down the selection of possible contractors.

Research and Select Potential Vendors

Based on reviews from real clients (they can be found on Clutch.co and similar web resources) and company ratings, you will need to find at least a dozen contractors that match your expertise and begin analyzing their portfolio and terms of cooperation.

Review and Select Vendors

In addition to analyzing the competence in the niche you need and other clients’ reviews, you will also need to make sure that your contractor is located in a time zone convenient for you and in a region with acceptable rates. 

Conduct Personal Interviews

Once your choice is boiled down to a couple of contractors, hold a personal meeting with them online. Most likely, during this meeting, you will gain additional insights that will help you find the best one.

Onboarding and Integration Process

Now, that you are ready to conclude a contract with a contractor, bring them up to date by explaining your company’s activities and the vision of what tasks your future digital solution should solve. This will speed up the process of selecting the right specialists.

Operational Aspects to Consider When Hiring Offshore Developers

Let's take a look at additional aspects that you will need to take into account when you hire offshore developers.

Utilizing NDAs to Protect Intellectual Property

Perhaps your company has its own lawyer who will help you decide on the main points for the NDA. If you do not have such a specialist, your contractor will most likely help you prepare this document. However, this will be an additional reason to carefully read the provisions of this document and possibly extend them with your own requirements to protect your intellectual property.

Prioritizing Experienced Developers

To save their budget, some companies strive to hire dedicated remote developers at the lowest rates, which usually indicates their poor expertise. This is the wrong approach and, in the long run, will provoke multiple edits in your project. That is why it’s better to give preference to seasoned specialists who will maximize the life cycle of your software.

Establishing Communication and Reporting Protocols

Before you hire dedicated developers team, you will need to make sure that the communication and reporting protocols they follow meet your requirements. Otherwise, you will face many contradictions in the development process, which will ultimately delay the launch of the project and add numerous obstacles during it.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring Offshore Developers

This paragraph is no less important to check, as here, you can find out what typical mistakes companies face when they hire dedicated programmers.

Focusing Solely on Price Rather Than Value

We have already outlined the importance of hiring experienced specialists above, but let us emphasize it again — the less trivial the requirements (technical and non-technical) for your project, the greater the list of competencies each member of your offshore dedicated development team should have.

Overcommitting Resources

Choose a specialist from your side or trust your dedicated development company in this problem to correctly assess the time, human (on your side), and financial resources that you have. Otherwise, work on the project may be suspended for unspecified periods at the most inopportune moment.

Underestimating the Need for Project Management

You must correctly assess your ability to manage and communicate regularly with your team. If you don't have the internal resources to do this, you will only have one offshoring option – a managed team, which we wrote about earlier.

Importance of Interviewing the Dedicated Team

And, of course, don’t neglect the opportunity to communicate with each of your remote developers personally before you hire a dedicated development team. Otherwise, you risk entrusting the implementation of your business idea to specialists who do not share your values or vision of results.

Simplifying the Process: Hire Your Offshore Team in Four Steps

Finally, we invite you to learn how to hire a dedicated developer in four simple steps.

Describe Your Project Needs

When you already have in mind a dedicated team of developers for hire, it is important from the very beginning to indicate to each of its members your needs that must be fulfilled in the process of your cooperation. This way, your contractors will immediately get a clear idea of what requirements have to be fulfilled and with what tools to achieve your ultimate goal.

Align Goals in a Meeting

Your dedicated team developers must clearly understand why you are going to create a specific solution and what global tasks it must accomplish for your business. This approach will provide them with additional insights that will help them move in the right direction.

Approve Your Selected Team

You may have several candidates for a certain role in your remote team, so you will need to choose the best of them. A personal interview will also help you with this, where you can check each of your applicants for the presence of the soft skills you need.

Kickstart Your Project with Remote Talent

Now you have everything ready to start working on the project – a team of experienced dedicated programmers, a comprehensive understanding of the goals and aligning them with your contractor, and of course, a detailed NDA that will protect you from all kinds of force majeure. Therefore, it’s a great time to bring your idea to life!

Conclusion: Embrace Offshore Development for Efficient Software Development Processes

Now that you understand the process of finding a reliable contractor, you can hire dedicated development team that will meet your expectations and lead your project to a successful launch. In particular, you can always contact us, and we will select a team of dedicated offshore developers according to your requirements in a matter of days.