The Perfect Match: Four Time-Tested Pro Tips on Finding a Remote Development Team

Building an in-house software development team is a challenging undertaking. From finding decent specialists to onboarding and managing them, you have to take on tons of things. The talent crunch in the tech industry does not make that any easier. There were only 65 potential candidates for every 100 vacancies in the US last year. 

All these and a number of other factors put remote teams in a favorable light in terms of software development quality, expenses, and time to market. If the idea of hiring a remote development team has crossed your mind, check yourself against our list of actions to pick a reliable technology partner.

What is a remote software development team?

Remote development is a business partnership model in software development. It involves using the services of a technology vendor located in another country. The vendor sets up a remote development team based on your budget and project requirements to solve your IT challenges. Team composition and seniority levels for different roles are determined by your project complexity and the scope of the tasks. 

Work smarter not harder: why hire a remote development team?

Delving into new initiatives becomes easier when we understand the deliverables. When it comes to the remote software development process and remote workers, these are reduced costs, greater flexibility, and a faster time to market. 

Whether you’re a CTO of a large corporation or a small business owner, outsourcing can become your way to kill two birds with one stone, saving your time, and project budget. 

If you hire a remote team, you don’t waste time setting up processes within the team as it’s self-managed. Just take advantage of ready-to-work, talented software engineers embedded into your IT department. 

For instance, tech giants like McKinsey and Deloitte locate their R&D centers in Poland, where the outsourcing framework is flexible, mature, and tax-friendly. You can also take advantage of local talent and hire specialists or an entire team to develop innovative products.

Collaboration models to choose from

No project can be handled by following the same playbook. Successful remote development calls for flexible collaboration methods, calibrated for your business needs. For a company that wants to launch their own product and has no developers onboard, for an organization that craves extra hands to offload their tech backlog, or a corporation which needs a full-scale development center as its numerous project teams have spiraled out of control, there are different options to benefit from. 

IT staff augmentation

Start scaling your business capacities on demand with staff augmentation. It’s the most affordable way to strengthen your IT department with high-qualified experts in software product development, business analysis, UX/UI design, quality assurance, etc., in a matter of days. However, consider that you’ll have to manage these employees by yourself and have the skills and project management tools to do so.

This model of cooperation may be suitable for different projects. For example, a company with its own IT department may lack a specific role for a project. However, it’s impractical to hire the needed domain specialist full-time, especially if no similar projects are planned any time soon. Or there might be the right specialists in place, but the project deadline is on fire, so the organization needs extra hands for a short time to cope with the workload. 

​​​​Another example is when startups seek maximum benefits at an affordable price and in a short timeframe. An IT staff augmentation model provides them with access to a wide range of skill sets and offers financial adaptability and cost-adequacy, which are critical for resource-constrained newcomers.

The advantage of IT staff augmentation is that you don’t just get industry or technology experts but proactive team members who communicate effectively and strive to find and offer the best solution. This is driven by high competition among technology vendors. Remote software engineers have to be proactive so that you want to hire them again for another project. This is why, you can choose the best of the best without compromising your project budget.

Dedicated team

With dedicated development, you hire a whole agile development remote team, so you won’t have to build it from scratch or worry about fitting new employees into the established squad. The dedicated team works as an independent unit whose activities are transparent. The remote dedicated experts can cover the whole software delivery process, including analysis, design, development, deployment, quality assurance, and support.

Such an approach is a good fit for long-term projects with frequently changing requirements. You get domain experts who take on IT tasks if you don’t have your own IT department. And if you have your own IT unit, but they are busy on another project, then you can enlist the help of a dedicated team. Moreover, if you fully entrust your vendor with software solution implementation and delivery, then you don’t even need to participate in technical interviews of candidates for the dedicated remote team.

Offshore development center

When the number of separate remote teams you’ve been hiring is growing, at some point, managing them becomes too big of a challenge, taking a toll on the overall project. 

Instead of dealing with multiple remote teams scattered across the globe, you can establish an offshore development center when an overseas business unit becomes an extension of your organization. This collaboration model suits companies with specific security requirements, the ones that handle sensitive data, and large projects that depend on hardware. 

Four factors to consider when looking for a remote development team

Before hiring a development team, there are a number of things to take into account from a business and technical perspective. The more nuances you think through at the initial stage, the smoother the cooperation will be.

1. Identify limitations of your project and expectations from the remote team 

This information will help you find a highly professional remote development team that matches your budget, time-to-market, and security standards. 

• Define your budget. Calculate the amount of money you are ready to spend on the project of product development before starting the negotiation process. It’s crucial to engage budget approval persons, and the CTO, who will help define the technical requirements that affect the development cost.
• Spot the specific requirements for your project. For example, if your project necessitates particular security protocols, it may narrow down the number of software companies, from which you can request a team of remote developers. 
• Decide on the collaboration and payment model type you need. Earlier, we mentioned collaboration models and use cases for each of them. But at this stage, you should also choose between a fixed price, and a time and material payment model.

Fixed price, with its strict costs, timeline limitations, and inflexibility, is a suitable option for well-specified projects with precise time to market. Ensuring that no new requirements or features will appear during development is a mandatory condition. Moreover, this payment model may include the absence of communication with the client.

But startups without complete specifications and complex long-term projects require a flexible time and material payment model, which implies adaptability to ever-changing requirements. 

• Following coding standards. It’s not that hard to write code that will work for now. But will it be high-quality and consistent code that any developer can work with? 

When you hire remote software developers, make sure they follow coding standards, such as PEP8 for Python, SEI CERT for Java, MISRA for C/C++, etc. It will save you from code refactoring and rewriting inconsistent or poorly written code in the future. Moreover, such an approach ensures easier code migration and integration with other systems.

2. Think twice before choosing a region where to hire a remote development team

Although the quality of services plays the first fiddle in choosing a team of remote developers, it’s important to think beyond that. The cost of software development, time zone differences, culture and work mentality of the country you’re hiring from, English proficiency level, can greatly impact the success of your project.

• Quality of software development services. First things first, it makes no sense to hire a team of remote developers from a cheaper location if the software solutions they create cannot maintain acceptable performance levels consistently, show low average Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) and Mean Time To Repair (MTTR), and have a high number of defects in the code. Quality shouldn’t be compromised, and solutions should be, first and foremost, holistic, reliable, correct, maintainable, and easy to use. 

Therefore, it’s worth choosing remote software developers in countries with a high level of education in IT disciplines. For instance, while only 41% of developers worldwide have a bachelor’s degree, in Poland the figure is almost twice higher,  reaching 73%.

• Cost. Instead of hiring a remote development team in the USA, where you would pay $130K for each developer, seek the same services in Poland and pay $40K for a senior software engineer working remotely or $24K for a mid-level specialist. Meanwhile, Poland is one of the five countries with the highest level of tech skills. 

This reduces the project’s cost by three to five times without compromising the development quality — looks too attractive to leave it on read, right?

• Time zone gaps. For example, the time zone difference between San Francisco and a country in Asia may reach up to 13-16 hours. With a time difference of more than ten hours, it will be challenging to sync with a team and ensure smooth communication and collaboration. 

That’s why, opting for a remote team whose time zone aligns with your work hours is the most beneficial solution. For instance, hiring software developers from Europe will be a lifesaver for US-based companies as the time gap between them is about only six hours. 

• Mentality and work culture differences. The cultural distinctions between the client and contractor’s sides may lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations, putting the whole software development undertaking at stake. 

In this respect, it is easier for organizations based in the United States and Western Europe to collaborate with developers from European countries with the same company culture, for instance, Poland, to avoid communication problems down the line and ensure both parties have the same expectations from the project. Statista indicates that Poland is one of the leading countries worldwide when it comes to offshore services and remote work.

• English language proficiency. Speaking the same language as your remote development team allows you to be on the same page regarding the project. Poland ranks 16 out of 112 as having a high English proficiency level. 

3. Check the reliability of the companies that provide dedicated development team services

Are you sure about the trustworthiness of the companies you’re considering? Here are some steps to help you make a wise choice.

• Check the reviews of the companies on business listings, such as Clutch, GoodFirms, Techbehemoths, SelectedFirms, etc. Read customer reviews to get an idea of what other clients think about the company and its remote workers. Also, look into their ratings and how long they’ve been in business. 

• Investigate IT providers’ case studies. Check out their skills in a range of industries and their previous work to identify their area of expertise and see if it matches your needs. That way, you can cut the chaff in the initial stage. 

4. Clarify how companies secure the work of remote development teams

Verifying that your project is kept secure is another essential point to consider when you hire remote software developers. Therefore, ask potential vendors about the security protocols they follow and measures they take to protect the data, such as encryption and secure storage solutions. 

Additionally, inquire about their privacy and data access policies to confirm that they meet your company’s standards. With the right security protocols in place, you can rest assured that your data is safe with the remote development team. 

Your technical partner should take into account local legal regulations and security protocols. Moreover, your remote dedicated software development team needs to be certified and audited in line with your specifications to match your compliance requirements fully.

Speaking of Poland, it stands on par with EU- and US-based organizations and sticks closely to international regulations.

Is a remote development team your golden ticket?

Projects with restrictions related to budget, level of security, complexity, and time to market are the first in line to benefit from remote software development teams.

• Large, long-term projects 

The challenge of large, long-term projects is that their requirements tend to change. In this case, a remote team of profile experts is your opportunity to quickly adjust the team’s skill set to permanently fluctuating requirements. 

The side benefit you get when augmenting your team with outside talents is knowledge transfer. For example, you have mid-level developers working on a project, and you expand the team with senior-level vendor developers. Working together, they will be able to enhance the expertise and skills of your employees.

• Product development with limited time to market 

A fast start is key when you’re working on a project from scratch. When you come up with an idea that could influence your company’s position among competitors, it’s crucial not to miss the moment and implement it quickly. 

With an agile remote development team and efficient time management, you can get to the project in one to five days instead of investing up to three months to hire the in-house experts

Average time / Different types of development team	In-house team	*instinctools’ remote team
Recruit & hire talents	56 days	1 – 10 days
Start working on a project	30 days	1 – 5 days
Scale up the team	40 days	2 – 3 days

• Projects with a limited budget

For startups and small companies, renting office space, recruiting and covering vacations, bonuses, and taxes for their IT department can become a significant part of the budget. Moreover, you’ll need to invest a great deal of time and energy into assembling your own team. 

Hiring a remote team of developers in different countries is an alternative to setting up and maintaining your own IT department and an easy way to obtain your goals while keeping development costs moderate. And if your organization is small or medium-sized and software development isn’t a core part of your competence, you may consider not creating an IT department at all and rely solely on the dedicated team.

Why freelance platforms, such as Upwork, Fiverr, etc., aren’t the best options even if you are short on budget? You can’t be confident in freelancers’ level of expertise. Hence, you run the risk of getting low-quality development.

• Project with special data security requirements

When hiring remote developers in another country, you determine the desired level of security the team must meet. You state the conditions and choose the development unit that will provide built-in network security, private office space, authorized entry, and software access control. 

If security is the cornerstone of your project, you can send keys on flashcards to work with your architecture and even require your provider to have team members tested for substances — the team will follow these rules and ensure compliance.

Take your time choosing a remote software development team provider to find a reliable one you can trust to set up the team. An experienced partner will determine the needed roles and their seniority level to handle the task effectively. 

Instinctools experience in remote development team services

At *instinctools, we understand the challenges and opportunities of working with a remote development team. We capitalize on our 20+ years in software engineering and innovative consulting to build successful and sustainable agile software development remote teams for our clients. However, we don’t measure our experience solely in years. It’s also reflected in 650+ successful projects in more than ten industries. Besides ensuring the quality of development and providing you with proficient tech skills and industry knowledge, we develop our soft skills and adhere to a continuous learning culture.

Instinctools has extensive knowledge and expertise in all aspects of software development and remote work. Our skilled teams are ready to assist with any project at any stage, from ideation to development and ongoing support and maintenance, while ensuring our clients’ projects are completed on time and on budget.

Our core principle is bringing tangible value to your project, and that’s what our clients say after collaborating with us.

Time is now: access a skill set and expertise that you may not have had before

With the world becoming increasingly digital, businesses need to stay on top of technology. Therefore, they need reliable, professional, and experienced tech allies. And taking advantage of remote development teams is one of the ways to get the software development done faster, more efficiently, and, what’s important, cheaper. While searching for a tech partner might seem daunting, our tips will help you find a professional and affordable match for your project.  

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