You have probably worked with a dedicated team before, or at least heard of this type of collaboration.
According to Computer Economics and Avasant Research, about 60% of companies choose to outsource app development, most often opting for a dedicated development team. Working with a reliable dedicated team is a good way to access expertise from all over the world while saving money on hiring and training.
We operate under this model with our clients, and in this article we’ll share the inside details of how you can best hire a dedicated remote team for your software project.
When you decide to hire a dedicated team, your service provider will assign a team of carefully selected specialists with the relevant skills for your job. Their performance will be constantly tracked and evaluated — your vendor ensures the team performs effectively.
A dedicated software development team can consist of various specialists, depending on the needs of the project:
developers;
QA engineers;
business analyst;
UX/UI designers;
project manager;
system architects;
DevOps engineers; and other specialists upon request.
To hire a dedicated remote development team, these are the steps you’ll need to take:
Define project goals and requirements. This will help you understand the scope of work, project duration, and required skills of team members. After this step, you can determine whether you need a comprehensive team or just a few experts to extend the capabilities of your internal one.
Plan a budget. The available resources will help you define potential regions from which you can hire a remote team. For example, the rate of a specialist from the U.S. may range from $70 to $120 per hour compared to $35-$80 in Central Europe.
Conduct research. Explore all the possible options for how to find a dedicated team and combine several to increase the likelihood of choosing experienced specialists. Some of these approaches we will discuss later.
Contact potential providers. Reach out to shortlisted candidates or agencies to request proposals or estimates that will outline their approach, timeline, and pricing structure. For this to be meaningful, you should have a detailed project description, including objectives, technical specifications, and any other relevant information.
Evaluate partnership offerings, including information gathered from the previous step, past projects, reviews, and technical proficiency. You can assess the candidates’ cultural fit and adaptability by discussing their experiences working in diverse or remote teams.
Negotiate terms, including project scope, timelines, deliverables, communication and reporting approaches, and intellectual property rights. Draft a detailed agreement outlining all agreed-upon terms and conditions to protect both parties’ interests. Also, consider including a trial period or milestone-based payments in the contract to assess the remote team’s performance before committing to a long-term engagement.
Onboard new team members. Provide access to necessary tools, resources, and documentation and conduct orientation sessions to familiarize the team with your company and project. Establish regular check-ins and communication protocols to maintain alignment and track progress.
By thoroughly carrying out each step of this process, you will be able to hire a reliable and experienced dedicated team, greatly benefiting from this collaboration.
Why You Should Hire a Remote Dedicated Team
Dedicated teams suit various businesses — they are versatile and can solve diverse problems, such as:
You don’t have the required talent, or the time and resources needed for recruiting talent.
You need a specialist with specific expertise for a short time, rather than hiring one permanently.
You have been carrying a project that now has grown to a huge scope.
You need a separate, dedicated team for a long-term project, which will be involved in the project tasks only.
By meeting these business challenges, dedicated development team services offer benefits for both you as an employer and your employees.
Benefits for employers
When you hire a dedicated team, you get the following advantages:
Responsibility allocation. You get a stable team that delivers results with proven team management approaches, so you don’t need to dive into the development process and can concentrate on business tasks.
No recruiting expenses. The vendor provides you with picked candidates with the required skills to run your project. The vendor is also responsible for social fees, such as vacations or medical sick leaves.
Cost-efficient choice. The average developer’s salary in the US, according to Glassdoor, is $106K annually, which can be increased by $5-9K per year due to additional costs such as taxes and benefits. If you choose to hire a dedicated remote team, you may pay up to $50 per hour of developer work without compromising quality.
Predictable costs. Outsourcing companies will provide you with an estimate for your project with an estimation accuracy of 70%. The other 30% reflects circumstances that are not always controllable or subject to your preferences.
Transparent communication. You can communicate with your team directly at any time and receive feedback on progress from a dedicated project manager. The same as with the in-house team.
Sergei Vardomatski
Founder
at HQSoftware
And a fresh hint: if you are going to expand to the market of the country where your remote team is located, you already have a trusted partner there. Ask them about the market and other country specificities.
Benefits for employees
It may not be so obvious, but dedicated development team services can also bring some benefits to your in-house employees:
Your internal team doesn’t need to shift priorities and interrupt the current project. They can stay focused on what they are working on while a dedicated team will cover new tasks.
Internal employees can leverage the expertise of the dedicated development team, gaining access to specialized skills and knowledge that may not exist within the company.
By offloading development tasks to the dedicated team, internal employees can experience a reduction in their workload, leading to better work-life balance and reduced stress.
Collaboration with a dedicated development team can foster innovation and creativity within the company, bringing fresh perspectives and ideas to projects.
With all this said, let’s get down to business and explore some more practical tips for hiring a remote dedicated team.
Where and How to Find a Dedicated Team
When hiring a dedicated team, the main difficulty is to find a reliable vendor that can provide a suitable team for your project. The variety of available options can make your choice really tough, increasing the likelihood of a mistake. To help you navigate through the myriad of possibilities, we’ll suggest several proven options for finding a dedicated team.
HQSoftware as a dedicated team provider
With 20+ years of experience, we at HQSoftware have established a proven approach to collaborating with our clients on a dedicated team model.
For your project, we will select a team from our pool of 120 professionals who have worked in various domains, from fintech to AR/VR development. You can also participate in the selection of specialists, conducting interviews on your own. The whole process of building a team takes around 2-4 weeks, depending on your request.
When providing dedicated development team services, our main goal is to deliver results, not just people. We aim to relieve you of unnecessary headaches by covering all development needs with a fully autonomous team. However, we’re also ready to work in close collaboration with your internal team and under the supervision of product owners and other specialists.
No matter the control level from your side, you can review project progress and priorities at any time, as well as communicate with team members.
Need a highly-skilled dedicated team?
We’re ready to assemble a tailored team for your needs in a short time. Ask me!
There are portals such as Clutch that aggregate data on outsourcing vendors. Here you can find client reviews, project business cases, developer rates, and some additional info, which can help you make an informed decision.
Such websites often have lists of top developers by industry, technology, country, and so on.
Other portals you might have a look at include GoodFirms, ThinkMobiles, CIO Review.
Freelance websites
Independent developers, offshore software development teams, and software development companies usually have profiles on websites for freelancers. If you conduct a thorough search through such websites, you will probably find a company that suits you.
Simple Google search
Software development vendors that provide dedicated teams are eager to have their websites appear at the top of the search results, so you can just search for the required services and probably find a company that catches your eye.
Specialized development communities
One more option, which may require more effort from you, is to investigate specialized tech communities and forums. Here you can engage with members, ask for recommendations, or post job listings.
A small hint: look for developers who are active contributors to these communities, as they often possess a high level of expertise and professionalism.
Combining several search options with thorough research will help you find a potential vendor for a dedicated team. However, there are some other challenges that we can’t avoid mentioning in this guide to hiring dedicated developers.
Challenges in Hiring Remote Dedicated Developers
Compared to finding a team, other challenges won’t seem as difficult. However, by being aware of them, you can proactively make adjustments to ensure a smooth collaboration with your dedicated team.
Security risks
Remote work environments may pose security risks, including data breaches, intellectual property theft, or unauthorized access to sensitive information.
To avoid this, you need to establish robust cybersecurity policies and protocols to safeguard confidential data and protect against cyber threats; for example, encryption, multi-factor authentication, and regular security audits.
Providing remote developers with access to VPNs or encrypted communication tools can also ensure the secure transmission of sensitive information.
Incomplete control
Ensuring accountability and tracking performance remotely can be challenging without visibility into daily activities or progress. To be sure everything is on track, utilize project management tools with built-in time-tracking features and conduct regular reviews.
Another hidden challenge is that lack of physical presence can make it difficult to foster team cohesion and build trust among internal and external team members. In this case, regular check-ins, one-on-one meetings, or informal chats can help maintain personal connections and strengthen team bonds.
Communication barriers
Working across different time zones can lead to delays in communication, coordination issues, and difficulties in scheduling meetings or collaborative activities.
So, you should prioritize vendors that can adjust to your time zone, as we at HQSoftware do, to ensure real-time communication.
However, if your internal team is also geographically dispersed, try to implement overlapping work hours where team members from different time zones can communicate in real time. Or at least you can rotate meeting times to accommodate different team members’ schedules fairly.
Also worth mentioning in this guide to hiring dedicated developers are some additional factors to consider at the beginning of the collaboration to avoid possible pitfalls and misunderstandings.
Factors to Consider Before You Hire a Remote Dedicated Development Team
In addition to what we’ve already discussed — team experience, testimonials and past projects, security concerns, and so on — consider the following:
legal questions;
remote infrastructure;
work culture and values; and
team management.
Legal questions
Usually, a vendor takes care of all legal aspects of your cooperation. You will be provided with a set of documents that legally enforce how the project goes and what you will receive at the end. The typical set of documents includes:
Proposal that describes everything the vendor has to offer you regarding your requirements and project details.
NDA to ensure that your internal sensitive data will remain confidential.
Service Level Agreement that describes what deliverables the dedicated team will provide. It also describes quality requirements, availability, and both parties’ responsibilities.
Project plan with assumptions and decisions, project scope and deadlines, and communication approach.
Full-function specification with a detailed description of all functions and components of your future completed product.
As you see, there are plenty of documents to cover your back in case something goes wrong. You will always have a legal confirmation of what your solution will be, when it will be delivered, who owns the rights to it, and so on.
Remote infrastructure
When considering hiring a remote dedicated development team, assessing their remote infrastructure and connectivity is crucial for ensuring smooth collaboration and project execution. Here’s what you need to clarify:
Redundancy and backup plans to mitigate the negative impact of potential connectivity issues.
Secure and private workspace to encourage focused work, free from distractions and potential security risks.
Availability of remote technical support or IT assistance for troubleshooting hardware or software issues encountered by the remote team members.
Infrastructure and connectivity scalability, up or down, for accommodating changes in project scope, team size, or resource requirements as needed.
Also, if a dedicated team has to work with your specific hardware or equipment, consider how you can provide access to it.
Work culture and values
Consider more than the team’s technical abilities, such as its ability to adapt to your company’s work processes, preferences, and organizational culture. Also, assess the remote team’s work culture, values, and alignment with your company’s ethos and goals.
It’s a good idea to conduct informal interactions or team-building activities before formalizing the collaboration to determine compatibility and build rapport.
Team management
It may seem hard to manage a team that you don’t see at your office. Especially if they are in a different country and in a different time zone. To simplify team management for our clients, we usually:
Use specialized tools for progress tracking and communication, such as Jira, Slack, Google Meet, and more.
Regularly update the progress, including project status reports, milestone achievements, and any challenges encountered.
Leverage meeting notes to formalize tasks and agreements in writing format after each meeting.
Adopt agile methodologies for project management, enabling iterative development and frequent client feedback loops.
Provide a detailed team hierarchy and assign a dedicated project manager as the primary point of contact for the client.
Above all, remember whom you’ve hired — a team of professionals who have been doing their job for years. They have built and deployed several projects before you hired them, and they know what to do.
You don’t have to think of them as a younger and less competent part of your in-house team. Trust their expertise and control the result — that’s it.
If you are looking for a remote dev team to build your project, reach out to us. Let’s discuss your ideas and figure out how we can help you.
To ensure the outstanding quality of HQSoftware’s solutions and services, I took the position of Head of Production and manager of the Quality Assurance department. Turn to me with any questions regarding our tech expertise.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are some companies that outsource software development projects?
These are some good examples of famous brands who entrusted their IT development tasks to dedicated teams:
WhatsApp. The company decided to outsource all development to keep costs low. As a result, the application was built by professionals from Eastern Europe.
Slack. The company outsourced the general design concept and redeveloped the app, logo, and website.
Skype. Skype’s founders outsourced the development of the back-end to Estonian professionals, who created the core set of features that we still use.
How much does it cost to hire dedicated developers?
We are open to seeing your business needs and determining the best solution. Complete this form, and receive a free personalized proposal from your dedicated manager.
Sergei Vardomatski
Founder
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