How to Hire an Offshore Development Team: 7 Easy Steps to Follow

If you need some serious development work done, but you don’t know how to hire an offshore development team, you are not alone! It can be confusing and costly to approach it the wrong way. But before we look at how to hire offshore software developers, we should look at the reasons why you should hire offshore development team.

Why and How To Hire An Offshore Development Team

When you hire offshore developers, you might have cost savings in mind. It’s much cheaper hiring someone from India or Ukraine to do your programming than someone in the UK, Australia, or the USA.

However, there are plenty of additional benefits. Your teams are highly trained in rare programming languages and frameworks, they come equipped with their own machines and tools, and you don’t need to offer expensive perks, like equity or annual bonuses. You can also hire a team that works in the evenings when your in-house team is asleep, doubling up your productive working hours and getting to the market faster.

Let’s look at how to hire an offshore development team.

How to hire Offshore Developers For a Startup

If you have a great business idea, you want to get started right away. There are a few steps you should follow.

1. Determine Your Goals

You have to map your project first before you start negotiating with the agency or vendor you’ll use. If you are unsure, you might end up paying for skills and developers you don’t need, or you may underestimate your requirements and end up with a product that isn’t working optimally. Make sure you know exactly what you will need before you start briefing agencies.

2. Pick the Expertise You’ll Need

You should be very clear on what you require upfront. You’ll need to state not only the programming languages or frameworks you’ll need but the seniority and the industry experience you want.

3. Pick the Location

We’ve already said that some countries are cheaper than others. Let’s look at the different regions where you can offshore developers:

Asia: China and India have some of the best developers in the world, and they charge about $20-45 per hour. However, the time zone and cultural differences can be tricky to navigate.

Eastern Europe: Eastern Europe has become a real tech hub, especially Ukraine. Developers charge about $25-$50 per hour, speak fluent English, and are in a great time zone for collaboration with Europe and the US.

South America: South America is becoming a viable option, although the time zone is usually problematic.

Western Europe: Many big brands have moved their development hubs to Western Europe, which has given us access to really skilled developers. You may enjoy the time zone and the ability to communicate flawlessly in English, but you will pay between $75-$150 per hour for the privilege.

4. Create a Shortlist of Vendors

Once you know what you need, you can create a shortlist of vendors to collaborate with. Your requirements will give you an indication of the experience, industry, and nature of developers you need, so that should rule out a few candidates. Make sure to ask for recommendations.

5. Start Disqualifying Vendors

Start interviewing vendors. Ask them about the cost, deadlines, and experience they have, and request testimonials. Use that meeting to start disqualifying candidates that you don’t feel are a good fit. If they can’t communicate well or don’t seem to demonstrate accurate knowledge about the project, move on. Don’t just score vendors on cost alone. You have to be confident that they can deliver.

6. Ask For a Scope of Work

Ask the vendor to prepare a scope of work, the agreement between your companies that contains all the milestones, reports, deliverables, and the end product they commit to delivering. Once you agree to the terms, you can start working with the right agency.

7. Discovery Phase

Expect to spend some time with the agency getting to know them (and vice versa). They will want to spend a few weeks discussing the right fit in terms of developers and culture in detail. Once that is completed, you can start developing!

Conclusion

Now that you know how to hire an offshore development team, nothing will stand in your way. You can hire skilled, affordable developers for your project and work on becoming the next Jeff Bezos!