Complete guide to software development team augmentation

$731 billion.

That’s the estimated global spending for outsourcing in 2023.

It’s a staggering amount—and proof that hiring developers from abroad is increasingly becoming the norm in the software industry.

But what if you’re not yet ready to go through the many obstacles in outsourcing?

Well, augmentation is a good compromise.

Instead of outsourcing everything to contractors, you import developers to boost your existing in-house team.

Read more about why you should consider team augmentation for your next project.

What is software development team augmentation?

Software development team augmentation, also called outstaffing, is an outsourcing method where you hire outside contractors to bolster your in-house team.

Team augmentation aims to quickly expand your staff to tackle a big project or help with work during peak seasons.

For instance, say you need to implement a new app feature for the busy Christmas season. However, your existing team is already loaded with work.

A cost-effective option is to hire a part-time developer and add them to your team for a few months.

Sometimes, you can also outstaff to cover up any skill gaps in your team.

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For example, let’s say you’re tackling a fintech project for the first time.

Rather than form a new team altogether, you can hire third-party fintech developers and subject matter experts, then integrate them into your existing team.

Staff augmentation is almost always temporary. However, depending on the project requirements, it could be a short-term or long-term arrangement.

One example of long-term outstaffing is hiring a developer to focus on app maintenance.

As you can see, outstaffing is distinct from traditional outsourcing because you don’t hand over tasks to an outside contractor.

Instead, it’s the other way around—you bring the service provider to the work.

source: Lvivity

Often, third-party contractors are required to work on the client’s location. This is called onsite outsourcing.

The advantage of this approach is that you eliminate any time zone differences, thus improving collaboration and communication.

Of course, flying in a contractor to your office is an added expense, which is why it’s often done when hiring service providers in the same country (called onshoring).

More often, though, outstaffing is done via nearshoring. This is where you find developers from a nearby country, with a time zone difference of three hours or less.

Nearshoring ensures sufficient schedule overlap to make collaboration easy. Chances are, there are also minimal language and cultural barriers that could hinder collaboration.

Why you should consider software development team augmentation

With outsourcing work to a dedicated development team being the popular route nowadays, why should you even consider team augmentation? Here are some strong arguments.

Access to talented developers

Like outsourcing, staff augmentation gives you access to a wider talent pool beyond your country. This is especially helpful in regions where app development skills aren’t as mature.

For example, let’s say you want to create a banking app but don’t have access to a cybersecurity expert.

A good option would be to simply hire a skilled contractor and add them to your team.

Tapping into an international talent pool is crucial now because the best developers in the world aren’t in North America or Western Europe anymore.

The ranking below shows that most of them hail from Asia and Eastern Europe:

source: Future Processing

So if you’re an American company, augmenting your workforce with Croatian or Polish developers might be an excellent choice in the long run.

Also, having a big pool of talent to work with means you can be pickier. You’ll have a better chance of finding developers that are 100% in line with your requirements.

Flexible development team composition

Staff augmentation is one of the most flexible hiring approaches because it gives you a lot of control over your team composition.

A good approach here is to maintain an in-house team composed of core members, such as the project manager and lead developers.

Depending on your requirements, you can freely add or remove people from the group.

For instance, you can outstaff an analyst at the start of the project, then offload him when he’s no longer needed.

Or you can add testers later in development when you’re already doing QA testing.

This gives your team fluidity, enabling you to adapt your skill set to the task at hand. It’s also easier to manage a smaller team.

Furthermore, it also helps you control your costs significantly.

For instance, instead of hiring an Android developer in-house and paying them monthly, you can simply bring them in only when required.

Faster project deliveries

Staff augmentation gives you not only flexibility, but speed as well.

It allows you to immediately get the talent you need without going through the tedious hiring process and wondering whether the person you take on will fit in with your team in the long run.

And if you’ve ever hired someone in-house, you know how time-consuming it is. Here’s how long it takes to conduct the interview process alone:

source: Pesto Tech

But when you outsource or outstaff, you can breeze through this. That means you can start with development work much faster.

Adding more human resources to your team also spreads out the workload. This allows your core members (such as team leads) to focus on their work instead of going beyond their roles.

The result? Your team can deliver better quality at a faster rate. No wonder focus and capacity are the top reasons companies outsource.

source: Kitrum

As you can see from the graph above, the main reason companies outstaff is a reduction in costs. That’s exactly what we’ll be discussing in the following section.

Lower development costs

The main draw of outstaffing—as with any other kind of outsourcing—is its cost-effectiveness.

There are two reasons for this.

One, hiring in-house is much more expensive due to hidden expenses, such as benefits, insurance, taxes, equipment, and onboarding.

All of this adds up. You can end up paying up to 40% more on top of payroll costs, according to an Upwork study.

source: Upwork

The second reason is that developer rates aren’t equal globally.

For instance, an average North American developer can have an hourly rate of $70-$150. Contrast this to an Eastern European developer, who could charge only half of that amount.

But price isn’t always an indication of quality. You could potentially augment your staff with a skilled developer on par with their American counterpart at a fraction of the cost.

That’s the reason outstaffing with DECODE is a great idea.

We’re located in Croatia, a country known for its pool of low-cost yet skilled developers.

Moreover, the country is part of Southeastern Europe, which is strategically located near Western Europe, and is also well connected to the East Coast of the US through air traffic.

For a more thorough discussion on why outsourcing to Croatia is a fantastic choice, check out our article here.

How to augment your software development team

Now that you know the benefits of staff augmentation, you might want to try it. Here’s an overview of the steps you need to take.

Define your requirements

Before you begin looking for third-party developers to augment your team, you need to know exactly what you need.

Skipping this step is like hiring blind. You risk getting the wrong people or acquiring skills you’ll rarely require in the future.

Start by laying out your goals for outsourcing. What tasks do you need help with?

What are the deliverables required?

What timeline are you looking at?

How much is the budget for the project?

Once you’ve considered your needs, look at your existing team and determine why you need to augment it. Is there a skill gap? Are some of your developers overloaded already?

At the end of this process, you should clearly understand the exact skills and roles you need to augment your team. This clarity allows you to hire the right people within your budget.

Select new team members

With your requirements clearly laid out, it’s time to search for and evaluate potential candidates.

At this point, you can choose to source them yourself. You can try traditional hiring approaches, like posting on job sites or your Facebook page.

You can also try freelancing platforms like Upwork or Fiverr for potential hires.

Alternatively, you can look for an agency instead that will source and hire candidates on your behalf.

This done-for-you service is fantastic if you don’t have the time or experience to hire yourself.

If you go the agency route, this is how the typical hiring process will go:

source: Diceus

Regardless of your approach, it’s prudent to get involved in the interview process.

After all, these potential hires will work closely with your team, so it’s important to gauge if they’ll be a good fit.

Be sure to have some questions ready for the interview. This ensures you have similar responses from all candidates so that you can compare them much easier later.

Here are some to start with.

source: Fellow

Above all, be objective and discerning. Make sure that the person you’re hiring is an excellent fit for your project, team, and processes.

Onboard new team members

Once you’ve hired your augmented staff, onboarding them to the team is the next step. You aim to help them settle into their role and collaborate seamlessly with everyone else.

In this regard, onboarding a member of augmented staff is no different from any other new hire. Here’s a breakdown of the common steps involved:

source: Get Guru

The priority is to list all their responsibilities, including the expected deliverables and milestones.

Now would also be a good time to set up their workstation and give them controlled access to all files required to perform their tasks.

For instance, the IT department should provide them with login credentials to the project Git repository and knowledge base.

At the end of the onboarding, they should be able to perform their tasks independently. That’s when you know you’ve succeeded.

Provide support to new team members

Like any team member, your outsourced staff needs constant support from you and their peers to guarantee high productivity.

The key here is to communicate with them often. Set a reporting scheme in advance, detailing how often they should report their progress to you and through what channel.

You can also adopt a buddy system, which is indispensable in getting new members up to speed.

source: LinkedIn

Here, you pair a new hire with an experienced in-house developer.

The assigned member would be responsible for supporting them—answering questions, checking their progress, or giving them feedback.

However, be careful not to micromanage your outsourced staff. It is a huge waste of your time and can lower the person’s morale, trust, and productivity.

Instead, your role as a client/manager is to empower them.

source: Health Well Done

Instead of hovering over their heads, you give outsourced staff the space and freedom to do their work and solve problems independently.

Remember, augmented staff are just as important as your in-house developers. Treat them as such.

Best practices for software development team augmentation

Now, we’ll cover some best practices you should follow when going for development team augmentation.

Set clear goals and expectations

Setting clear goals and expectations is crucial if you want development team augmentation to go well.

And that’s not just idle talk.

Teams that set specific goals experience a 20%-25% performance boost compared to teams that don’t.

So, that’s a pretty compelling reason to do it – but, how do you set clear goals and expectations?

The best choice is using the SMART goals framework:

Setting SMART goals is a win-win for everyone involved.

The engineers you hire will know exactly what you expect from them while your leads and managers will have an easier time tracking their progress.

And that will ensure your team augmentation goes smoothly.

Why clear goals and expectations are important

How to set clear goals and expectations

Promote transparent communication

Transparent communication is key if you want team augmentation to go smoothly.

And that’s especially true if your new team members are working remotely.

According to a report by Buffer, 15% of remote workers name difficulties with communication and collaboration as the biggest struggle of working remotely.

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So, how can you make sure you’re communicating effectively and transparently with your outstaffed team members?

For starters, you should define which communication tools you’ll use, like:

• Slack
• Microsoft Teams
• Zoom
• Google Meet

Just make sure everyone sticks to the same tools to avoid confusion and unnecessary friction.

Also, you should schedule regular check-ins to monitor their progress and resolve any issues/questions they might have.

This way, you’ll minimize the risk of misunderstandings and help them work better with your existing team.

And that’s exactly what you should want.

Why transparent communication is important

How to promote transparent communication

Do regular performance reviews

Regular performance reviews are the best way to ensure your team augmentation goes well and your outstaffed team members meet your standards.

And they’ll help you keep them aligned with your overall project goals, too.

So, how do you make sure your performance reviews are actually valuable?

The secret is setting the right key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the team’s progress.

Here’s what good KPIs should be like:

source: Omni HR

If your KPIs are bad, your performance reviews will be useless and you’ll just waste your team’s time.

Also, performance reviews are a great way to integrate your outstaffed team members into your usual processes and company culture.

They can help bridge the gap between them and your in-house team – so, don’t skip them even though they aren’t actually your employees.

Why doing regular performance reviews is important

How to do regular performance reviews

Software development team augmentation vs. other models

Now, we’ll discuss the burning question – how does team augmentation stack up to other hiring models?

Here’s a comparison with hiring an in-house team, freelancers, and a dedicated team:

Software development team hiring models: a comparison

So, this should give you an idea if team augmentation is the right choice for you or if another hiring model is a better fit.

Next, we’ll discuss another key question – how much will team augmentation cost you?

How much does development team augmentation cost?

The cost of development team augmentation can vary wildly, so there’s no easy answer to this question.

It depends on a number of factors, like:

• The skills you need
• The complexity of your project
• The location of the team
• The size of the team

And like we mentioned earlier, the team’s geographical location is the most important cost factor –  their rates will greatly differ depending on where they’re based.

Here’s a comparison of the average rates for key roles by region:

Average hourly development rates by region

So, as you can see, hiring a team from Central or Eastern Europe can be 3-4x cheaper than hiring one from Western Europe or North America.

In other words, team augmentation will save you money which you can invest back into your product.

And that’s why it’s a good choice.

Software development team augmentation: FAQs

Need to augment your team?

Do you have an awesome project but all you’re missing is a few engineers?

Well, you’re in the right place.

We can fill any skill gaps you have in your in-house team and help you deliver your project on time and within budget.

And the best part? If you reach out to us, we can attach to your team and start working on your project in as little as 5 days.

So, don’t hesitate to contact us and we’ll set up a quick call to discuss your needs in more detail.