As more and more companies prefer working with external developers to hiring in-house software engineers, the dedicated development team model continues gaining popularity. It helps companies establish direct contact with the developers who will work on their projects without taking care of all hiring and recruiting tasks.
But what is dedicated model, and when should you hire a dedicated development team in 2023 and beyond? These are precisely the questions we will answer in this article.
Who are dedicated developers?
To begin with, it is necessary to define this cooperation model in general.
A dedicated development team is a project team created by an outsourcing company based on the requirements provided by a client.
Such teams may include developers, designers, project managers, business analysts, QA engineers, and other experts whose skills are necessary for project realization.
According to the principles accepted in 2023, dedicated developers are employed by an agency that offers outstaffing and outsourcing services. All hiring, onboarding, and administrative questions are solved by their employer. When it comes to salaries, social bonuses, sick leaves, and paid and unpaid vacations - all this will be managed by a vendor.
At the same time, a dedicated team is entirely focused on the project and all related tasks assigned by a client. In general, for clients, dedicated developers are just external developers who work full-time for their companies (if the other is not agreed upon by the parties).
What is a dedicated development team model itself? The list of services it can offer
Today it is viewed as a good alternative to in-house hiring. It allows you to avoid a lot of challenges and pitfalls of working with in-house developers. Still, it provides you with crucial benefits like full control over the process of project realization. Moreover, you, as a customer, always have freedom of choice. You can easily change the composition of the hired team in those cases when you need to expand it with additional skills or when you want to optimize your budget by reducing the team size.
Though this model presupposes remote cooperation with such specialists, they can fulfill various tasks. For example, you can entrust to your dedicated team the following processes and aspects of work:
Custom software development;
Web and mobile app development;
UI/UX design;
QA and testing tasks;
Product engineering;
Big Data analytics;
Modernization and migration services;
Software support and maintenance.
and many more.
The list of the provided services can be longer, and it fully depends on the company’s capacities, talent pool, and expertise in different spheres. That’s why when looking for a reliable partner that will create a dedicated team for you, it’s necessary to find out the exact type of services you can get.
The demand for the services of dedicated developers is gradually growing. And it can be explained by the benefits of this model that businesses can leverage. Let’s have a closer look at them.
Optimized expenses.In-house hiring, as a rule, presupposes working with specialists whom you can find in your local labor market. But if we take the markets in the USA or Western Europe, we will see that the rates of specialists are relatively high. When you work with remote teams, you can hire experts worldwide and cooperate with highly professional developers whose rates will be more affordable for you. What are the reasons for it? The answer is quite simple. This difference appears due to various market conditions observed in different regions. Moreover, you should remember all expenses related to administrative fees, bonuses, office rent, etc. All these things won’t be your responsibility. When your project is over, you can stop cooperating with developers and stop paying for their services. In the case of in-house hiring, you need to pay your staff even when there are no tasks for them. Thanks to this, you can significantly reduce your expenses and optimize your IT budget.
No need to conduct recruitment tasks on your own. Headhunting and recruiting can be very time-consuming processes that require a lot of resources and skills. But in the case of a dedicated team, all this will be done for you by your outsourcing partner. You will need to share your project requirements, including the descriptions of positions that you want to include in your team. The outsourcing company will find candidates with the desired knowledge and expertise. And you can conduct interviews with the shortlisted specialists to approve the final composition of your dedicated development team.
Cost transparency. Openness is one of the key priorities in the modern business world. A good IT partner will always include hidden costs in their invoices. As a rule, the service costs are formed based on a fixed rate for each specialist. It means that you will always know in advance how your expenses will change if you expand your team or reduce the number of your team members.
Direct communication. Thanks to modern tools and technologies, organizing stable interactions between you and your team is fine, even if you are based on different continents. Even different time zones are not a barrier for many companies as it is possible to follow the principles of flexibility and shift working hours in such a way that will allow you to hold real-time communication.
Access to the best experts. Of course, this point dramatically depends on your outsourcing partner. If the company has an excellent reputation and a rich talent pool, your opportunities to find experts, even with the rarest skills, are practically limitless. At Geomotiv, we can satisfy practically any request and find experts of any seniority level and with any tech stack.
Ownership rights. As a client, you will be the only owner of the code created for you by dedicated developers. The questions related to intellectual property should be clearly stated in the contract that you and a vendor will sign. Also, remember NDA. Your rights should be adequately protected. And in the case of working with dedicated development teams, it is relatively simple to ensure.
Excellent flexibility. When you hire dedicated developers, you shouldn’t worry about the fact that your requirements may change after the start of the project realization. In this case, it won’t be challenging to change the composition of your team. And it will take significantly less time than in-house hiring and introducing changes to in-house teams.
When should you hire a dedicated development team?
The benefits of this model look rather appealing, don’t they?
But does it mean that hiring dedicated developers is a universal solution each time when you have a lack of in-house resources for some tasks? Do not forget that there are no “one-size-fits-all” options. And this model is not an exception. However, let us brightly highlight the cases when we strongly recommend you choose it.
Your project has changing requirements. That’s exactly the point that we’ve mentioned above. Dedicated teams provide the necessary scalability and agility. Any changes can be introduced without serious effort.
You are interested in long-term cooperation. You can hire dedicated developers for long-term projects and get their professional help at all stages of project realization, including post-launch maintenance and support.
You need to hire specialists with niche expertise. Finding experts with rare skills in your local market can be challenging. But the dedicated development team model can broaden your horizons, and you can work with developers from any country.
You need faster time to market.Your cooperation with dedicated developers can ensure faster time to market, as you do not need to allocate time for sourcing and hiring in-house specialists, and they are entirely focused on your project.
You want to control the process. Though the dedicated development team model gives you more time to concentrate on your core business activities, you can still fully control the project and track progress. A well-dedicated team always ensures the desired visibility and transparency.
How to choose a dedicated development team?
You should establish cooperation with the right outsourcing partner to leverage all the benefits that a dedicated team can offer you. But how can you do it and ensure you will choose the best team members? We have a couple of tips for you.
Opt for a company with a proven track record. If you see that a company is an absolute newcomer with zero experience. It can be a very alarming sign. Find a company with an excellent reputation and a rich portfolio of successfully launched projects. If you already know what tech stack is necessary for your solution, you can also check whether the company can find experts with relevant skills in advance. It will also be helpful to analyze the reviews that the company’s clients have written.
Discuss the terms of cooperation. When deciding on your potential cooperation with a company, you should study the offered terms. You can ask to read a contract template to see whether all important points, such as fees and intellectual property protection, are clearly stated there.
Conduct interviews with potential team members. Even if you have chosen the best partner in the world and know you can fully rely on this company, do not omit this step. When your partner provides you with a list of candidates who meet your requirements, you can conduct interviews. This step will help you to understand whether the selected specialists possess the required hard and soft skills, and can join your dedicated team and contribute to the common good. If you can’t choose your future team members from the offered list, you can ask the outsourcing company to continue the process of searching.
And here’s a short instruction on what you should do when you need to hire a dedicated development team.
Step 1. Contact your outsourcing partner and share your project requirements, including the potential team composition and desired skills.
Step 2. Sign the contract and wait. The vendor will look for specialists based on your needs.
Step 3. The outsourcing company will choose the candidates, and here’s when you can join the process and conduct interviews with specialists.
Step 4. When the team composition is approved, the vendor will bring the team members together and you can introduce them to the project.
Step 5. The work starts! You can manage the working processes and assign tasks.
Challenges of working with dedicated developers
Though in this article, we’ve covered all the aspects related to the dedicated team model in a somewhat optimistic tone and explained the benefits of hiring dedicated development team in detail, there are some pitfalls. And we believe that you should be aware of them to cope with any possible difficulties.
Different time zones. Your developers will likely be based in another region. But in this case, both parties can be as flexible as possible, especially when real-time communication is required.
Language barrier. Though English is not a native language for many dedicated developers, they learn it. Moreover, you can include English skills in the list of requirements.
Cultural differences. When working with people from different countries, you must stay tolerant and respect others’ values.
No possibility of meeting all team members in person. Though modern tools will allow you to establish communication in a fully remote format, some companies are accustomed to working in offices.
Why dedicated development team with Geomotiv
As you can see, the dedicated team model has both pros and cons. But when you choose it for an appropriate project, the advantages of dedicated development team are weightier than all pitfalls. If you are considering this model for your project, at Geomotiv, we are always ready to provide any necessary help. Even if you have doubts or need to find another cooperation model for working with developers, do not hesitate to contact us!
We will analyze your project requirements and offer the best option for you. With our rich expertise and talent pool, we will be able to help you regardless of the complexity of your tasks.
