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Developing digital assets is rapidly becoming one of the most expensive undertakings for businesses in 2016. Skilled developers command high salaries, which can add up to millions of dollars over the life of your startup. After all, it often takes a team of project managers and developers to create and maintain unique, high quality software.
This leads many businesses down the road of outsourcing development work to remote developers, often in countries like India or Ukraine. It allows businesses to maintain low costs, and can even reduce product development time by allowing for larger number of developers to be hired.
Is there a problem with this? Not really, just differences, which you can manage if you know what to expect. You can’t directly manage these remote workers in-person, so getting the work done remotely will be a different experience than with your in-house employees. This doesn’t have to be a difficult experience though! Here are three ways to have your cake and eat it too with outsourcing your software development.
Hire an Experienced Project Manager
Having an in-house project manager is a great way to maintain control over your development without bringing on expensive in-house workers. It’s up to the project manager to oversee the remote workers and keep you up to date on the progress being made. This may even be a part-time position, because it’s rare that remote workers need full time management, unless there are large numbers of people working abroad.
This means you and your team can concentrate on business, while still being completely informed of the ups and downs related to the project. Your manager can brief you daily or weekly, translating the technical jargon to English, as well as providing demonstrations as projects are fleshed out.
For those who thrive on control, this may be a great solution to reduce costs of in-house developers and reduce the risk that comes from outsourcing.
Bring on a Firm to Handle it All
If your company doesn’t want the extra overhead of a project manager, you could bring on a firm like DevTeam.Space or Toptal.com to handle the entire process.
These types of companies have their own developers, or source from a pool of hundreds of manually vetted development teams in the case of DevTeam.Space, so that you don’t have to worry about recruiting or managing developers. This solution also allows your business to scale up projects if necessary, as these firms can more easily bring in additional developers than you could in-house.
The goal of these businesses is to be a safe solution for outsourcing software, as there’s more organization and peace of mind than working with individual remote developers.
“The software outsourcing market will continue its rapid growth, serving more and more companies every year. To actively participate in this growth, every company should focus on providing a higher level of quality and communication,” says Alexey Semeney, CEO of DevTeam.Space, a firm that helps companies build software using elite remote development teams. “We provide every client with two project managers, vetted and trained senior level developers with at least 5 years of dev experience, and a reporting dashboard with daily written updates and roadblocks tracking. This not only allows us to build precise project estimates and deliver products faster, but makes our clients feel safe and in control of the situation.”
Find a Rockstar as Your Lead Developer
If you already have someone to oversee the project, a rockstar in-house developer can be an extremely valuable asset to maintain quality standards and handle the most complex parts of the development process.
Having access to someone in-house can also make getting through roadblocks easier, as well as keep you even more informed of the ups and downs associated with developing digital products, especially enterprise-level software.
Yes, you’ll end up paying this person more than even an average in-house developer; however, it’s more than worth it if this rockstar is providing the value of 2 or 3 mediocre developers. Like hiring an in-house project manager, this option is for companies looking to save money through outsourcing without sacrificing control–and potentially quality–in the process.
To find the right fit for your company, consider using a service like CyberCoders to get the most exposure for this type of position. You’ll want to make sure you get the right person in for the job, as they could make or break a project.
Drew Hendricks is a tech, social media, and environmental addict. He’s written for many major publications, such as Forbes and Entrepreneur.