Startup starts with “S,” and so does the word “struggle.” Startups are new ventures already stretched thin on funds, grappling with limited funding, cash flow issues, hiring costs, and overhead expenses that further exacerbate their struggle. One thing that can help startups come out of their formative phase successfully is saving as much money as possible and going into survival mode. One way to switch to survival mode is to hire offshore developers.

Globalization and interconnectivity have torn down all the boundaries, enabling companies to tap into a vast pool of talent around the globe, and hiring offshore developers can give you an edge over your competitors. In this all-encompassing article, we will equip you with everything related to hiring offshore developers, from “how” to “why” to “where” to “benefits” to “challenges” to “tips,” etc., so you can make an informed and well-based decision.

So, without further ado, let’s get to business.

Hire Offshore Developers: The Checklist

Hiring offshore developers is akin to hiring freelancers, but as a startup, the stakes are higher. So there is no rocket science, but it needs to be done warily as you happen to be tight on funds, have to stay in the race, and, most importantly, just can’t keep hiring.

So, let’s start with curating a clear and detailed project description and requirements.

Job Description

Articulately mention everything that may concern you or the developer, i.e., the project description, required skillset, your budget (also if it is negotiable or not), duration, working hours and days, etc. There should be no ambiguity; it should be absolutely vivid.

Ask yourself questions about what should be in the job description, i.e., what kind exactly do you want to build? What type of developers would you need? What skills must they have? What infrastructure does the project require? What time should it take? What are the benchmarks for quality? How will you test the product? What’s your proposed budget? These and many more such questions will help you curate a clear and descriptive job description.

Here is a tip: Mention the perks and benefits your prospective employee will be getting apart from salary; it will make more people apply for the post.

Location of Developer(s)

What is the location you want to hire from? Is it the Philippines, India, China, or any other country? What is your preference? Once clear in mind, target that location and pinpoint it in your searches wherever you want to.

Look for Only Reputed Companies

Nothing frustrates you more than hiring and incorporating the wrong people into your team. Look on freelance platforms, LinkedIn, or get in touch with reputable offshore software development outsourcing companies.

Or even if you post out in groups and you start getting a deluge of CVs and resumes, sift through them mindfully and stay calm. Take your time, check their past records, and get in touch with their past clients for an honest review and feedback. If you are not a tech-savvy person, just hire someone with an IT background to help you out.

Rigorous Research into Developer(s)

Take your time; do rigorous research. Look up the social and professional profiles, and then hop on a call with them. See the past work. Read the reviews. See what they share. Check out profiles on freelance platforms. Try to get access to their latest code. Find the best match for offshore software development.

Testing and Interview

Conduct the initial testing however you want to. Test their communication skills, as it would be key to having a seamless project progression. Conduct a video call interview and ask as many questions as you can.

Don’t Slip

Don’t fall for cheap quotes or offers easily coming to you. There are always caveats and signs of alarm. Maybe they have not gone through your offer thoroughly, and in a bid to get you, they said yes in a hasty manner that can become quite problematic later for you because, at the end of the day, everyone is making the deal for them out of the offer.

Use Tools to Streamline the Process

Tools come in handy when you are multitasking and managing a lot of things at a time. Look up and use tools for everything, be it communication, collaboration, or keeping everyone and everything in check. There are tons out there, like Zoom, Mircosoft Teams, Slack, Asana, Bitbucket, Trello, Jira, Github, etc., for collaboration and communication.

Keep Getting Update

Ask the developer(s) to keep updating you with every new development or sprint.

Offshore Software Development Benefits To Consider

If you are good at people, i.e., managing them and getting work done from them, here are an array of reasons why, as a startup, it is wise and lucrative to hire offshore developers.

• Low Budget: It surely may sound redundant. This is the primary reason startups hire offshore developers, as they are tight on funds. You don’t need to pay for excess expenses like bonuses, renting, etc. Many startups are forced to shut down even before they yield something in profit and give back to investors, and most of the time, funding is the reason.

• Premium-Quality Developers at Low Cost: If you successfully find highly skilled developers at a low cost, it is like winning a jackpot. They are ambitious to keep learning on their own, which, directly or indirectly, impacts your startup. You would need to scour the online platforms and websites for such developers.

• Wide Pool of Talent: As software development demands you to have a hang of a wide number of tech stacks and familiarity with their nuances, not all the software developers out there will fit the job you want to get done. When you go for offshore developers, looking for developers in populous countries like China, India, etc., you have a vast pool to choose from; this way, you have more options at your disposal.

• Save on Systems and Accessories: Though not quite big, as you scale up your team, you need a little bigger and more spatial place and more systems to run office operations smoothly and people to take care of and cater to those professionals, as development is quite self-draining. Also, it diminishes or eases a little burden off your shoulders; you are managing a little fewer people.

• Flexibility: When you hire offshore developers, you are entangled in or bound by long-term commitments or contracts you have to remain in compliance with. But by hiring people from other countries, you can quickly scale up and down as needed. Or assume a developer in your team has to go on vacation; you can hire an offshore developer with no contracts so others are not overburdened.

• • High Productivity: The offshore developers you hire are usually experienced and have already been working with some companies, so neither do you need to train them, nor do they take much time to understand the dynamics, contrary to in-house hiring, which needs initial training.

• Fewer Conflicts: Fewer people, fewer conflicts. While people are sitting at home working, changes in any sort of conflict become less likely.

Where to Hire Offshore Developers

There are numerous platforms you can go on and sift developers based on different factors.

Freelance Platforms

Do you know the allure of freelancing platforms? It lies in signing first a low-budget project to put developers through a test, and once you are contented, you can deal with it off the platform if you want. Freelance platforms let you apply multiple filters and categorize them based on their levels, i.e., 2nd level, top-rated, etc. You can read the reviews and kinds of projects they have done in the past, and you will get an idea of their pricing.

Here are the most popular ones.

• Upwork Inc.
• Fiverr
• Freelancer.com
• PeoplePerHour
• Toptal
• Guru.com

Directories

Websites like Clutch and Good Firms have software development companies from around the globe; you can sift through the whole array or library of available vendors by applying filters. There is a drawback to hiring on directories in that not all the good companies would be listed there, as not every company needs referrals as they are getting adequate direct referrals or repeat clients.

Staff Augmentation Companies

Staff augmentation is hiring, usually on a temporary basis, external workers from some third party or some IT staff augmentation company or talent platform that does all the hiring formalities, i.e., recruitment, screening, payroll, etc., to outsource a certain task or assignment, scale up your team amid a sudden surge of workload, or have tight deadlines to meet.

Participate in Conferences

Conferences are normally held by companies that have invited a lot of guests, who are joined by hundreds of developers or people with IT backgrounds. You go there and make connections, and those connections can turn out to be a game changer.

Software Development Outsourcing Companies

There are thousands of agencies and companies ready to take up your task. You can browse, dig into their past, and read reviews and client testimonials.

Use Social Media

There are numerous groups of developers of different social media platforms you can join and keep an eye on. Also, offshore development companies are promoting themselves on social media; as you search, you will see suggestions and relevant ads.

Challenges When You Hire Offshore Developers

Though hiring an offshore software development team has its own benefits, there are factors such as the following that can make it unviable:

• Different Time Zone: Either you have to stay up at their time or they have to bring a shift into their routine. The difference in time zones makes it difficult to have everyone on your team synchronized and in alignment. This specifically impacts you when you are living in the South and developers are living in the North. But before you get them onboard, you can always discuss this with them.
• Communication and Collaboration: Often, when hiring from developing countries, it becomes challenging to find a highly-skilled, punctual developer with great communication skills who can, from time to time or after a while, not only offshore hiring may affect seamless communication but also collaboration between teams and individual developers. Of late, people from Asia have gotten the hang of English thanks to the availability of free education and resources. Face-to-face communication has its own impact and influence on your team or associates.

Here is a tip: Use written English, as it might be easier for offshore developers.

• So Much at Disposal: As technology advances, there are more and more people coming into this field, becoming self-taught developers, causing gazillions of options, which is quite overwhelming. There are thousands of agencies or far more individual developers out there to handpick for your startup.

Tips for Hiring Offshore Developers

Here are some tips, or, you can say, factors to consider when hiring overseas developers.

• Expertise and Skills: This is uncompromisable; you can’t afford to have a mediocre or unskilled person on the other side, so ensure the developers you are hiring are highly skilled and experts in the field and can potentially solve all sorts of problems.

• Communication Skills: A smooth and seamless workflow hinges on the communication skills of both parties working together. You often have to let go of a highly skilled developer just because you can foresee that you will not be able to keep up later.

• Ethos and Adherence to Contract: I am sure none of us wants to work with someone who ghosts at the most important times or keeps delaying and not meeting the deadline. This is one of the most complained-about factors about overseas developers.

• Problem-solving Abilities: Development often requires you to solve problems that require critical thinking and patience and to have a knack for searching and poring over lengthy and verbose documentation. You often come across different nuances of different frameworks for different tech stacks, so ensure the developer(s) you are hiring are problem-solving.

• Time Management Skills: Though development sometimes needs rigorous research and contemplation to come up with solutions, it is still paramount to adhere to the time frame within which work is assigned to you.

• Adaptable to New Changes: The developer should be adaptable to your requirements, as the company has different ways of approaching and solving a problem. They should be fine with such scenarios and sudden changes; they need to be flexible.

• Attention to Detail: You need a person who pays attention to detail and is not in a hurry to complete something; that way, it is not asked.

• Build Strong Relations with Your Offshore Clients: This is quite an underrated strategy to keep people in the loop and get things done from those who are living in other regions. Talk to them. Know about their culture. Do some fun activities so they feel valued by you or your team. 

Top Locations for Offshore Software Development: Countries and Regions

• South America: Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico Of late, due to the recession, you can hire highly skilled developers from this region at low hourly rates.

• Asia: India, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Pakistan The rising market. Asia has a vast pool of developers. Hundreds of thousands are graduating everywhere; again, due to the recession and USD in these countries, you can have highly skilled and experienced developers even at rates lower than those in South America.

• Eastern Europe: Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, and Romania In terms of cost, Asia is ahead of every other region, but if you want to be less prone to anomalies of any kind, then Eastern Europe is your way. Plus, you will easily find developers fluent and proficient in English as compared to other regions.

Testing Skills of Offshore Developers

There are numerous ways and platforms to assess one’s skills.

• Skills-testing Platforms: There are platforms online (free and paid) you can use to test the developer’s technical skills.

• Random Manual Questions and Video Interviews: Give random questions during video interviews or hop on a Zoom and then give manual random questions and ask to share their screen and see them solve live.

• Behavioral Interviews: Assess the body language. See how confident the developer is while answering your questions, and see if they are making wild guesses or giving articulate answers.

Top Qualities to Look Out in Offshore Developers

Here are the top qualities to look out for in potential developers:

• Having the “how” attitude to problems
• Curious about your project and the requirements
• Have similar experiences to your particular project
• The willingness to share coding examples and take up coding tests
• Recent offshore software development experience
• Experience with project management tools and automating the development process.

Offshore Software Development Models

There are primarily two models based on which you can work with developers.

• Staff Augmentation: Staff augmentation is hiring developers on a temporary basis to quickly scale up or scale down your team or company. There are typically agencies or staff augmentation companies you can hire from. The rule is simple. You pay the company a negotiated salary, which is compensation for the salary and additional benefits of external professionals, for which they, in return, provide you with external professionals as long as you want to hire them. There are no contracts or long-term commitments. They come, work, and depart once done.

• Project-Based Outsourcing: Whoever you work with, some company, a developer, or a team of developers, you outsource the whole or a part of a project to be completed under a negotiated deadline and budget. Once it is done, you can either review the terms and work further or simply end the contract.

IT Outsourcing and Software Development Market

The global IT outsourcing market in 2022 accounted for 400 billion U.S. dollars, and if we specifically talk about the software development market, it was over 122.257 in 2021, which is expected to grow to over 682 billion dollars by 2027.

Cost-effective yet quality software development is the primary reason contributing to such whopping numbers, and companies are lately inclined to hire developers from developing countries like India, the Philippines, and Pakistan and developed countries like China as they cost quite less with overhead expenses.

So considering the figures, there is enormous potential for you to get tasks done for quite less money, especially if you are based in America or Europe.

Offshore Software Development: Definition

The name is quite self-explanatory: software development off your shore and on someone else’s shore. Well, it means outsourcing, assigning, or giving out your project to some developer(s) not living in your country for a multitude of reasons but primarily to get it done at a rate lower than in your own country.

Different Software Development Outsourcing Models

There are primarily three outsourcing models: off the shore, on the shore, and near but on the same shore. All of these come with unique benefits and offer a plethora of benefits.

Let’s start with what we already know: offshore outsourcing.

• Offshore Software Development: Getting software development done in a country off-shore. Benefits? Cheaper rates with premium work quality.

• Onshore Software Development: Hiring and outsourcing developers from your own country. There are no communication barriers and no time zone issues; you can have a smooth, seamless workflow.

• Nearshore Software Development: You outsource to developers of other countries but of the same region as yours. A lot of time, you just don’t hire a developer despite exceeding the threshold just because of communication.

Should You Bypass In-House Hiring and Go for Offshore Hiring as a Startup?

Well, the answer is “no.”. You might consider hiring developers and designers from other countries. But what about strategic key roles like project managers? Is it better for individuals with vested interests to collaborate on-site? On the other hand, running a startup remotely can be challenging. We recommend considering both approaches as needed.

Conclusion

Of late, since the world has gone into recession, investors have become more conservative in giving funding to startups, and that is why it has become challenging for startups to come up with ways to spend the available funding best and utilize as much as they can, especially in their initial years.

 

Employing offshore developers for technical tasks can significantly reduce expenses. However, it’s important to note that highly qualified individuals are often engaged in ongoing projects or working for established companies. Therefore, a meticulous screening process is crucial to identifying the best-fit candidate for the specific job.

Here are some quick takeaways:

• Offshore software development is cost-effective while getting premium work, which you can count as one of the top offshore software development benefits.

Managing offshore software development is more challenging than managing people on site, i.e., it is difficult to have everyone in sync and in alignment.