How the First-Time Startups Initiators Can Hire a Dedicated Development Team

Hiring your first dedicated development team can be challenging. This article provides an overview of such an approach, dwelling on its benefits, some of the tactics to follow, and possible pitfalls you should avoid.

How to Hire a Dedicated Team of Developers for a Startup

When it comes to building a tech product from scratch, first-time startup initiators usually have more questions than answers. Being inspired by their idea and the confidence in future success, they still have to make wise business decisions. Deciding on a tactic to gather and hire a development team is one of them, so in this article, we will discover one of the possible software development outsourcing models - hiring a dedicated team for your startup.

Dedicated Development Team Definition

Hiring a dedicated development team is one of the approaches to software development outsourcing. According to this model, a startup initiator can hire a ready-made team of IT professionals sourced by the development vendor, which, in turn, is responsible for providing the team with the workspace and necessary equipment, plus deals with payrolls, taxes, and other team management expenses. 

The customer, in turn, gets a development team sized and staffed according to the project requirements. The team is managed by the Project Manager, sourced by the tech vendor, while the customer is welcome to control the development progress, stay in touch with the team via daily and weekly meetings and make adjustments to the development course. The cost to hire a dedicated team is calculated based on the hourly rate of each of the team members, according to the “pay as you go” model.

The Benefits of Hiring a Dedicated Tech Team for Your Startup

Hiring a dedicated development team is one of the top choices modern tech startups make with the goal of getting several value-adding benefits at once. Below are the most promising ones. 

• Talent and expertise. Every successful startup was once inspired by a great idea but in most cases, the bare idea and some budget are all the resources aspiring companies have. Having no quick access to the talent pool and limited resources for recruiting, they bridge the talent gap by hiring a dedicated team, accessing the necessary knowledge and skill sets quickly. 
• Cost-effectiveness. The opportunity to build a budget-friendly solution is a benefit that attracts companies from countries where hiring local tech talents can cost a fortune. That’s why American and Western European companies opt for hiring a dedicated team from Eastern Europe or the Middle East, taking advantage of the salary gap. 
• Flexibility. A dedicated development team is more flexible and adjustable, compared to an in-house team. The core concept behind software development outsourcing is hiring for service instead of hiring people, so the development vendor can easily shorten or scale a sourced team in response to the changing or growing project necessities. 
• Commitment and dedication. A dedicated development team is called dedicated just because it is sourced to your project only. The programmers working on your software building are fully committed to it so that the startup owner can expect instant communication, quick issues resolution, and great engagement. 
• Instant start. Another benefit of creating a tech solution with the help of a dedicated team is an opportunity to get started right after the contract with a tech vendor is signed. For projects with no specific requirements, sourcing the team will take no time, in contrast to finding suitable candidates on your own. As a result, the project can expect a shorter time to market, which is essential for the software created in a highly competitive environment.

Outsourced Development Team Structure

Depending on the project requirements and the development course, the size and structure of a tech team can be different. Below we are listing the basic roles of such a team along with their responsibilities. 

• Team Lead. As the role’s name suggests, this is the person responsible for leading and managing the team from the inside, ensuring deadlines compliance, code cleanness, and seamless collaboration within the team. 
• Front-end developers. These specialists are responsible for creating the front-end of your software - that is, those part of the app the users will interact with.
• Back-end developers. Creating a back-end, that is, the technical part of the future application is more challenging compared to designing a front-end. Back-end developers’ responsibilities are creating, maintaining, testing, and debugging the whole back-end, ensuring that there is a seamless alignment with a front and no security loopholes. 
• Project Manager. A Project Manager works as a connecting chain between the future product owner and the development team, creating the most favorable conditions for their communication and collaboration. 
• UI/UX designers. UI/UX designers are responsible for future solution prototyping, creating intuitive UI along with enjoyable UX, and embedding the brand identity. 
• QA Lead. QA Lead, in turn, is responsible for the process of quality assurance and testing, aligning the work of the programmers and testers. 
• Testers. They are engaged in testing the solution with the help of manual and automated tests, according to different user scenarios. 
• Marketing and research specialists. The specialists of the marketing sub-team are usually involved in the stage of market research and future solution promotion. 

Main Tactics to Hire Dedicated Developers

There are three basic strategies to hire a dedicated development team for your project. Each of them comes with its pros and cons but still can be tailored to the project specifics, so let’s discover them in more detail to find the one that suits your startup best. 

1. Gather an in-house team

Gathering an in-house team is the most intuitive option, especially for the first-time startup initiators eager to fully control each of the code lines. Such an approach actually makes sense but for the projects with in-house management experience and access to local tech talents at the budget-fitting cost. 

However, for startups on a budget and with no resources for hiring and recruiting, this approach turns out to be the most expensive one. In addition to hiring costs, you will also have to pay office rent, taxes, and other organizational expenses. 

2. Manage a remote team

In one of our recent articles, we have already dwelled on the benefits of remote work for developers. This option may also be value-adding for startups since it allows for saving operational costs, accessing global talent pools, and running your project development as flexibly as possible.

As for drawbacks of this strategy, remote teams can be fairly difficult to manage, especially when the team is gathered from scratch, the team members have different time zones and there is a language barrier. However, if the pandemic enriched your company with during-Covid remote team management experience, hiring a tech team remotely may be a worth-trying option. 

3. Hire a ready-made team from a tech vendor (software development outsourcing)

Hiring a dedicated development team is one of the approaches to software development outsourcing. While outsourcing your project building is value-adding by its nature, hiring a dedicated team from a vendor is one of the engagement models that is also promising for newly created companies.

In addition to the opportunity to run your project creation in a fully remote mode and save operational costs, you can get started with the development process almost instantly, bridge the talent gap, access the necessary tech expertise, and still be flexible with the team size and staffing.

Must-Know Things Before Hiring a Dedicated Team

Gathering a dedicated development team is a promising tactic to build your tech project. However, there are some essential things you should keep in mind before getting started with your product creation.

Location matters

Choosing a destination to hire a team from is one of the most important questions to solve before launching the development process. There are several popular countries to choose from and each of them has its specifics. 

For example, US companies often choose Eastern Europe to hire a dedicated team from, opting for Poland and Ukraine. However, the recent conflict in Ukraine has changed the software development landscape, and now, most companies are looking for countries with a more stable political and economical situation. or instance, Azerbaijan is a country worth paying attention to - it offers a perfect price-quality match when it comes to hiring tech specialists which are pretty skilled with popular programming languages and frameworks, have high engineering education, and can boast of high English proficiency.

Ensuring cultural fit can be challenging

This point is the logical continuation of the previous one. When your company hires an outsourced development team, making sure your business values and ethics overlap is essential. This is the only way to avoid miscommunication, develop a common vision, and stay on the same page at each of the development stages. 

Dedicated teams can be difficult to control

Control and communication are the biggest challenges when it comes to outsourcing your software development and hiring a dedicated team. Remote teams are difficult to control even when they are hired by and managed by your company but in the case of outsourcing, the project management is the responsibility of a vendor.

That’s why you have to discuss the control and communication practices in advance, without hesitating to suggest the tools and approaches that will work well for your project, in your opinion. 

Hiring from a trusted tech vendor is essential

Sometimes, software development outsourcing may be pitfalling, especially if you haven’t validated the development vendor’s experience, expertise, and reputation in advance. That’s why it is essential to trust your development process to a reliable vendor only. 

You are always welcome to validate their experience by reviewing the case studies published on the company’s blog, reading reviews on Clutch and Good Firms, getting in touch with the previous customers, and asking to sign an NDA before the first consultation.

A dedicated team isn’t the only software development outsourcing model

When outsourcing your project development, you can also choose between fixed price and time and material engagement models. The first is better suitable for small to medium startups with no development pitfalls expected, while the second perfectly matches the opposite requirement. Hiring a team according to the time and material contract makes sense when the development time and project complexity are difficult to estimate, for example, for legacy system modernization.

Conclusion

The decision to hire a dedicated development team is pretty promising when you have chosen the tech vendor right, matched your hiring strategy to your project specifics, and hired a team from a perfect-fit destination. SpaceBus development team has extensive experience and expertise in sourcing dedicated teams from Azerbaijan, which now is one of the most promising countries on the outsourcing map.