Are you a startup founder, head of product delivery, or head of human resources looking to hire a dedicated development team?
If yes, kindly read through this article to learn the following.
- What is a dedicated development team?
- Why you should consider hiring a dedicated development team?
- The structure of an ideal dedicated development team,
- Cost of hiring a dedicated development team,
- Steps to hiring a dedicated development team,
- And more!
If you prefer visual to text, then go straight to the bonus infographic “How to hire a dedicated development team?”
Looks like what you’re willing to learn? Let’s dive into the crux of the article.
What is a Dedicated Development Team?
A dedicated development team is an outsourcing concept involving hiring a workforce of software engineers and other supporting professionals to build and manage software. This business model is one that many tech companies use, and numerous researches have shown that.
An example of such research is a Statista report depicting that IT services offshore amounted to $62 billion in 2018.
Another survey by Statistics Brain shows that 44% of companies in the US use offshore dedicated software development to cut costs.
By partnering with a dedicated development team like a startup, you’re hiring experts to fill a workforce demand in your organization.
Even though this method is as effective as an in-house workforce, it exempts you from the liability of catering to some management expenses. With this, you can focus more on your startup’s business needs while the dedicated team assists you with technical requirements.
Now that you have a concise understanding of this outsourcing model, let’s discuss why it’s the best.
Why you Should Consider Hiring a Dedicated Development Team
A dedicated team model offers startups a cost-effective way to handle complex and long-term projects. It’s the best hiring option for startups and founders that lack clarity on a product and needs a discovery stage.
Let’s further discuss this model in detail.
Hiring Reason 1. Lack of Expertise
23% of startups fail due to a lack of expertise. By outsourcing your software creation, you can easily leverage the software development agency’s network of talents to fill a knowledge gap in your startup.
Let’s assume you want to inculcate a cryptocurrency payment platform in your FinTech product.
Such innovation requires a blockchain engineer fluent in a Solidity programming language that your startup will most likely lack.
Most software dedicated development teams have a blockchain developer in-house or on call. Thus, you’ve filled the knowledge gap without undertaking a cumbersome hiring process by hiring one.
Hiring Reason 2. Access to a Larger Pool of Talent
If you have a workforce deficiency in your in-house team, opting for a dedicated team model offers a great way out.
This option helps open your startup to a pool of professionals across the globe, allowing you to choose the best talent at a reasonable price.
Examples of well-known technology companies that have enjoyed this benefit include Google, IBM, and Microsoft.
Hiring Reason 3. Faster Scalability and Flexibility
If you’re looking for top-notch flexibility, then this is a guaranteed outsourcing option for you.
It allows you to focus squarely on the business aspect of your startup while also having an oversight of the developmental process.
More so, you easily scale your workforce according to your needs without going through the tiresome process of hiring developers.
You can make requisite labor modifications by simply adjusting the terms and conditions of your contract with the vendor.
Hiring Reason 4. Cost Saving
Hiring a remote team is a cost-efficient option for startups domiciled in the US, the UK, Canada, and other high-income nations. This is because the cost of employing developers varies with location.
As shown in this article, the cost of hiring a UK-based app developer is $100-$120 an hour. The US-based software developer is even pricier as it costs $100-$150 an hour to hire one.
However, assembling a dedicated development team in Ukraine will only cost you $30-$50, helping you save $100 an hour.
Now willing to hire a dedicated development team? You shouldn’t do that yet. There are some things to sort out before initiating a partnership process.
What to Know Before You Hire a Dedicated Development Team
Before you sign the partnership agreement, it’s important to define what you plan to build, your deliverables, and milestones. Let’s elucidate more on these:
1. Define What you Plan to Build
No matter how simple or complex your solution is, you need to give the development team a detailed explanation of what you want to create. Whether it’s a web app, a WordPress website, or a mobile app.
This is especially important because the type of product you’re building determines its technology stack and the kind of team to work with. Consequently, if you’d like to develop a mobile app, you need to consider hiring a team of dedicated mobile app developers.
Here are some examples of app types and corresponding suitable tech stacks.
- App TypeTech Stack Native mobile application developmentiOS: Objective-C and Swift
- Android: Kotlin and Java
Cross-platform applicationReact Native, Ionic, and Flutter
2. Define Your Expectation
Ensure you properly communicate your expected deliverables to your team. Do you need a reliable technical partner, industry expert, or an all-around workforce for varying projects?
Each of these options requires distinct levels of engagement, management, and deliverables. Your expectation will also guide your ideal deliverable.
3. Define your Budget and Deadlines
To be successful with your product development, it’s imperative to come up with a definite budget and an agreeable timeline.
Unless you have an unlimited budget – which is very unlikely for a startup, you should hold a series of meetings with the team’s project manager and business analyst.
During the meeting, discuss common features and functionalities, regulatory framework, and mode of communication.
After the meeting, you should have a list of agreed expenses and milestones. This will, in turn, be used as a template to compute your budget and set a deadline for project completion.
Once you’ve agreed on the above information, the next thing is to assemble your dedicated software development team. Let’s discuss the constituents of an ideal workforce.
What is the Typical Structure of a Dedicated Product Development Team
Your developers depend on your technical requirement. For an application development project, an ideal app needs the services of the following:
- Project manager or product manager
- Business analyst
- Tech lead
- UX/UI designer
- Front end developer or mobile developer
- Back end developer
- DevOps engineer
- Quality assurance tester
Let’s discuss the meaning of each role.
Role DescriptionProject managerThe project manager coordinates the development team to finish the project according to agreed requirements at the right time.In addition, the PM communicates the client’s expectations per Agile management practices.
Product managerA product manager identifies your customer’s needs and articulates your larger business objectives that features and functionalities in a product will address. The product manager also ensures an apt delivery.Business analystA business analyst creates specific business requirements for a solution.These requirements provide guidelines on the logic and basic user experience.
Tech lead/CTOTechnical leaders direct the activities of both backend and frontend engineers.They designate and oversee the implementation of tech designs, define technological stacks, and troubleshoot technical issues.
UX/UI designerThe UI/UX designer collects, researches, and evaluates technical requirements.They design a user interface that complements the founder’s business and technical requirements.
Front end developerThe frontend developer implements the user interface. This developer creates actionable buttons to interact and initiate actions for an optimum user experience.Mobile developerA mobile developer’s job is very similar to a frontend developer’s, albeit only for mobile applications.They make the user interface work effectively and ensure it aptly interacts with the backend codes.
Back end developerThe backend developer writes the necessary code for creating and maintaining the technology needed to interface with the server-side database.The backend developer is responsible for the framework codes of the entire application.
Quality assurance testerThe quality assurance tester vets the application’s efficiency and suggests any code, UI design, and business logic improvement.The QA tester also checks to ensure that every code works to guarantee an optimum user experience.
DevOps engineerThe DevOps engineer builds, tests, and maintains the tools and infrastructure needed to guarantee optimum software development, launch, and maintenance.
Now that you have an apt understanding of team members to onboard, let’s on the types of software dedicated teams out there.
What Types of Software Development Teams are There?
There are three common software development team structure types: dedicated, team extension, and project-based team. Each can be efficient in one product and ineffective in another.
Consider your project’s budget, time, and complexity, and then decide the most convenient structure to prevent the latter.
To help you understand what your options entail, we’ll dive into more details of different types of dedicated development team models. You can group your outsourced workforce on a partnership and location basis.
Type 1. By Partnership
Based on your partnership agreement with your outsourced team, you can get three models of hiring development partners. These are:
Model 1. Dedicated Development Team
A dedicated development team is a group of remote experts who help design, develop and maintain the software. This team works full-time and accordingly to your management methodology just like your in-house team, but with an office in another country.
The delivery plan is defined accordingly to the product development roadmap. A tech vendor compiles and manages the team to work exclusively to achieve your business goal.
The model of outsourcing is best suited for:
- Startups that have raised an investment round and are aiming to capture the market quickly
- Startups that want to embark on a long-term continuous project
- Startups that lack the time/resource to set up an in-house workforce
- Startups or scale-ups whose in-house developers lack the requisite skills to build certain functionalities.
If your startup fits any of the three criteria above, then a dedicated team is your best bet for success.
Model 2. Hiring Resources to Expand the Team
The crux of this model entails adding needed expertise from a vendor to your in-house development team. Thus ensuring sensitive functionalities are embedded in the solution within your internal ecosystem.
This model of development outsourcing centers around time and materials contracts.
For example, if you require the expertise of a frontend developer with knowledge of a Javascript library that’s not in your internal workforce. Then it’s best to opt for an out staff.
This model helps your startup reduce ingesting, payroll, and project management costs.
You’ll have an overview of your team’s productivity and better determine its deliverables. Additionally, it lessens the task of recruiting and allows you to concentrate more on the core business and development process.
Model 3. Hiring Resources on a Project Basis
As opposed to hiring a dedicated team, this involves a single contract hiring a team of developers to work on a specific software functionality within a product. What do we mean?
Let’s say you plan to build an investment app. It consists of varying features: authentication, API integration, payment features, and so on. While your in-house team may build the backend and API integrations, you may hire a team to help with front-end development.
This model is ideal for startups in need of:
- Time-saving solution
- Cost-efficient solution
- A resource and skill-demanding project.
Read more about hiring a dedicated development team here.
