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How to Build the Best Software Engineering Team without Recruiters Help?

Written by Your Team In India | April 22, 2020 12:00:00 AM Z

When you are looking for a hiring team of developers, your first thought might be to find the best recruiter or consulter.

One of the major concerns about recruitment services is its cost as the average fee of any recruitment company in the US is 20% of the hired developer’s salary.

In countries like India, the freeway lower equals 15% of the salary of the hired developer.

Secondly, a few positions are challenging for recruiters to fill because of a lack of talent.

And thirdly, it can take from weeks to months to fill a particular position especially when there are only 0.4 candidates for every digital job posting.  

Do you know over a million new recruiters are required into the digital specialist workforce by 2023?

Today, we live in a digital age where there are options available where one can hire experts without needing a recruiter.

Common Challenges Companies while Hiring New Software Development Engineers

Compromising on Quality Standards

Hiring the right software programmer is crucial.

If you are unable to find the best fitting candidate, nothing will work perfectly. This makes it very important to consider the side effects of a bad hire.

A CareerBuilder Survey from 2017 depicts that on average, companies lose $15000 on a bad hire.

What is even worse is that nearly 3 in 4 employers know they have hired the wrong engineer for a particular position.

The pressure on a software development firm is always to make a hire quickly.

Despite the best intentions, you may be pushing the candidate to the next interview despite a negative instinct.

Do you know what the result is? Weeks or months later, you realize that the hire is not working out at all.

Those hires by now have cost the business far more than simple wages, delayed projects and training that has drived costs handsomely. And it is not that easy to fire someone today like it was years ago.

Why does this happen?

A major reason why a company rushes someone through is, it has to quickly fill the position so that the work doesn’t hamper.

If they find a competent developer, they want to sign them as soon as possible before someone else offers them a better deal. 

Assigning too Much Value to Technical Knowledge

When you are hiring software engineers, there is too much emphasis on technical skills and less on their soft skills.

As those qualities are also important and helpful for the best fit for the modern development team.

This goes far beyond the nuances of a specific programming language or technology.

Top software development companies don’t waste their time committing to memory language specifications and documentation.

Learning a new language, technology, or pattern is a relatively trivial exercise for a technical developer-one that will take too long.

If you genuinely want to determine the true potential of the software engineer, it is very important that you look beyond the technical know-how.

Pay more attention to the ability of the candidate to have an understanding of the complex concepts, creative thinking, communication, and personality.

The Challenge of Hiring a Winning Software Development Team

A CompTIA Report found that 43% of companies hiring IT professionals feel that they are still understaffed, and 68% say they are expecting to fill the IT positions but it is a challenging job.

Another report by a popular job site, Indeed found 40% IT positions remain open even after three months. This means it takes a lot of time to bring a new hire.

High demand for software developers also means high salaries for developers. The base salary for a Java or .Net programmer can range up to $98000 as per Indeed.co.

Therefore, outsourcing is the right solution for you.

Why Outsource Software Development?

At the fundamental level, outsourcing can help you solve various issues: an abundance of talent, saving time, and decreasing cost.

In addition, outsourcing helps to reduce time to market. Many large companies have understood the importance of outsourcing already.

Startups and mid-sized technology companies are taking help from professionals from outside their country for best results.  

Many software companies build the early version of the software in-house and iterate until they find a product-market fit.

Then, they aim at growing their user base. As the growth accelerates, so does the pressure to meet aggressive product roadmaps, add new features, fix errors, and usability issues.

In this hyper-competitive marketplace, missing a market opportunity can result in a company’s success and failure.

You will realize that the internal team starts taking a lot of stress. When this type of situation occurs, it becomes important to expand your team.

At this particular stage, companies are immediately hit by reality and start looking for IT talent. It takes 15 days to two months (may vary) to interview and hire.

If you are one of the entrepreneurs, outsourcing might be the best answer. 

Outsourcing Benefits

Besides providing you with access to talent, outsourcing development affords companies different benefits, from time and cost savings to process improvement.

1) Start the Project Right Away

Outsourcing helps you manage growth without getting overwhelmed.  This helps in speeding up the software development process by providing quick, access to developers without recruiters.

Instead of spending so much time on hiring mobile app developers or quality analysts, you can hire a complete team of dedicated developers remotely and get started right away.

There is no need to spend hours screening every hire, your outsourcing partner will give you the best team that you can interview.

2) Smart Cost Structure Saves Money

When you hire a software engineer, you create a fixed cost structure.

In addition to the base salary, you have to ace payroll taxes, benefits, office space, equipment and management oversight cost. In some cases, there is a one-time recruitment cost.

For example, a Java developer with a $100,000 salary quickly turns $150,000 as soon as the overhead is added. Imagine you require a team of five; you have to shy of $1 million in the new fixed costs.

Offshore development is an attractive option that allows you to convert the high cost to a lower variable cost.

In addition to this, you get the flexibility to easily scale the team up and down in order to meet the demands of the company.

You can maintain and strategically grow your internal team as you extend it by hiring the best computer engineers.

Your offshore partner has the ability to provide additional bandwidth to meet organizational and customer demands.

3) Free Up Resources for Growth

With the best software engineering masters, your company can meet demands at a reduced cost.

This further allows you to invest more in the key growth drivers. You can come up with something innovative while you have the best software team by your side.

4) Implement Efficient Processes

Efficient software development requires a skilled software engineering team and smart approaches.

Collaboration with the right outsourcing company enhances development by leveraging its experience in executing projects.

The company applies its framework and practices for using an Agile methodology, managing code quality while protecting intellectual property.

Can Outsourcing Work for Growing Technology Companies?

Yes is a straightforward answer. But it is important that the offshore development company has to be the right fit.

You should not leave things as they are, you should actively manage the engagement.

Companies that hire remote software engineers get stressed about the impact of outsourcing as software product development is their core business.

There are certain common concerns as mentioned below:

  • Does the outsourcing team have the right set of skills?
  • Are the software engineers you hired passionate enough to work on your project?
  • How to protect the IP if critical information is shared with the outsourcing company?
  • How long will it take to coordinate and manage between in-house and offshore teams of dedicated developers?
  • Is there any chance that you lose control over your product?

Direct the Outsourcing Partner with Strong Internal Management

Outsourcing is not a short-term tactic. It is certainly a long-term strategy that requires a good amount of investment in order to build a strong relationship with the offshore development team.

Firstly, you have to be realistic regarding how quickly the outsourced remote team can deliver results when you take help of top software engineering companies.

There is always ramp up time, so initially you may think they are not as productive as your internal team.

But that is not the case.

They are experienced professionals, so they easily become familiar with your product, processes and culture.

Their productivity improves while they are coordinating efficiently with your internal team.

Outsourcing won’t work if you simply give your requirements to an outsourcing firm and let them do their work.

The result is satisfying when you provide the outsourced team with a detailed document having clear directions.

This means you will be having the right resources to work inhouse and manage the outsourced work.

It is the responsibility of the product manager to prioritize the features of the development process.

He should also provide guidance to the in-house and external team.  If there is no project manager or CTO, outsourcing your project may seem like pushing a boulder up a mountain with the help of a wheelbarrow.

Outsourcing proves to be successful and cost-effective if you:

  • Hire the right software engineering team
  • Actively participate in the development process and manage both the teams
  • Outsource the right work
  • Outsource your project and scale your business at the right time

What to Outsource?

It is very important that you should outsource only those tasks that your inhouse team doesn’t specialize in. Well, software product development involves:

  • Product architecture
  • Product management
  • Software design and development
  • Software testing

For software companies, outsourcing proves to be successful when the offshore team is managed efficiently.

They have to be treated as an extension of your team and now a new team in a different location.

Architecting and management required intimacy with the market. You can keep the responsibility internal for product architecture, development platform selection, and establishment of the development standards.

Web development and testing are execution-focused roles that are easier to outsource as well as manage. They provide you with the biggest benefits, as there is a bulk of the development lifecycle time.

When to Outsource?

Outsource after establishing the product-market fit and thereby boost your software abilities.

Look for the best software engineering outsourcing company for MVP development.

Once the team helps you to establish the best product as per the market requirements, it gets easier. You have the product clarity now. You can then get it in the market as quickly as possible.

Hiring the best software engineers in the world via outsourcing is undoubtedly an ideal solution. Allows the team to implement new features, fix bugs while bracing the testing team.

Together, you now have internal expertise coupled with outsourced bandwidth. This way, you can efficiently meet the needs of a business to stay ahead of the competition. 

One Thing to Consider When Building a Great Software Engineering Team

Hire software engineers having a great attitude. A programmer who can’ work well as a part of a large team is way less valuable than a competing engineer who is always eager to collaborate to deliver great software.

There has to be a clear hiring plan. You have to connect the goals of the business with specific engineering needs.

If the dedicated outsourcing company is able to identify the needs. This pattern can be followed to define exactly what engineering needs will have to be met.

Wrapping Up

Building the best software development team takes more than finding the best developers.

Engineering leaders should also ensure the team’s work aligns with the goals of business while keeping one eye on the future so that they are ready to scale.

And able to tackle the challenges that rapid growth creates.

Businesses purely think about outsourcing in terms of cost savings but outsourcing has plenty of benefits.

As your business grows, outsourcing is the best way to promote innovation, disrupt industry, and access to the experienced and dedicated software engineers that will reposition your company in the market.