When to Consider Software Development Team Augmentation?

Software development team augmentation is one of the most common and well-spread practices in the modern IT industry. These services are popular among all businesses, from new startups to tech giants like Google or Microsoft.

The reasons for such popularity are apparent: on-demand software developers offer their expertise and skills as a service for a very fair and competitive price, also helping to speed up the process of finding required tech expertise from all over the world.

Still, some companies might find it challenging to decide whether team extension services are worth the initial investment and the best scenarios for such collaboration. Thus, we wrote this article, discussing the team augmentation model and how to make sure you will benefit from it.

What is Software Development Team Augmentation?

Before getting into details, let’s discuss the basics and define the term.

Software development team augmentation is a fancy name for team extension services. To simplify it, software team augmentation is finding dedicated, niche-experienced developers who can add value to your software project.

The core reasons for software development team augmentation are:

• The business lacks developers, requiring more employees to be familiar with specific technologies and project requirements.
• Software projects require technical expertise and skills working with different software solutions and technologies, such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, and others.
• Your in-house team needs support and advice on choosing or integrating new functional solutions, managing projects, etc.

Long story short, IT team augmentation is an excellent solution for many cases. However, it is mainly applied when ongoing software development requires a few extra hands, niche expertise, or very particular knowledge.

Still, IT team extension services offer the same features and benefits as hiring a dedicated team, don’t they? Frankly, this is partly true. Still, the main differences between software team augmentation and hiring a dedicated development team are the scale and terms of such cooperation:

Development team augmentation offers fewer developers who precisely match the software specifics and business demands. Such a model is usually applied for limited-time projects, such as developing and integrating specific features or covering a particular part of the development.

At the same time, dedicated software development teams are usually employed as an alternative to maintaining an in-house team, covering software development from scratch or other scalable and complex tasks.

Are there any other reasons to choose software development team augmentation?

When to Choose Software Development Team Augmentation?

Long story short, the list of core reasons and use cases for choosing software team augmentation includes:

• Scaling development teams for short-term needs
• Accessing specialized skills not available in-house
• Accelerating timelines for project delivery
• Reducing costs associated with hiring and onboarding

Scaling Development Teams for Short-Term Needs

The first and most obvious reason for choosing the IT augmentation model is scaling the development team.

As was mentioned before, software team augmentation works precisely the same as team extensions. Yet, how does it differ from regular in-house hiring? Simply put, software development team augmentation is global and offers a faster and more efficient way to find employees.

For illustration, in-house hiring requires market research, candidate interviewing, setting an onboarding process, etc. At the same time, software team augmentation requires contacting an outsourced software development company, which will do the rest. In other words, team extension offers the possibility of skipping many hiring processes and starting to choose a candidate.

Such simplicity is crucial when you require a short-term specialist to perform a few specific tasks.

Accessing Specialized Skills not Available In-House

Another common reason to use team augmentation for software development is the request for specialized skills and knowledge.

Most software team extension developers have rich experience in software development: they are regularly involved in different projects and work with various technologies. To rephrase, such software engineers are niche experts with extensive skills in software development.

This is a powerful argument in favor of team augmentation services. So, if your in-house software team faces challenges or lacks tech knowledge, team augmentation is an excellent choice that can bring the required expertise, boost knowledge sharing, and increase internal software awareness.

Accelerating Timelines for Project Delivery

Additionally, team extension and augmentation are a great option to accelerate the project performance and efficiency. Besides, they are among the best solutions for keeping up with the development pace and fitting deadlines:

Apart from advanced software knowledge, team extension specialists work as full-fledged employees, contributing to your project and participating in its development.

Consider adopting such a cooperation model when your business needs to speed up development. First, each pair of “extra” hands already helps in such acceleration because you can assign more tasks and cover more development aspects. Higher experience also positively impacts the development speed, offering proven and tested solutions based on previous development experience.

Finally, suppose you are hiring an experienced team extension specialist. In that case, you don’t have to worry about how to onboard new developers or other processes related to human resources, their management, and integration.

Long story short, team extension and augmentation services are excellent choices for cases where a high development pace is the main priority.

Reducing Costs Associated with Hiring and Onboarding

Eventually, the team augmentation model is a powerful instrument for cases when you have a limited budget.

In a nutshell, team augmentation services are a global phenomenon. So your business can hire more experienced developers cheaper. For example, if your company is in the US, your in-house developers cost more than dedicated developers from Ukraine or other Eastern European countries.

To illustrate, Ukrainian senior developers’ salaries are similar to those of US middle developers. Therefore, you can hire more experienced software engineers to extend the internal team's efficiency and performance, saving costs without sacrificing quality or development time.

Benefits of Software Development Team Augmentation

After clarifying the cases when you need team augmentation, let’s talk about the benefits of IT team augmentation in detail.

Simply put, the list of significant software development team augmentation benefits includes:

• Access to specialized skills and knowledge
• Cost-effectiveness compared to hiring full-time staff
• Flexibility and scalability of the team based on project needs
• Increased productivity and focus for in-house teams

Access to Specialized Skills and Knowledge

As mentioned before, development team augmentation is a global phenomenon that offers access to an international market.

Besides the cost efficiency or faster hiring and onboarding processes, development team augmentation allows businesses to find developers with particular and rare expertise and skills.

For example, while knowledge of front-end technologies like React or various JavaScript-based frameworks and libraries is widespread nowadays, finding a dedicated, skilled, full-stack professional is more challenging.

Besides, software engineers with experience working with innovative technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, or blockchain are rare and in demand. So, finding such available developers in your local market will require a lot of time, effort, and resources to make a more competitive offer.

Summing up all the above, IT team augmentation is an excellent solution for enhancing custom software application development services and ensuring their success.

Cost-Effectiveness Compared to Hiring Full-Time Staff

To repeat ourselves, software team extension is a more cost-efficient solution than gathering and maintaining an in-house team. There are a few aspects that result in this cost-efficiency:

1. Team extension gives access to a global talent pool, including outsourcing options and the possibility of hiring developers with lower salaries.
2. Software team augmentation takes less time than finding a full-time employee. As a result, the development pace is more seamless, and the expected software delivery date won't be postponed.
3. Extension services also demand no extra spending on HR-related processes. Besides, you can avoid spending on office maintenance, bonuses, etc.

In a nutshell, software development team augmentation suggests paying a fair price only for the offered services. This is even more apparent in terms of short-term cooperation and collaboration.

Flexibility and Scalability of the Team Based on Project Needs

Another benefit of team augmentation services is the flexibility and scalability of such teams.

Software development team augmentation is primarily a gradual process that involves hiring individuals one by one or in small groups so you can easily manage team scaling. This simplicity helps to satisfy all needs and avoid overcrowding, i.e., it is easier to meet your needs and demands without the need to pay “extra.”

Besides this, team extension developers are flexible by default and can easily change their tasks and other assignments on demand. Finally, niche experience answers any question: if you encounter challenges in a particular technology or process, you can find and hire a specialist capable of dealing with them.

Increased Productivity and Focus for In-House Teams

Finally, team extension services are excellent for dealing with tasks with fewer priorities.

Each software development project involves countless issues and errors that require fixing and improving. Each project also includes plans for integrating small features or services to satisfy specific audience requests and business needs.

Long story short, you will always have to resolve issues and requests on the go. Usually, this interrupts the development process and negatively impacts the software delivery terms. Before, we primarily talked about team augmentation as a highly professional or urgent cooperation. However, it also suggests general-purpose collaboration and simple software development.

For example, it is a popular solution among many corporations with plans to scale software, including supplemental and low-profile features or services. To allow the in-house team to focus on the core and must-have software processes, such businesses commonly hire outsourced developers and use team extension specialists for such “extra” coding practices.

In other words, working with software development team augmentation companies helps prioritize tasks for in-house teams and outsources less crucial or critical software aspects to third parties.

Nevertheless, regardless of how simple or minor the assignment for team augmentation is, you should find reliable and responsible software developers. So, how do you find the right partner for software team augmentation?

How to Find the Right Partner for Software Team Augmentation?

Plainly speaking, finding reliable team augmentation developers is the same as any other potential software development collaboration, such as hiring a dedicated software team or freelance outsourcing. The shortlist of essential steps for finding a trustworthy software partner includes:

1. Evaluating Experience and Expertise
2. Checking References and Reviews
3. Assessing Communication and Collaboration
4. Reviewing Pricing Models
5. Assessing Support and Management

Evaluate Experience and Expertise

First, evaluate your candidates' experience and expertise. Then, find the offer that best matches your business needs and project specifics.

Of course, you can hire a full-stack developer for mobile development. Yet, experienced mobile application developers would be a better fit for such tasks.

Therefore, your first step must include market research and candidate profiling. The easiest way to find potential IT vendors is by visiting specialized b2b platforms such as Clutch or GoodFirms. These platforms gather all information about the outsourced software development companies, including:

• Their previous software projects
• Software development specialization (web development, creation of mobile apps, custom software development, etc.)
• Clients’ feedback, references, and reviews
• Service pricing and market estimations
• Rating of development companies
• Portfolios, company location, and contact information

As a result, you can quickly narrow the list of your tech candidates to a few best-suited options with previous experience in your niche, industry, or project specifics.

Check References and Reviews

After choosing the companies that meet your expectations, you can proceed to the next stage and examine their reviews.

Once again, b2b platforms gather as much related data as possible. You should also check your candidates' websites: unfortunately, many b2b platforms commonly post new information with a delay.

Still, remember to stay skeptical about the feedback posted on outsourcing companies' websites: obviously, nobody will post negative feedback about their work on their platforms.

In addition, you can simply Google reviews of your candidates to find other sources and get a less biased picture.

Assess Communication and Collaboration

When you narrow down the list of candidates for IT team augmentation services, you should contact and interview them individually.

Interviewing is a complex process with a few stages and can answer most of your questions. However, apart from the answers, you should also pay attention to their communication with the candidate: assess their replies, response time, clarity, etc.

If you are observant enough, you can decide how satisfying your communication is and predict how hard or easy it will be for both of you to contact each other during the development process after the first few interactions.

Don’t hesitate to stop your candidate considerations if your communication is frustrating during the initial contact. Expertise is great, yet clear and pleasant communication is a crucial and commonly underestimated factor that will impact the efficiency of your cooperation and project success.

Review Pricing Models

Finally, once you have the list of the best candidates for team augmentation for software development, you should review pricing and project estimations offered by potential partners. If your candidate refuses to name their price and doesn’t have a broad estimation after discussing your project, this is a red flag.

Judging from our experience, we recommend avoiding cooperation with the candidates who offer the smallest or biggest price:

• A small cost of offered services might signal poor quality or other issues and challenges that can negatively impact the final result;
• The highest price for required services is unreasonable, and you can save expenses by choosing their rivals with fewer price tags.

Instead, you should pay attention to the “golden middle” companies that named an average price for your request: most experienced companies know the prices for such services, so to stay competitive, they offer a fair median price.

Still, don’t forget about the difference between the regional prices: a development team from Ukraine offers its services for much lower prices than teams from the US or Western Europe. So, when comparing service costs, you should compare companies from the same region.

Assess Support and Management

Eventually, ask your candidates about other services they provide. For example, here at Incora, we offer short-term postlaunch software support and maintenance to ensure the quality of the result and fix any issues that might appear after software delivery.

Regarding software development team augmentation services, we also help manage team communication to ensure seamless and satisfying cooperation between all parties.

The list of such features and supplemental services is unique for each company and collaboration, so the best way to learn what else they can bring to the table - is to ask directly.

How Did Incora Help Businesses Through Successful Team Augmentation?

Instead of summarizing all the above, we would like to illustrate the potential benefits and reasons for considering software development team augmentation services based on Incora’s experience.

Our team members participated in multiple software projects from different industries and fields. As a result, we offer expertise in various niches and provide our clients with the best cooperation practices based on our experience in outsourced software development.

Recently, we started to extend our on-demand services. So, apart from offering dedicated developers for software projects, we are also open to other types of limited cooperation, such as:

• Support with DevOps practices
• CTO advisory
• IT consulting and optimization

To rephrase, apart from software engineers, we can provide your in-house team with all types of advisory and support related to software development. It includes business advisory, process automation, suggestions on IT infrastructure migration, feature integration, and other similar tasks.

Our latest team augmentation cooperation involved assigning senior specialists to startups and small business projects to perform advanced analysis and make suggestions on improving and streamlining challenging tasks.

One such case involved end-to-end business analysis, with business tips on improving the company’s efficiency with and without software solutions. As a result, we created a detailed roadmap for the company that involved improvements in business logic and processes and a few software-driven solutions to boost the efficiency of management practices.

For more details of potential collaboration with Incora, we suggest you examine our case studies or contact us directly.