2023 Guide to Hiring a Software Engineer Offshore

Offshore development teams have already become a well-spread practice in the software development industry. The need to hire offshore developers seems to become an even more popular trend in the next few years.

Therefore, it is highly important not only to know about the existence of services like dedicated teams but to know at least the basic specifics of this type of development and cooperation between two different IT companies, in order to know how to hire offshore software developers, which will upscale your software development project.

Offshore Development Teams In a Nutshell

The offshore software development process, also known as outsourcing, or dedicated teams, is a way of performing various tasks, which must be done, but you might have not enough resources or employees on-premises. Thus, you can easily delegate your software project to a dedicated team, or choose a team extension service, in case these tasks are not as complex, i.e. require only a few extra software engineers, not a whole full-fledged offshore team of niche-experienced developers.

Alternatively, in case you face the issue of finding senior software engineers in your region, you can choose a team extension service. As a result, contacting an offshore development company allows you to find a required specialist in other areas like Eastern Europe, saving you time and spending due to the difference in salaries. Frankly speaking, there are countless advantages to hiring an offshore team of software developers. Starting with more convenient and favorable conditions of cooperation, and ending up with a large talent pool, which is reachable globally. However, there are some drawbacks as well. There are two most commonly asked questions, which are directly related to offshore development teams: “How to manage an offshore development team?” and “How to hire offshore software developers?”

How to Manage an Offshore Development Team?

Actually, the process of offshore development team management is quite similar to the one, which is used for managing an in-house team. In other words, most team management and communication tools and apps, as well as the rest software, designed for these purposes, are similar in both scenarios.

The only difference, though, is the possibility to reach your developers. When it comes to in-house devs, you always can meet them physically and track the progress on your own. Alternatively, contacting even a single outsourced senior software engineer might be a very tough task, depending on how good the communication level is on both sides, as well as some other difficulties. For instance, if you have hired offshore developers, which are located in another time zone, you will have to take into account the time difference, which depends on your location and the location of your offshore development team. Still, even such issues have their own solutions, so communication with the developers from another part of the globe is usually delegated to the project manager, who also plays the role of the intermediary between both sides.

Another important aspect is to ensure communication and collaboration with a remote development team. One of the solutions is to use various spread practices and concepts, combined with a wide range of software applications for remote team communication and project management like Slack, Jira, Notion, etc.

How to Hire Offshore Software Developers

While offshore development team management is a quite obvious and well-known practice, which has a lot in common with the rest approaches to tracking and managing software engineers, the way of hiring offshore developers is a complex and extremely variable topic, which requires a lot to understand and define, before actually starting the hiring process and creating a list of software engineer interview questions.

How Does Offshore Development Differ

First things first, the difference lies in the offshore software development models. For instance, usually, there are three central cooperation agreements, which are distinguished as the main ones:

• Fixed Price Agreement.
• Time and Materials Contract.
• Dedicated Team Approach.

Actually, comparing time and materials vs fixed price agreements, the main difference is the conditions on which the development takes place. So, the fixed price contract means that the spending is discussed before the development starts, and both sides agree on the terms and scale of work to be done, as well as the final price of the performed tasks. As a result, the working routine, as well as the list of features to develop are predefined, and in case there is extra work to do, then before starting uncoordinated tasks, both sides should sign another agreement once again, after estimating the scale and price of these additional assignments. To make it simple, it is a great approach when you need to hire offshore developers or chose senior developer services for a limited number of simple tasks.

At the same time, the time and materials agreement is the complete opposite of the foregoing, meaning that the scale and price of work are not fixed, and the development team is paid monthly for the developer functionality or features. Clearly, this is a great solution for developing scalable and complex projects, or a more preferable approach, when it comes to outsourced development from scratch.

Contrary to the rest, dedicated team methods are about having a full-fledged team, similar to the in-house developers, yet the difference is that your dedicated team is located elsewhere except for on-premises. To rephrase it, a dedicated team is about having a team of remote developers, who will meet all software engineer requirements, and be working for you as regular developers, who are located in another country or region.

So, the first step to make, before hiring offshore developers - is to figure out what exact collaboration type you are looking for. After you do so, you can proceed to the next stage - interviewing.

Software Engineer Interview Questions

There are two possible conditions on how to start this stage:

1. You have a software project in progress, therefore, you already know the technology stack, used in your development, as well as other technical aspects. Thus, you are hiring offshore developers for some specific purposes and features.
2. You are considering the offshore development team as the main working team, which will be developing your software project from scratch.

Actually, the difference is not as crucial, as in previous cases. While in the first scenario, you will have very specific junior, middle, or senior software engineer requirements, looking for those, who are familiar with the technologies, you are using, the first case foresees more flexible conditions, allowing you to find a find an offshore development team, and then consulate with them about the possible technologies to use.

Actually, most outsourced companies, who propose development teams as s service, also have wider access to various software solutions, as well as experience in working with them. Thus, sometimes it is easier and preferable to look for an experienced offshore team of developers for developing an app from the very beginning, which allows you to use alternative software development instruments.

Nevertheless, regardless of the collaboration approach, you will definitely have to make sure that your software engineer requirements and business goals are met by the hired team. For these purposes, you will need to perform an interview and assign a test task to the potential employee. For instance, you might find useful some tips on hiring a perfect React developer for a startup, in case you are looking for team extension services.

Alternatively, there are plenty of guides on how to hire a Python developer. What is worth knowing at this moment is that despite the similarity of most questions and methods to interviewing, each technology still requires a unique approach and a list of technology-specific questions and tasks due to the overall distinction between different software solutions. This is a must-have routine even in case, when you consider cooperating with offshore vendors or other IT companies, who are proposing development services. For a better illustration, we propose to consider what such cooperation with offshore partners looks like in a specific case.

How to Hire Offshore Software Developers with Incora

Incora is an offshore software development company with experience in working with different technologies, starting with Frontend, and ending up with DevOps and various cloud services.

For instance, we propose both dedicated team and team extension services, depending on your request. Most of our offshore developers are niche-experienced, meaning that they have more expertise in specific industries like Blockchain, eCommerce, Logistics, etc. This allows onboarding a developer, who is aware of potential issues or limitations of a specific industry, as well as possible solutions to the occurred issues.

When it comes to direct collaboration, there are two possible approaches, depending on what the client needs:

• If it is a dedicated team, then we estimate the overall scale of work, as well as the required list of technologies. Then, we select the offshore development team, which mainly consists of 5 people: two developers for each -end, a project manager, a quality assistant, and a DevOps specialist. Alternatively, each team can be extended on-demand, in case the project is too scalable or complex.
• When it comes to team extension, we simply propose a list of the most suited developers for the software engineer requirements from the business owner. Then, clients are usually performing interviews with each candidate to choose the right one.

Additionally, to help our potential clients to better understand our experience we always encourage them to check our case studies and ask any occurred questions by contacting us directly.