How to Hire Software Developers: Why the Dedicated Team Model Works

The journey of a software product, from the birth of its innovative idea to its successful completion and implementation, largely depends on the resources involved in its development process.

“The most fundamental problem in software development is complexity. There is only one basic way of dealing with complexity: divide and conquer.”

– Bjarne Stroustrup

Are you looking for someone who can help your startup by bringing your innovative new app idea to life? Perhaps you want to build a large-scale bespoke software product for your well-established business. It is always best to leave the technicalities to the experts. This means you need to hire software developers that will do the job perfectly without forcing you to lose sight of your core business and its goals.

In this article, we will help you decide what route you should take when starting with the development of a new software product.

Table of contents

Where to Start With the Process to Hire Software Developers

Top Three Options to Hire Software Developers

Why the Dedicated Team Model May Be the Best Option for Your Project

Our Experts Can Help You Decide The Best Strategy For Hiring Software Developers For Your New Project.

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Yasin Altaf

Executive Director,
Forbes Technology Council Member

Where to Start With the Process to Hire Software Developers

Suppose you have a day off from work and decide to cook something at home. You quickly scan the pantry to check what ingredients you have on hand. If you use only what is available at the moment, you will have to compromise and might end up cooking something that you did not want to in the first place.

Can you cook your favourite orange chicken if all you have in the fridge is a few vegetables? You will have to make a complete list of ingredients required for orange chicken and then head to the grocery store to buy what is missing.

You must do something similar in order to hire developers for a software project too. Before you can start looking for the most suitable resources for your software development project, you need to figure out what your own goals are – what do you want to cook?

Do you want to build a simple mobile app targeted at a small audience size, or a complex desktop application to be implemented across your multiple business operations? Perhaps you are looking to invest in web development. Is there a particular recipe that you want to follow, that is, a method of development that you think will work best for your bespoke software product? How many people do you think you will need?

Your answers to these questions will help you figure out what kind of team you need to put together.

There are multiple options to hire developers, but you can only choose the best one depending on what you want your end result to look like. Thus, that is where you need to start if you are looking to hire the best software developers.

Top Three Options to Hire Software Developers

Once you are clear about what you expect to see at the end of the software development cycle, you can start looking into the three most popular options for hiring software engineers and developers:

1. In-house software development teams
2. Freelance software developers
3. Dedicated development teams

1. In-House Team

These days, it has become very common to outsource certain business functions, such as marketing and finance. The most common reason for doing that is to allow businesses to focus on their main activities and let someone else take care of things that are not worth the time, energy, or resources.

If, for example, you are a financial consulting services provider, you might want your employees to focus solely on activities that are directly related to the services you offer. For handling all your marketing operations, you might think it better to sign a contract with a third party instead of setting up a separate marketing department and hiring full-time employees for it.

Despite the many benefits of outsourcing, many organisations still prefer to conduct all business operations, no matter how insignificant, within the organisation.

In-house software development refers to when a business needs a new software product built but does not want to hire a third-party software developer for the job. Instead, they can hire one or more professionals to build an internal software development team.

Where to Look

For hiring in-house resources, there are two common routes you can take, one of which involves putting out a job advertisement.

Your job ad should contain basic details such as job description, salary, location, and application support process. You can also keep your ad open to applicants willing to relocate to your city from another part of the country (or world).

Then comes the question of ad placement. A lot of companies, when recruiting directly, turn to social media, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, both of which have dedicated ‘Jobs’ sections where you can post about vacant positions. You can also ask your employees to spread the word in their social circle by sharing and promoting your job posts. Professional local and global job portals are another channel relevant for posting ads for full-time employment opportunities. Some popular job portals include Indeed, Jooble, Glassdoor, WikiJob, and Monster.

The second recruitment option involves headhunting, where you reach out to individuals already employed elsewhere who you think would be a perfect fit for your organisation. You can contact them via email, phone, or even LinkedIn. As a recruiter, all you can do is inform the candidate about the role you are looking to fill and how they would benefit from this employment opportunity. It is then up to them to decide whether or not they would like to make the switch.

If you have an in-house HR team, they can be tasked with handling all of the above recruitment activities. If not, you will have to get in touch with a trusted recruitment agency that can bring you the right candidates as per your requirements, which can turn out to be an even costlier process.

Pros and Cons

Putting together an in-house team may or may not be the best idea.

Having your own in-house software development team means you can hire people who are closer to you in terms of geographical proximity. For example, you can hire software developers in the UK if that is where your business is based.

As a personal preference, many people find communicating face-to-face better than having to speak through a screen. Your team will be available to you during official company work hours in the same time zone as yours. They would also already be acquainted with the local culture and language, further reducing any barriers to effective communication.

If they run into a problem, they can always stop by your office. You can also drop by occasionally for a quick casual chat or work-related update. Thus, you and the developers can save precious time.

While the advantages of having an in-house development team sound like a dream, the process to hire a software development team can be a major hassle.

First, you will have to think about and decide which roles you want to fill and then advertise them. Waiting for applications can waste even more precious time. Then comes the exhausting process of reviewing resumes and interviewing a great many applicants so you can choose the most skilled and suitable people.

Even after selecting the best candidates, there is so much more you need to take care of: official employment contracts, salaries, benefits, on-boarding and training sessions. Another concern revolves around new recruits getting offered better opportunities somewhere else and jumping ship mid-project.

These are some crucial decisions to make, so you cannot rush through them. On top of all that, it is not only time-consuming but also a costly process to hire software developers, just like any other long-term permanent employee.

2. Freelance Developers

As the concept of remote work became increasingly commonplace, so did freelance culture. They have both been on the rise for the past few years. In fact, they have been further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As opposed to full-time corporate employees, freelancers are individuals who work independently. They prefer not to be bound by long-term employment contracts. Depending on the nature of their services, they can have multiple clients at the same time and often follow a schedule that suits them best.

Where to Look

There are many online platforms, such as Upwork, Fiverr, and PeoplePerHour, where you can browse through job postings or search for skilled software developers for hire. They offer a variety of services and packages for relatively affordable prices. You can also hire offshore developers via job portals, many of which now offer employers the option to advertise for part-time and contractual roles.

Pros and Cons

Hiring a freelancer for your remote development project can have its benefits and downsides.

One major advantage of hiring freelancers over hiring an in-house team is that you gain access to a pool of unlimited talent, unhindered by geographical barriers. You can search through freelancer platforms and connect with professionals based in different parts of the world. This greatly broadens the talent pool that is available to you.

Another advantage is the low cost of hiring a software developer who works part-time. By hiring freelancers, you can skip the traditional in-house recruitment costs and save quite a bit of time and money.

Most employers go for freelancers based in countries where labour is generally more affordable, and, thus, provides great value for money. However, doing so means that you might have to compromise on the quality of work you receive. Oftentimes, the lower the prices go, the further the quality drops.

These are not the only downsides you face when you hire software developers who are self-employed.

Many freelancers offer only a single area of expertise as part of their service. If your project requires multiple skills, you might not be able to find someone who possesses all of the skills required for the job. For example, let’s say you require a resource for building a web app from scratch. It might be difficult to find a freelancer who excels at UI design, is a proficient javascript developer, and also knows how to expertly integrate complex APIs.

Another problem arises when a freelancer claims to have experience in multiple domains. You might find someone who says they have command over multiple programming languages. That would not necessarily make them a good developer. They may have surface-level knowledge of numerous technologies but would probably not be absolute experts at them.

This is not necessarily a negative – it is usually impossible for one person to have all-encompassing knowledge and extensive experience in multiple areas of expertise. It means that burdening one person with a task that requires multiple skills is not the right way to go about things.

A few drawbacks are associated with the general work ethic and culture that is common amongst freelancers today.

When you hire a full-time employee, they are informed from the get-go about their responsibilities and tentative deadlines. They are also expected to provide additional support whenever needed, even after the project ends.

On the other hand, when you hire a software developer off of a freelance platform, there is a risk of them not being able to properly focus on your project since they often have multiple projects going on side-by-side. Once the project is delivered, they might not be available to provide any further after-sales assistance or maintenance.

When you sign a formal contract with a permanent employee, you can ensure that you are not abandoned by your staff mid-way. You can also sign an NDA to ensure the privacy and secrecy of sensitive project details.

It can be hard to expect the same level of professionalism and commitment from freelancers these days. It is also more difficult to keep a check on their progress unless you choose to work with them in extremely close coordination. In doing so, though, you might end up losing focus on other more important business operations.

Considering the many advantages that come with hiring freelance software developers, they can prove to be a great choice for smaller projects which do not require a lot of time or effort. However, medium-sized or large-scale projects often require input from multiple industry experts. You might require a product manager along with several resources for software architecture, back and front end development, system integration, and QA.

Such projects may take forever to complete if handed over to, say, a single freelancer who generally likes to work on their own, at their own pace, and may not have the complete skill set required for a multi-dimensional project.

3. Dedicated Development Team

While hiring an in-house team or approaching freelancers is fairly common, the idea of hiring a dedicated development team might be completely new to some.

A dedicated software team is the perfect blend of an in-house team and a freelancer. It is essentially a third party that works remotely but operates just like an in-house development team.

A dedicated remote team can be either a completely separate entity that works under the banner of a particular software development company or an extension of your existing in-house development team using resources hired from a software development company. The latter – expanding your existing team with external resources – falls under Staff Augmentation Services (or Team Augmentation Services). We offer both options to our customers and they can choose to hire software developers according to their unique needs.

Where to Look

One of the best places to hire software development companies is Clutch, which is a review and portfolio website where some of the most popular and trustworthy companies are listed. Here are some more trusted business directories and listings that you can browse if you are looking to hire software developers.

• The Manifest
• GoodFirms
• Business of Apps
• G2
• TopDevelopers
• TheGrowthHub
• AppFutura
• UpCity
• SoftwareSuggest

These review platforms normally include key details of listed companies, such as the types of software development services they provide, how much they charge, their past projects, and customer feedback received on delivered projects.

While business listing platforms and directories are a good source of information, some of them can be biased in that top positions or ranks are sold to the highest bidder. The more a company pays, the greater the visibility they are granted. A reliable alternative to online directories is running a search on Google or Bing. There are high chances of finding relevant providers when you use specific keywords such as “education software development companies in the UK” or “custom software development company in London”.

What We Offer

Let us give you a brief overview of how GoodCore’s typical dedicated team model works.

The first step you need to take to hire dedicated developers is to drop us an email and schedule an appointment. We will then conduct an extensive discovery process, where we will have an in-depth discussion with you regarding your product requirements, both business and technical.

Next, we work out the team structure that will best suit your requirements. If you are unsure about the various functions within a dedicated team, we will help you decide which roles your project would need. You can also let us know if you have a preference for certain technologies so that we can help you pick relevant experts from within our talent pool.

Typically, we offer the following roles to build a team:

• Project managers
• Business analysts
• Frontend and backend developers (both web and mobile)
• Software architects
• Database developers
• UI/UX designers
• QA engineers and testers

Once the team is finalised, an intensive knowledge transfer session will be conducted so that both you and your new team are on the same page. A project plan will be devised and tentative deadlines will be set according to your time limitations. If our development and design team operates in a different time zone than yours, they will adjust their work hours for maximum overlap with you and your team.

GoodCore, unlike many other software development companies, offers two types of engagement options to its customers:

1. Direct interaction with and control over your dedicated team: Choosing this option means you can be more involved with each and every member of your team.
2. The project manager as your main point of contact: With this option, you can rely on our highly dependable project manager. They will take control of the project’s everyday development activities while you focus on your core business operations.

In either case, you will ultimately have complete control and transparency over the team that you handpick. If you wish to stay involved throughout the development process, you will receive regular updates regarding the project’s progress. We will also ask you for continuous feedback every step of the way.

Pros and Cons

The extremely flexible nature of the dedicated team model gives it an edge over the other two hiring options we discussed earlier.

While this option may be more expensive than hiring a freelancer, it is certainly less time-consuming and more budget-friendly than hiring an in-house team. It will incur zero recruitment expenses for your business since your software partner will provide the talent. You will be presented with a filtered, ready-made pool of highly eligible candidates to pick from.

The relatively higher development costs may make a dedicated team a less than ideal option for a nascent startup, but the flexible team structure and size can enable a business of any size to adjust according to its budget. Thus, the dedicated team model can work well for projects of all sizes, scopes, and complexities.

However, if the project is too short-term with an extremely tight deadline, it might lead to inefficiency. Your precious time may be wasted in gathering the right resources, and the team may not get ample time to understand the project well enough.

With this model, you will not have to compromise on the quality of work (unlike freelancers). Your dedicated team will focus entirely on your software product and not be distracted by anything else. Each member will have a specific role to fulfil.

With impeccable focus, they will also be able to work at higher speeds and productivity levels. Hence, in the long run, a dedicated team will prove to be cost-efficient, with better and higher returns on your investment.

If you choose to hire a dedicated team, you are free to decide your own level of involvement in the development process. If you want, you can keep a close eye on all the latest happenings by conducting regular meetings with all team members. If you want to stay focused on your primary business operations instead, you can request fewer project updates. The project manager will then oversee and handle most of the day-to-day development activities.

A lot of software development services providers offer post-implementation support and maintenance as part of their dedicated team model. GoodCore offers its clients certain added services, such as on-call and email support. We also maintain an online ticketing system where clients can lodge any issues they face during development or post-launch. The dedicated team works to resolve these issues as soon as possible.

One factor that makes most business owners apprehensive about choosing the dedicated development model (or outsourcing in general) is the multiple barriers it may present. These hurdles can present themselves in many forms, such as language, communication, culture, different time zones, and geographical distance. A reliable software partner will take all these factors into account before making any long-term commitments.

Why the Dedicated Team Model May Be the Best Option for Your Project

In order to gain the maximum possible advantage when choosing how to hire the best software developers, there are a few questions you need to ask yourself first.

Checklist: Does Your Project Need a Dedicated Team?

✓ Do you wish to ride the ongoing wave of software development outsourcing in 2023 and beyond?

✓ If you are a startup owner, do you have the budget to hire a few specialised resources for your entrepreneurial software development project?

✓ If you are a medium or large business owner, do you want to cut recruitment costs without compromising on work quality?

✓ Do you have a long-term project for which you need dependable resources but don’t want to hire them permanently?

✓ Does your in-house team lack the skills or experience required for this particular software development venture?

✓ Are you looking to hire software developers who are experienced, talented, and reliable, without wasting time going through unnecessary hiring processes?

✓ Would it be acceptable for you to hire software developers in the UK or other remote locations?

✓ Would you be happy to invest in a worthwhile venture, collaborating with a reliable third party for your software’s development?

✓ Do you want to hire a team of developers which you can flexibly scale up or down according to your changing requirements?

✓ Do you want to be in control of and aware of your team’s progress but not be overly involved in team administration?

✓ Do you want regular updates on your project’s progress?

If you answered yes to most of the questions above, then it is a sign that you are ready to hire dedicated software developers for your development project.

Frequently Asked Questions