A Complete Checklist To Hire Offshore Developers For Startups

Consider. The startup program for Y Combinator is currently running. After spending several months putting a lot of effort into your product idea, you have just come to the conclusion that you need to change course. You firmly believe that in order to demonstrate the viability of your concept, you must create this ground-breaking new feature or product. You now have just one month to create something entirely original and showcase it to venture capitalists during Demo Day. But you require assistance because you lack technical knowledge for this specific function or product. You can employ an offshore development team as a solution, so don’t panic.

Should you skip in-house hiring for outsourcing?

• Yes, is our response. However, before we reveal all the insider tips for hiring overseas, you must take into account the following crucial elements in order to thrive in the fast-paced startup environment:
• Co-founder disputes should be avoided since they have the potential to destroy your firm from the outset. Professor at Harvard Business School Noam Wasserman claims that this is the exact reason why 65% of firms fail.
• Do everything as soon as possible. It is advantageous for the startup if the product hits the market sooner.
• Make a fair payment. Investors often only provide funding to SAAS startups after reviewing an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to verify the viability of the business plan. Thus, when developing the MVP, it’s imperative to stick to the budget, which is usually not too large.
• Maintain top quality. The speed, cost, and quality of your MVP must all be balanced.
• Take advantage of working remotely to reduce expenses, particularly when everyone is doing it due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why Hire Offshore Developers for Your Startup?

The following are the reasons why businesses favor software development outsourcing over in-house development:

• It’s an economical approach to product creation. According to Quartz, 37% of businesses fail due to financial difficulties. However, hiring offshore devs is unlikely to cause this problem. Your money won’t be used for overhead expenses like office rent, payroll, perks from insurance, holidays, hiring fees, etc. Rather, the money will be allocated to the most binding domain, which is the development of an MVP. Furthermore, offshore developers usually charge far less than their peers in the United States and Western Europe because of the cheaper cost of living there. It can be twice or even three times less expensive to hire a committed development team in Eastern Europe, India, or Latin America than it is to do it in the US. 
• enhanced output and time savings. A group of remote developers can expedite the development process, cut money, and free up your valuable time. As you are undoubtedly aware, because every business is born in a competitive environment, time is of the essence. Additionally, since each outsourced developer has their abilities already in place, you won’t have to spend any time training new hires when you have a dedicated development team. Lastly, a vendor development business will take care of all ordinary project management responsibilities and HR activities including employee retention, saving you time. You will thus be entirely focused on your work and nothing else.
• Greater skill than what’s available on the spot. You may access a wider pool of talent with IT outsourcing than you could with in-house staffing. For instance, the tech titans employ the majority of California’s coders. It is more difficult to hire developers for a company in the USA since they are employed by large companies that provide them appealing perks, high salaries, and a sense of security and comfort that is not present in startups. On the other hand, there are plenty of competent engineers in offshore nations in Asia and Eastern Europe who would be happy to work for your startup.
• Adaptability. Scaling your internal workforce or altering the technological stack to meet the needs of the project’s scope and stage will be difficult. But for startup environments, these kinds of adjustments are common, thus adaptability is essential. 
• less disputes. The majority of startups are the product of the co-founders’ personal ties developing into professional ones. There may be differences between business and personal contacts, which can lead to miscommunication and conflict. For instance, a man you’ve known for a long time might exhibit a darker aspect of their nature when conducting business. When constructing the MVP, an offshore development team can assist you in avoiding these issues.
• Hiring offshore engineers can simplify your startup, as you can see. After all, many other apps like Github, Slack, and Skype were created by external teams.

Hiring Outsourcing Developers: Where to Start?

Follow this checklist before hiring engineers for your startup:

• Establish your company’s objectives and be prepared to explain them. Prior to hiring developers, decide what issue your initial MVP would attempt to address. You will need to justify this to them. Next, decide what your product’s main objective is that needs to be achieved, divide it into more manageable, quantifiable milestones, and assign rough dates to each of those milestones.
• Analyze the project’s skill requirements. Determine which technological stack(s), level of experience, and abilities you will require for the project first. Decide which responsibilities are necessary for the project next. Do you require just developers, PMs, QAs, or business analysts, for instance?
• Make a budget plan. A startup’s budget is generally its worst weakness, therefore you have to prepare it down to the last detail. Identify the investors to whom you plan to present your MVP in advance.

Gather data regarding locations that are offshore. There are many different offshore nations to select from, and each has pros and cons of its own. Make a list of the nations that are most similar to you in terms of culture and time zone, then take into account the greatest offshore development value for the money.

How to Locate a Developer for Your New Business

It’s time to hire development teams and proceed to the next level now that you have met all the requirements. One of the following channels can help you locate a specialized development team for your startup:

• references or recommendations from people you know
• networking at meetings, hackathons, and conferences
• looking for teams or developers on freelance portals
• scouring tech talent marketplaces for devs
• looking for offshore teams or developers on LinkedIn or social media
• Employing offshore software development companies

requesting assistance from regional recruiters

Offshore Software Development Challenges

For your startup, outsourcing offshore developers is undoubtedly advantageous, however when searching for suitable people, be ready for the following challenges:

Differences in Time Zones

Latin America (including Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Uruguay, etc.), Eastern Europe (including Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Czech Republic, Serbia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Armenia, etc.), and South-East Asia (particularly India) are the most popular locations for IT outsourcing. It could be challenging for you to coordinate the times when the in-house and offshore developers are online if your offshore development team is located in a different time zone. But if you select the right time zone, you can use this challenge to your advantage. For instance, you will only receive a 7-hour differential if you employ a committed development staff located in Ukraine and you are in New York. Additionally, since Ukrainian time is ahead of New York time, the software programmers in Ukraine might already be eating lunch when you wake up. The good news is that you can evaluate the work they finished before lunch because they finished it early. 

Conversely, hiring an offshore development team from India will result in a time gap of more than ten hours and, more significantly, a different direction. It implies that when you begin your workday, the members of your offshore team will still be asleep, which could negatively impact your workflow. However, regardless of the nation you select, you can solve this difficulty with the aid of contemporary timezone control software.

Absence of In-Person Conversation

Since the word “offshore” translates to “located in another country,” it is obvious that there will be a distinction between remote engineers and in-house startup founders. There is a workaround, though: you can occasionally go to the offshore team site to meet your remote coworkers in person, spend some time with them, and break the ice. Unbelievably, these trips would be less expensive for you than a startup that fails due to poor personnel decisions. Having frequent video conferences and starting them with casual talk about your present lives rather than work-related issues is another way to find a solution.

Too Many Suppliers to Select From

There are many software development suppliers in the offshore market, which can be advantageous or confusing depending on your needs. It’s challenging to select among thousands of companies that offer you the chance to work with and gain trust from offshore developers. Even after investing a great deal of effort in using platforms to screen outsourcing companies, you could still make the incorrect decision. Using industry best practices for IT talent outsourcing, Appic Softwares will assist you in locating developers.

Variations in Culture

Working with offshore development teams requires you to be aware of the distinctions between cultures with and without high and low context.

The culture of shared context is:

• particular to Europe, especially Eastern Europe, and the US;
• depends on facts and language;
• task-focused
• focused on deadlines;
• rational;
• willing to adapt;
• predicated on the agile approach.

The culture of high context is:

• especially for the Philippines, China, India, and other Asian nations;
• depends on sentiment and trust;
• a team player;
• not focused on deadlines
• perceptive;
• unwilling to adapt;
• according to the waterfall technique.

We advise employing offshore developers whose cultures are more similar to yours if at all possible. You won’t have to spend as much time learning about and adjusting to the new culture as a result. It would also be possible to engage a few committed software professionals from the same nation or area, which would facilitate communication and speed up working.

How to Hire Offshore Developers for a Startup

What then should your hiring procedure entail, and what characteristics distinguish the ideal offshore development team? This is a startup’s hiring checklist for developers:

• Make a thorough job description. Make sure you’ve included all the necessary abilities a developer needs to perform the job, as well as the functionality of your project.
• Ask about the developer’s or the outsourced team’s track record. Check if they have a LinkedIn page, look up their ranking on sites like Clutch, and see whose clients they have already dealt with. Ask their prior clients if they can suggest this remote team or developer, if at all possible. Make sure your technical co-founder, if you have one, is sincere in wanting to help with the selection process if you are the non-technical founder. If your co-founder isn’t technically inclined, consider hiring an IT consultant—a seasoned technologist—to guide you through any hesitations you may be feeling.
• Verify that the most recent code is available to you. Unfortunately, due to potential personal problems, the developer can decide not to share the code. Therefore, we advise making having access to the code a requirement in order to participate in the project. In addition, you must to be the owner or administrator of every associated cloud, Github, TFS, and other platform account.
• Inquire about the development company’s workflow by outsourcing. Learn how they assign developers to projects and communicate with their clients. Find out if they can add more developers as the project progresses, or if they are sufficiently adaptable. It is advisable to ascertain whether the development company’s process aligns with your requirements prior to hiring a remote workforce and finalizing the contract. Remember to sign the non-disclosure agreement (NDA). You can do this even before the development team begins working, for example, during the interview process.
• Turn down the lowest quotes. Pay attention to economical solutions. When everything is said and done, you can wind up paying more for the low quotations since someone else will have to redo the badly written code. And once more, never be embarrassed to request developer profiles on GitHub or Stack Overflow in order to assess the quality of the code.
• Find out if the remote team wants to debate or accepts all you have to say. It’s concerning if the developer or software development firm claims to be able to meet all of your needs. It indicates that they have not carefully examined your requirements to determine whether they can be met by their skill sets. Every web development firm has a distinct set of skills, and unless it’s a scam, none of them can accomplish all you ask of them without any modifications. 
• Get a reliable project management application. Offshore development is significantly more convenient using collaboration tools. Long-winded email exchanges are an antiquated approach to project management. Use contemporary collaboration, tracking, and project management platforms like Jira, Trello, Slack, etc. You will thus be able to see your team’s tasks and progress with clarity, facilitate discussions, provide feedback, and get right to the point.
• Take initiative. One of a startup founder’s most important soft talents is being proactive, especially when collaborating with an offshore development team. Aim to be one step ahead of the chores for the following day, particularly if you are sleeping while your remote team members are up and working. 
• Demand that they be deployed often. Request that your offshore developers, who usually work in sprints of one or two weeks, present you with the MVP demo at the conclusion of each sprint.

Lastly, confirm that your group:

• comprehends your directions and homework. People in some societies are afraid to admit when they don’t grasp something. It’s your responsibility to let them know that queries are acceptable. It is preferable to address every problem from the start rather than trying to fix them when it is too late. Bring up this matter if you believe they are only telling you what they think you want to hear.
• possesses knowledge of your industry and at least one portfolio item that is comparable.
• has worked with startups before.

Outsourcing Developers via Tech Talent Marketplace

Those that found startups are usually creative, imaginative, and eager to see their ideas through to completion. It follows that they clearly look for innovative ways to streamline and even completely transform their workflow as users and entrepreneurs. Since Appic Softwares is a startup as well, we at Appic Softwares have an unmatched understanding of the struggles faced by new entrepreneurs. Appic Softwares , one of the top offshore nations, was founded by a group of enthusiasts in Ukraine and provides a new avenue for startup entrepreneurs to work with a committed development team. This is how our process is organized:

• We work together and compile a database of the more than 500 software development businesses from Latin America and Europe that have passed a rigorous screening procedure.
• We give the profiles of over 50,000 full-time, validated engineers employed by those dev companies to a tech talent marketplace.
• Our customers register on the platform, schedule a meeting with our agent to discuss their requirements, and view the developer profiles. We carefully choose the top applicants and set up pre-interviews with them to determine which ones best match the customer’s needs once they submit their application. It may take Appic Softwares up to 48 hours to provide you the first engineers who were chosen.
• Based on their needs, the clients can select a team and conduct in-person interviews with each member of the team. 
• The project begins in two weeks after the client signs a contract with the software development company in charge of the team of their choosing.
• The software development provider takes care of all overhead, including vacation, sick leave, office space, and payroll.

Who can you hire with Appic Softwares?

• Appic Softwares allows you to recruit offshore developers without the need to hire the entire team, including PMs, designers, and other staff members. Alternatively, depending on the technologies and seniority level required to cover your project, you may select engineers for various jobs. Below is a brief synopsis of jobs within dedicated development teams: 
• front-end programming group. The software’s visual components are implemented by front-end developers, who concentrate on graphical components, user interface design, and user experience. The fundamental tools used by front-end developers include JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and DOM.
• back-end programming group. The server-side components of the program are within the purview of the back-end developers. They supply the code and APIs that their front-end coworkers need to construct software. The client-side and server-side components are connected via back-end development, allowing the system to function as a whole. Databases like MySQL and MongoDB, as well as server-side languages like Ruby, Python, Java, PHP, and Node.js, as well as APIs like JSON, AJAX, and SOAP, are utilized by back-end developers.
• team for full-stack development. The frontend, backend, and database layers of web development are all accessible to full-stack developers. Naturally, this does not imply that they are excellent in every aspect; after all, there are several kinds of full-stack developers. They can still coordinate development processes, write web applications, mobile apps (Android, iOS application development), and solve issues at every level. 
• DevOps specialist. In order to expedite and optimize software development, testing, and release, a DevOps engineer is responsible for bridging the gap between IT and software development processes.

staff for quality control. Throughout the project, the QA engineers team guarantees that your quality standards and specifications are met. They are also in charge of looking for and reporting flaws in the MVP program.

Why Hire Offshore Developers for Startup with Appic Softwares?

The following are the main justifications for choosing Appic Softwares as an offshore development partner:

• large selection of programmers. When working with Appic Softwares, you have access to a far larger pool of excellent offshore developers with years of expertise than you would with a standard offshore development firm.
• Just the reliable dev shops. We put dev shops that are featured on Appic Softwares through a rigorous screening procedure before deciding whether or not to send our clients there. 
• Capacity to grow the group. During the MVP stage, the scope of each startup project is always changing. Since we at Appic Softwares are the only ones who understand this, we enable our clients to quickly expand their engineering teams by adding a few developers.
• Positive testimonials from prior customers: After utilizing our matching service, Appic Softwares clients decide to stick with us since they have complete faith in the platform’s screening procedure.
• You don’t have to wait several months. When working with traditional outsourcing developers, you might have to wait a while for the project to begin and for your team to assemble. It will take 48 hours to meet applicants and two weeks to hire a development team when using Appic Softwares for the complete process.

FAQ

What are a startup’s primary benefits from hiring offshore developers?

Budgetary problems are a major factor in the failure of numerous startups. Hiring offshore developers is a solution that will be able to satisfy business needs and will not deplete the company’s money by removing overhead costs such as salary, office rent, etc. As a result, you naturally have extra money to spend on things that are really important. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to hire some of the world’s most skilled and competent professionals, who will enhance your internal development team.

In 2023, which offshore locations will be the most popular for recruiting software engineers?

The two regions with the best price-quality ratio in 2023 are those in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Do both locations represent different dev shops that collaborated with Western Europe and North America? See our post on the best offshore spots for more information about each area and nation.

Which communication tools are essential for dealing with developers who are located abroad?

Although it can be challenging for a CTO, VP of Engineering, or founder to oversee a remote development team, collaboration tools greatly simplify the process. Using these tools—whether they be for code collaboration or remote pair programming—correctly is equally crucial, of course. Visit our blog post to learn about the eight collaboration tools that are essential for maintaining communication and productive working relationships with your remote development team.

Which is better to use—freelancers or outsourcing companies?

Although either choice could work, we would advise choosing the dev shop employ over independent contractors from websites like Upwork if you (or your investors) require greater security and confidence. The rationale for this is that you can be certain that the dev shop will ensure that the development process is transparent, that communication is proceeding as planned (in accordance with the prior agreement you had in your documents), and that developers will meet deadlines. Considering that you have less control over the process, hiring a freelance programmer is a less reliable choice. The cost of hiring developers from a dev shop may vary. However, you’ll also have access to the client testimonials, quality paperwork, and occasionally even an offshore project manager to oversee the work.

Where are the top developers found?

It is preferable to search for and engage the top offshore developers in Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Conclusion

Our extensive check list makes it easier for startups to hire offshore developers. These guidelines can help you find excellent people, have a smooth hiring process, and create a cohesive team that will help your firm grow.”

You can select from a pool of competent full-stack engineers at Appic Softwares for your project. Our full-stack engineers have extensive experience working on projects all over the world and are highly adept in soft skills. You can offer top-notch developers if you choose to collaborate with them on your project.

Why then the hesitation?

Please contact us straight away!