How to Hire Offshore Software Developers [Complete Guide]

There is no secret that the offshore outsourcing trend is booming. One report by Research and Markets shows that the global IT outsourcing market will reach $410.2 billion in 2027. Every business type is now taking an interest in outsourcing software development projects.

Adopting the strategy to outsource projects brings a lot of benefits, such as the affordable cost of hiring developers and access to a wider pool of talent, particularly to those who have startups and small and mid-size businesses.

Many giant market leaders, such as WhatsApp, Slack, and Google, have already adopted this strategy to outsource their software development offshore. While outsourcing is not an easy task if you don’t know how to hire offshore software developers. This decision can actually make or break the success of your project.

As a leading offshore software development company, we know the challenges and issues faced when you are unable to hire proper offshore developers for your project. This is why we have written a complete guide on how to hire offshore software developers. So, let’s get started.

5 Steps on How to Hire Offshore Software Developers

To simplify the whole hiring process for you, we have added this section that contains 5 steps. Following all the steps will help you find an ideal software developer for your project.

1. 1. Clearly Define Goals and Objectives

Before you reach out to the offshore developers, it is essential you know the primary requirements of the company. If you are unaware of your business needs, it will be a daunting process for you to hire a dedicated software developer for your project.

In clear terms, if you will not be able to explain your custom software development requirements to the software developers, which might not get the same result as you would be expecting.

Therefore, you need to define:

1. 1. • What type of software you are looking to build?
      • Which features and functionalities do you want to integrate to address your business challenges?
      • Which skills are you looking for in a software developer?
      • What is your estimated software development budget?
      • What is the expected time to complete software development?
      • Which software development methodologies to use?

These and many other requirements should be addressed beforehand so that you hire the best offshore software development team for your project.

1. 1. Reach Out to Preferred Software Developers

Once you define your requirements, you are set to reach out to software developers through different hiring platforms or software development companies that offer hiring services.

If you are reaching out to offshore software developers, then it is also important for you to designate one location where you want to outsource your requirements.

Now, sort various offshore companies or freelance developers based on your requirements. To find an ideal software developer, go through their portfolios and past projects, and if possible, then check the reviews and feedback of past clients.

Being a leading software development company, we have experienced developers who have developed custom software solutions for various industrial niches. You can talk to an experienced offshore software development company or take consulting services to know the developers needed for your project.

Here are a few more points that you need to consider while reaching out to a preferred developer:

Skills

Ensure the developer possesses the right skills, follows the best software development practices. Also, it is essential to check their level of expertise in particular technical skill sets.

You might know that ‘software developer’ is a broad term that also includes web developer, mobile app developer, frontend or backend developer, and full stack developer. So ensure to choose the right kind of developer you need.

Experience

Even if the developer has all the skill sets, it doesn’t make them experienced in facing varied software problems. On the other hand, experience brings a lot of abilities to deal with various challenges associated with the software development process, giving an extra edge to experienced developers.

This is one of the reasons entrepreneurs choose to hire experienced offshore developers. So not only check the foundation year of the software development agency but also look for the experience of the developers.

As you now know how to hire software developers, you need to conduct their technical and non-technical tests. So in the section below, we will see how to conduct technical and non-technical tests for the developers you have hired.

1. 1. Conduct Technical & Non-technical Tests

To check whether the candidate is up to the requirements, evaluate their skill sets. After all, your tech partner should be aware of the latest and advanced technologies to build high-quality software solutions.

There are multiple ways to evaluate the skill sets of developers. Let’s discuss some of the methods.

Questionnaires

Questionnaires give you the benefit of finding out how the developer approaches solving a problem. You will get a clear idea of how they will meet your need in the estimated timeline and how innovative they are when facing any challenge.

Coding Tests

As you will hire software developers, it is essential to assess the coding ability of the candidates. So once the candidate performs the coding test, analyze and make decisions accordingly.

Communication Skills

Also, while hiring offshore developers, it is important to check that there should not be any language barrier or significant cultural differences between you and the developers. Otherwise, it will get difficult for you to share your requirements and make them understand your expectations with the project.

1. 1. Take Final Interview With Developers

After taking all sorts of tests, take a final one-on-one interview with the developers who qualify all the previous rounds. At this stage, you and the developer will get to know each other.

However, to be on the safer side and make a wise decision, you need to understand their working style, their software development team structure,work approach, and ability to handle pressure as well as manage the complete project, and so on.

Here are a few questions that you can ask developers to ensure you are hiring the best offshore team or developers.

1. 1. • Are you able to work under extreme pressure?
      • Do you sign a non-disclosure agreement?
      • How do you ensure to understand clients’ requirements?
      • Do you have any specific approach to building a software solution?
      • How will you post me on the progress of the project?
      • Can you show me your top 3 projects, along with client reviews?

Apart from these questions, you can also ask questions from your end to clarify all the doubts. Asking such questions will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of the developers. This way, you can double-check the ability of the developers who will work on your project.

1. 1. Complete Work Conditions and Legal Agreements

The hiring process of a software developer ends with this stage, where you complete the legal formalities. As you will be sharing a lot of crucial information with the offshore developer, it is important to bind them with the legal documentation process. Therefore, you should consider the following agreements while hiring offshore developers.

Non-disclosure Agreement

Asking your offshore development team to sign an NDA will help you secure and protect your business strategies, software development idea, and source codes. NDA maintains the secrecy of crucial information and reduces the chances of important information being leaked.

Legal Agreement

As far as the developer will be working on your project, they will have access to the project’s source code. Therefore, documenting this will ensure that the developers hand over the source codes to you once the project gets deployed or launched.

Software Requirement Specification

Software Requirement Specification (SRS) contains all the technical details related to your project, such as how the software will function and how it will run on any specific platform. These specifications really help at the time of testing software to ensure it is running exactly the same way it was intended while building.

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You know the 5 steps to hiring an offshore software developer. But when is it an ideal time to hire an offshore development team? Don’t worry; we are going to discuss the same in the next section. Let’s have a look.

When to Hire Offshore Developers?

In this section, we are going to discuss various scenarios where it is effective to hire offshore developers. Let’s dive in.

1. 1. Tight Budget

If you have a tight budget constraint, then it would be wise to outsource software development requirements to a country where developers tend to charge less.
You might know that the average salary of a Canadian software developer is CAD 68,770/year. On the other hand, developers from India charge less. The average salary of Indian developers is INR 541,310/year.

This is one of the significant reasons entrepreneurs outsource their software development projects to Asian countries like India without compromising on the quality of software.

1. 1. Targeted Time-to-market

As leading offshore development companies are experienced in working on various offshore projects, they master delivering projects within the estimated timeline.

In addition, the offshore developers will ensure that you meet your project requirements and get the best quality of software development results. As a result, you will be faster in the market to meet the demand of your target audience and beat the industry competition.

1. 1. Need for Specific Skillset

Suppose you want to build FinTech software to reinvent the way people lend, borrow, and invest money. Now the requirement you have is to hire Flutter developers nearby.

However, it might be difficult for you to find talented Flutter developers locally in a short time, and if you find developers, it might be costly to hire them.

Also, there could be a scenario where your in-house team doesn’t have a specific skill set. In such a scenario, either you can ask your team to learn that skill or hire an offshore software developer.

Hiring offshore developers with specific skillsets will ensure you save costs as they already possess the required skills.

Moreover, if you are unsure how to hire software developers, check our blog for tips on hiring software developers at a startup. Going through the mentioned tips will surely help you and save your time at the time of hiring.

1. 1. Need Resources for Short-term Projects

You wouldn’t want to squander your hard-earned money by hiring an in-house team for a short-term project. Once your project ends, you wouldn’t need the software development team further.

This clearly explains that opting for offshore developers is the best choice in such situations. With offshore developers, you get complete freedom to hire them for a shorter time period and then release them once the project ends.

1. 1. Business Scaling

To be competitive in the market, you really need to expand your business. Therefore, you must include various business strategies that involve adopting the latest tech stacks, using the latest software development tools, maintaining the performance of existing software, or taking initiatives to boost sales.

Leveraging the services from an offshore software development team will ensure you expand your business. In addition, the team will offer operational flexibility, help you integrate new and advanced technologies, and give you access to new markets.

If you know the conditions when you can hire offshore developers, you must find the benefits of hiring an offshore development team. We will discuss the significant benefits of hiring offshore teams in the next section.

Why Hire Offshore Development Team?

In case you are in a dilemma about whether you should hire offshore developers or not, then check out this section. We are going to discuss the top 5 advantages of offshore software development for your software development project.

1. 1. Lower Costs

If you are one of the startup founders, then saving software development costs would be one of your priorities. For the US or Canada-based companies, most offshore locations like India, Vietnam, and Ukraine tend to charge less by offering the same quality of end results.

These countries will charge less for offering the same software development services. Hence, outsourcing your software development requirements to offshore developers will help you save costs without sacrificing the quality of the project. If you want to know more, check out our blog post on offshore software development rates.

1. 1. Large Talent Pools

When you choose to outsource your software development requirements, then it becomes quite easier to find a vast talent pool of offshore developers. In addition, you get direct access to best-in-class skilled developers.

Sometimes, finding a developer with the right set of skills would be difficult. In such cases, you can rely on outsourcing your requirements to an offshore development team skilled in design, development, testing, and project management.

1. 1. High Scalability

Software development is a very complex process. It is not easy to determine exactly how many resources you will need to complete the software project within the estimated timeline.

However, an offshore development company brings scalability along with it. By managing the software development team efficiently you can quickly scale up or down the number of developers as required.

This means if you need a bigger team, you can hire additional team members and also release them once the project ends without making any significant commitments. It also enhances the speed of the delivery time.

1. 1. Reduced Operational Costs

The best thing about hiring offshore developers is that you do not need to set up any workspace, infrastructure, or IT systems. Instead, as the team works remotely, they will use their own system to build your software solution.

This is another aspect of offshore developers that allows you to save operational costs, along with the hiring time and costs. Additionally, you would not require an acquisition team to hire an in-house development team. Therefore, it will also help you save a lot of expenses.

1. 1. Concentrate on Core Activities

When you have the best software development team that works remotely, all you now need is to focus on your core business activities.

The offshore team is skilled enough to manage your project single-handedly. So your supervision would be required less, and you will be able to focus on the significant areas of your business.

If you have planned and decided to hire offshore development teams, then you need to consider a few parameters to ensure the effective hiring of a remote team.

Things to Consider Before Hiring Offshore Developers

In this section, we are going to discuss 4 important parameters that you need to consider before hiring offshore development teams. Let’s check all those parameters in detail.

1. 1. Make a Budget Plan

Setting a budget is a crucial planning tool that, generally, entrepreneurs avoid. However, hiring offshore developers is an important part of any business endeavor. Therefore, it is recommended to plan a budget beforehand to avoid pitfalls later while you hire offshore developers.

Specify an estimated amount you plan to invest in the offshore developers. Along with this, prepare an offshore development’s remuneration range that shouldn’t be exceeded to avoid confusion later on.

1. 1. Specify Business Requirements

It is essential to have clarity about your project requirements along with the business needs. Know what business challenges you want to solve with the custom software solution. This information will help you and your software development team on the same page.

Define your goals clearly to communicate with your potential offshore developer. Ensure you are mentioning the primary purpose of the software and the problems you are trying to solve through custom software. Want to know how custom softwares are developed? Here is a complete guide of custom software development.

Also, to streamline the software development process, you can set work deadlines for the development team and break the milestones into smaller groups to quickly complete the project.

1. 1. Finalize the Offshore Location

There are several destinations for outsourcing software development requirements. But to make the most out of this opportunity, you must find the best offshore location for your project. Collect information about these offshore countries to make informed decisions and avoid problems later.

You need to keep certain things in mind while finalizing the offshore location, such as time zones, and learn more about cultural differences so that you can coordinate well with the team. Along with this, collect information about pricing as you might want to save costs while maintaining the same work quality.

1. 1. Evaluation of Project’s Skill Set

It is important for you to know the skill set you require to build a software solution. Only then it’s easy to take proper interviews with the developers to understand their level of technical knowledge.

You can specify the roles you want for your project, the skills you are looking for, and the technical expertise. This will help you find the most suitable offshore developer for the project.

If you still have questions about hiring software developers, check the following FAQs we have covered to clarify your doubts.

Ready to Onboard Offshore Software Developers?

This is a complete guide that helps you discover 5 steps to hiring offshore software developers. Along with this, you have learned the conditions when it is ideal to hire an offshore developer and why it is recommended to hire them. In short, we have concisely discussed the benefits of outsourcing software development requirements to an offshore developer.

In case you are looking to outsource your software development requirements, get in touch with us. Being a part of global outsourcing, Space-O not only offers offshore software development services to Canada but across the globe. So far, we have worked with more than 100 clients worldwide and delivered over 300 software solutions. Here are a few software solutions developed by us.

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Contact our tech professional today to discuss your requirements. We also offer a flexible hiring model that includes a fixed price model and a full-time & part-time hiring model.