Has the pandemic left you struggling in terms of building a well-structured team to help keep up productivity? Our surveys and observations suggest that a lot of businesses, especially new and small ones, will answer with a ‘Yes’.

2020 has seen a spike in the demand for remote software engineers, but owing to one constraint or another, businesses have not quite been able to hire teams of software engineers to fulfill their needs. A common way to bring cost-effectively (“effective”, not “efficient”) skills into companies have been to outsource these jobs. But how appropriate is outsourcing now? Do traditional outsourcing firms deliver the same quality of services and talent pool that extremely competitive markets of today demand?

Outsourcing: A Bit Outdated

Engineers hired by outsourcing firms that do projects for you…don’t really do projects for you. They do it for the outsourcing firm that hired them. There is little to no sense of accountability and understanding for the business to whom the final product is delivered.

You have very little control over the process once you outsource the work. In a way, you are interacting with another firm, not a software team. This makes it a hassle to work in parallel, suggest changes, and ask for modifications in the final product.

You really cannot be sure of the quality of work either.

Nowadays, software applications and projects entail continuous integration and updates. It is no longer a one-off product that someone builds for you and never talks about again.

Distributed Teams: Sustainable and Long-Term

The concept of distributed teams is still rather new. Part of the reason they are now being talked of in business communities is, well, the pandemic. (Does this mean Gaper was ahead of its time? 🤔)

Why are we calling this model more sustainable and efficient?

When we build distributed teams, we hire engineers as full-time employees who won’t leave after a few months. Anyone being brought on-board is rigorously vetted. And it is not just their technical skills that are evaluated, we also place a great focus on each individual’s soft skills as well. What do they bring to a team and the firm as a person?

This allows individuals to be ‘matched’ with firms and clients that they fit well with. They don’t have to be on teams that they cannot work productively with. Nor do they work with clients that they are compatible with.

When engineer teams and clients do get matched, the team is expected to work for the clients for as long as they require. Some might be done with the team after getting one product developed. Others might be fast-paced, highly agile companies that are continually looking to work on innovative applications. Traditional outsourcing is not appropriate especially for the latter.

Highly Efficient

One cannot overstate the cost and effort savings that hiring firms enjoy when employing distributed teams of remote engineers.

Businesses don’t go through the hassle of hiring or training skilled professionals. They also only pay the firm that’s providing them with the augmented team.

Another huge perk? The augmented teams consist of talent from all over the world. This is as optimal a set of skills as it gets.

It is more important than ever to think about your recruiting strategies ever since the pandemic exposed the weaknesses in our rigid business models. Augmented teams bring sustainable flexibility to businesses that use them. Things become more efficient.

Though it is understandable why founders and managers might be apprehensive about adopting new approaches, they should also be careful about being too strict lest they fail to keep up with the times.