Tips to manage offshore programmers

June 15, 2020 1:17 pm

Find out why it’s easy to manage an offshore developer and find out the benefits that you get by hiring an offshore developer.

Why managing an offshore developer or programmer is easier than you think?

Hiring an offshore programmer is the first thing that comes to the mind of most businesses when they are in need to scale up their development team in a cost-effective way. However, some businesses owner are still skeptical about hiring a programmer from an offshore software development company. But, today’s unprecedented conditions are forcing many companies to send their onsite developers to work from their homes. Yet the major challenge they face now is the lack of expertise in managing developers who are working from home.

Hiring an offshore development team or a developer can make a lot of sense during this situation. This is because managing an onsite resource who works from home is pretty much the same as managing a team of offshore developers. As the hourly rates of offshore developers are relatively low when compared to an on-site developer, working with offshore teams can give your business the added advantage of cutting serious amounts of money.

If you are a CTO, CEO, or a business owner planning to hire developers for your software development project, these two questions will probably strike on your mind instantly.

“How can I effectively manage an offshore programmer or vendor? ”
“What are the challenges that are involved in hiring an offshore programmer?”

Though an offshore development team can bring some manageable challenges associated with hiring, it brings it’s own benefits as well. Interestingly, the benefits that you get by hiring an offshore programmer can outweigh its challenges. These benefits are the key reason why most of the businesses that are based in the United States prefer to hire programmers from offshore development teams.

We will drill down some of the benefits that small and medium-sized business gains by hiring a developer:

If you are the owner of a startup or a smaller business, you won’t be always certain about the time you need to keep a developer, so hiring an offshore developer can be more beneficial for smaller projects.
Difficulty in hiring skilled developers(skilled in specific technology that you need) in your region.
Related: How to IT resource requirements during the COVID19 pandemic?
A great reduction in the infrastructure cost is another benefit of offshore development. By hiring an offshore developer or a development team. You won’t have to set up an inhouse development facility in your own location. Moreover, setting up infrastructure can consume loads of time and is very likely to be expensive. You can forget about that when you hire a development team from an already existing offshore software development facility.

Having said that, Let’s explore how you can effectively manage an offshore development team. This will help you to make the right decision to hire offshore developers among the offshore development companies that are currently available in the market and find a development team that you can count on.

1. Develop good communication.

Failure to efficiently manage a remote team is primarily due to poor communication. Today, we have virtual communication platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Slack and many more to instantly connect with anyone. With these tools, you can feel like you’re having a one-on-one interaction with the developers who are on the other side of the globe.

Replacing your team’s daily scrum meeting over a phone call with a video conference by using these technologies can help with team building. This will help you to know your offshore developers well and help you to build strong relationships with them.

By efficiently making use of these communication tools, you won’t find any difference between managing remote onsite resources and offshore developers. Due to this reason, the popularity of offshore developers is increasing rapidly across many countries across the globe.

2. Share your company’s culture

Sharing your companies culture with your offshore vendor can keep them closer to your in-house team. By giving your offshore team an opportunity to interact more with your in-house employees, your offshore programmers can feel like they’re a part of your team.

By participating both your inhouse and offshore developers in your team-building activities, both the teams can be integrated into a single unified team.

3. Provide enough time to learn

Even expert programmers need enough time to learn about the project and technology involved. By providing enough buffer time, the more productive will be your offshore team.

This time can be used by the offshore team to set up training sessions, assess risks, and brainstorm innovative ideas that can foster your project.

4. Hire the right development team

Managing an offshore development team will be a lot easier if you hire the right development team. Many of the finest offshore development vendors offer a dedicated project management team that can efficiently manage the offshore team. Below are the major traits of a professional offshore team.

Talented workforce
High level of English proficiency
Multicultural adaptability
Great price tag

With every offshore team, you can encounter different challenges, but these challenges are manageable ones. so keep that in mind when you are in the pursuit to hire an offshore developer or a development team, hire the right development team.