A Guide to Building a Distributed Software Engineering Team

There is no universal solution for all companies. Hiring vs extending a software team depends on your company’s needs, capabilities, and budget.

Here’s what to consider:

Hiring a Team

When recruiting a team at a remote location, consider:

1. Being familiar with the legal regulations of the target location
2. Learning to assess a variety of resumes as resumes are written differently in other parts of the world

Extending a Team

When partnering with a third-party vendor to extend your team, consider:

1. Do you need a team long term or short term? If you are extending your team for part of a project, the full software development lifecycle or the full product development lifecycle
2. Do you understand what your commitment with the vendor is? Do you need to help source candidates? Are you expected to provide a project manager for the extended team?
3. Do your teams align culturally? Choose a vendor that has a work culture, values, and ethics that resemble yours

Choose from diverse models to extend your team:

1. Onshoring: working with an engineering team in a different city but in the same country.
2. Offshoring: working with an engineering team in a different country.
3. Nearshoring: a subset of offshoring, working with an engineering team in a different country but closer to your geographic location, usually within 1 to 4 time zones.

A team located near your headquarters makes communication and collaboration easier because there are no large time zone differences.

At Encora we have learned that the best solution is a solution tailor-made to your company. We hope this small guide has helped you narrow down what you are looking for.