The Pros and Cons of Hiring Overseas Developers

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there will be a 22% increase in software developer job openings in the United States between 2020 and 2030. These growth rates are much higher than the average of all occupations, which is likely to create a deficit in programmers, inclining more companies to outsource or outstaff their software development projects.

If the thought of hiring developers overseas has crossed your mind, chances are you have a couple of questions on how to go about it.

This article focuses on overseas development, how to hire an overseas programmer, and how it works—the good and the bad.
Let’s delve into the specifics.

What is overseas development/programming?

Overseas programming is a business strategy that involves trusting a third-party team or a company abroad with your software development projects to reduce operational costs.

Main Reasons to Hire a Developer Overseas

Various companies have their unique reasons why they hire overseas programmers. Some of the most common include:

Finding New Talents That Are Not Available Locally

With the current and project shortage of available software developers, your company may encounter challenges in finding the ideal talent for your development project. Furthermore, if you decide to work with in-house programmers, you might settle for ones available locally, even if they do not possess the technical expertise relevant to your scope of work.

Additionally, if you find a qualified one in your country, they must be able to move to your locality (in case your company doesn’t have a remote-first culture) as soon as possible. In this case, outsourcing is an excellent option.

When you hire programmers online and overseas, you reach out to an infinite talent pool. Since you can employ globally, getting highly qualified professionals perfect for your development project is a guarantee. If your project requires, let’s say, an offshore sharepoint development center you can quickly gather a distributed and highly qualified team – you just need the right partner to assist you. Talmatic is a staff augmentation service from Eastern Europe that matches you with a team of high-performing web and app developers. Click here to find out more.

Focus on the Main Tasks of your Business Instead of Finding and Hiring Talents

The IT department has a lot on its plate, from ensuring all business computer-based systems are working seamlessly to safeguarding sensitive company data. Coding an application in all its glory is complex. Programming needs undivided attention and simultaneous efforts from the entire development team to minimize the risks of developing an improperly functioning application full of bugs.

Furthermore, developing an application from planning to deployment is time-consuming, not forgetting software testing that needs to be done at different stages.
By hiring a developer online, you surrender all these tasks to a team of capable professionals like app developers in Poland or Ukraine. You also eliminate the tedious tasks of finding and hiring talents, which frees up time that you can leverage to handle other mission-critical tasks.

Cost-reduction

According to US News, the average software developer in the United States made $110,140 in 2020, with the best and lowest-paid making $140,470 and $84,020, respectively. Generally, software development is the 5th best paying job in the country, hence hiring one for a long-term project might set you back a couple of hundred dollars.

On the other hand, overseas developers are not as costly. Take the example of Ukraine.

According to Glassdoor, hire a software developer in Ukraine will cost montly $3,000, which translates to $36,000 per year. Even with a bit of compensation, the amount is only a fraction of what the same developers earn in the United States.

So, as far as cost-reduction is concerned, outsourcing allows companies to access cheap overseas developers who are equally talented—if not more.
Furthermore, overseas web developers are not entitled to employee benefits such as insurance covers, bonuses, holiday pay, profit sharing, etc. You can also cut down on overhead costs such as hiring expenses and office supplies.

Flexibility

When you hire web developers overseas, it gives you the flexibility to scale up and down as needed.

If, for instance, you need server-side programming for a small business app, you can easily hire one or two highly-skilled python app developers with comprehensive experience in the task. In contrast, if you have a bigger project, involving, let’s say, PHP or Ruby stack, you can quickly increase capacity to cater to the bulging workload and ensure smooth sailing.

Such flexibility in software development is instrumental as it minimizes project bottlenecks, assures the client of functional applications, and prevents the downfall of a promising product.