5 Things to Consider When Choosing Offshore Resources

It is with no surprise that software engineers are not hurting for jobs.  Demand for engineering talent continues to rise and job options are readily available to fit the personal landscape for anyone with the right talent.  Many of the top engineers are moving to markets where income and quality of life is greater, leaving some cities with less market to choose from. Tie this situation in with engineers who prefer to work on their own and you can see why salaries and demand are high and an employer’s recruiting options are often costly and limited.

Offshore resources are always an option, but which resource do you choose for the best overall result?

5 Things to Consider when Choosing Offshore Resources:

1. Maintaining Leadership:  If you were planning on hiring an in-house engineer/team, you more than likely already have the technical leadership in for development. Handing over the complete project to an offshore company, allowing them to manage it, may result in miscommunicated direction, poor quality assurance, and overdue project completion. Your best solution would be to leverage a global resourcing provider that will recruit software developers specifically for your company and manage the all HR functions, while you are simply responsible for their technical lead. This gives your company the experience of in-house hire with the benefits of offshore development.
2. Cultural Similarities:  Depending on the specific software engineering talent you are a looking for, different regions around the globe may provide the talent you’re looking for. Choosing a region whose civilization is similar to yours will more than likely prevent communication breakdown over time.
3. Cultural Strengths:  There is also the advantage that some countries provide that may include population and education.  Countries known for software engineering talent may have more talent to select from.  India, for example, has one of the highest populations in the world and is a big reason they are the largest outsourcing country. Countries like Ukraine in Eastern Europe, might not have the same size population, but provide a different advantage in their education.  For years, Ukraine has been widely known to produce some of the world’s top scientists and mathematicians.  This has given them the advantage over others in being problem solvers and critical thinkers.
4. Developer Retention:  One of the biggest problems that plague offshore development is the fear of high turnover rates.  While India may have one of the highest populations, it is also heavily overused, causing many companies to experience a 40% turnover rate.  This creates a massive problem with retraining new programmers every time one or more leave, causing many projects to miss their due dates.   Ukraine, however excels in this area averaging around only a 4% turnover with engineers.
5. Cost: While the main point of this topic was finding the right engineer, you can’t ignore the reality that part of the advantage of leveraging offshore talent is that it comes with a reduction in cost.  This can actually be tricky, and why some companies end up not saving money even though the hourly rate is far lower.  Looking again to India, costs may be lower than other regions around the world, but I have found that overtime often happens and the result is not as big of savings.  The turnover rate in India is also a large problem, causing projects to last far too long eating up the savings you had hoped to benefit from.  You may find that Ukraine, a smaller country (yet largest in Europe) is a better savings, even though their prices are slightly higher (not much).  On average, outsourcing to Ukraine will save you 40%.  You won’t experience the problem with high turnover (if any at all) and the common education of the culture will lend itself to a more collaborative experience and quicker completion dates.  

If you are experiencing difficulty in finding the right software engineering teams for your company and would like to explore Ukrainian offshore resources, contact us to schedule a conference call or visit with our team.