Dedicated Development Team: Full Guide

What is a dedicated development team?

The best way to start our exploration of this topic is to clearly define what the term actually stands for and what it carries behind its name. A unit of passionate coders entails outsourcing an assembly of specialists who realize your ambitious ideas.

If they are a part of an outsourcing company or freelancers, on your side, the difference is not of much significance. The main purpose of collaborating with a dedicated engineering team is to find additional qualified resources to streamline the development process or unlock a new level of professional expertise within your crew.

As it is, the popularity of opting for such experts is undeniable, especially compared to the global demand for delegating parts or the entire development of the project to outside executors. In fact, the worldwide market for outsourcing is projected to reach $812 billion by 2029, which showcases its favor.

As a software development company in the UK with over 10 years of experience in powering up clients’ projects, we asked our experts to gather a guide for dedicated coders for businesses that need assistance in long-term projects.

Key roles in a dedicated software development team

When it’s clear what this model represents, let’s study the composition of such a crew in terms of the positions of experts who can be appointed to turn a new leaf in your business performance and what is expected from every one of them:

Here, we will reveal more details about each position based on a real case study. One of our clients approached us with a task to create a mobile application for the fintech niche. Their request was, “We are new on the market, and hiring a dedicated development team seems like the way. We need a fintech app for secure and fast cryptocurrency transactions.”

The setup of dedicated developers for hire that was suitable for this request was the following:

• Project manager. They coordinate every phase of the project, from idea concept to ongoing maintenance. Therefore, the budget and deadlines will be met without any delay.
• Business analyst. This person gathers customers’ requirements and passes them to a developer — us — and also determines and calculates risks for the solution.
• UI/UX designer. Such an expert knows everything about how to make users stay with an app and come back to it daily. They craft designs based on the simple motto, “the less friction it takes for a user to reach out to your app, the more time they will spend exploring it.”
  
• Programmers. Their number depends on the complexity of your product; typically, it takes from two to ten people: back-end and front-end developers. A dedicated development team model allows clients to reach out to a wide pool of coders who are proficient in the fintech industry.
• Quality assurance expert. They check a product before it goes live: every code line is reviewed to ensure there are no bugs.
• DevOps (optionally). The responsibilities behind this position are crucial for cloud operations, CI/CD (Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment), accessibility, and more.

Every role here balances the team so that a customer reaches a well-established group that can cover not only the tech but also the design and QA aspects. There is a possibility to scale a team as your needs grow, and fulfill requirements at the drop of a hat.

Why should you hire a dedicated development team?

From statistics, we may judge that hiring a dedicated development staff is included in the strategies of small companies (37%) and large enterprises (92%), which outsource their projects to third-party contractors.

Below, we will consider all the advantages you can take from such cooperation in the long run. Let’s dive into the details.

1. Cost-effectiveness. The software development companies providing dedicated collaboration are aimed at delivering access to high-quality expertise at lower costs.

   As a business representative, you don’t need to search for each professional separately. You are able to contact a provider with a dedicated development team for hire and onboard them in a few days.

2. Reduced risks. What if you are building a solution and you rapidly need to add a new feature? Let’s say that your fintech application needs to be able to process payments within Stripe, but it was not in the plan and the team can’t handle it.

3. Full transparency. You receive control over every process (if you would like one) and access to check the progress within reports, meetings, and so on. For instance, it is common for dedicated development teams to keep track of tasks using boards like ClickUp or Trello, where they change status and leave comments.

   There will also be no hidden fees, and you will pay a pre-defined price for the hours developers spent on your project.

4. 100% commitment. A team of programmers will not be jumping between four projects simultaneously. They become your workers, just like an in-house department. That’s how they also deliver another advantage — faster time to market.

   Temporary tech partners will not take into account your operations and values, while dedicated remote workers will align with your plan and culture. The other side reveals nuances about diving into challenges that need to be solved.

5. Resource optimization. Time is the greatest value for software creation as well, so you need to ensure the process will be efficient and flawless. To make it more present, let’s imagine two companies creating a website. One is gathering freelancers, onboarding them, teaching, and integrating them into a firm — it is too time-consuming.

   The other brand turns to a dedicated programming team where coders are used to working together and have been pre-set by a provider with proven case studies and tech proficiency — they know the ropes.

Let’s summarize all the advantages according to the type of business you run:

• Startups: fast development and full cost control.
• Small and medium: affordable prices for long projects and risk mitigation.
• Enterprise: access to a wide talent pool.

These crews are competent in working with various niches, from healthcare to fintech and eCommerce, so you are able to receive products with full compliance for HIPAA, GDPR, KYC/AML, and more.

When to choose dedicated development team services?

The number of reasons why each and every client has ever turned to the help of dedicated specialists is as vast as the ocean, with every occurrence bearing its own set of needs. Still, we can overview some of the primary grounds why a business owner would entail this type of collaboration and maybe you will find yourself among them.

— You are a startup that requires rapid growth.

Considering that a lot of startups fail before even reaching a one-year mark, the pressure to succeed on the first try is immeasurable. Businesses that are at the start of their journey might not have all of the necessary resources or knowledge to cover every aspect of production.

This is when a dedicated developers team comes to the rescue, since your staff can majorly benefit from the experience level of experts who already know the ins and outs of the industry and are capable of ensuring fruitful operations. Continuously, it adds a significant amount of speed to the development, making sure you do not fall behind.

— You have multiple undertakings in development.

In this case, you can onboard crews to take over one of the projects or simply opt for better management with the help of remote developers for hire. Such an approach is going to ease the overall workload and steer you away from compromising on the quality of any solution.

— You are behind a large-scale project that needs assistance or expertise.

A dedicated team of developers for hire is of great aid when it comes to assisting in the development of large-scale and long-term projects, covering any bottlenecks or insufficiencies your in-house workforce encounters. That way, you open yourself up to an opportunity of shorter turnaround times with fewer inconsistencies and resource wasting.

It can also be the case of lacking the appropriate expertise when you reach a certain point in your project advancing which the internal team simply cannot handle due to limited understanding.

— You need complete control over spending.

The CEO of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi, said, “Transparent pricing builds customer trust and loyalty,” and it is important for businesses that are looking for affordable and high-quality solutions with no unexpected fees.

The final price is under your control as you are able to calculate it for at least half of a year and don’t expect another, “Oh, we have to charge you for extra hours.” According to our experience as a software agency in the UK, a dedicated team is the most predictable cooperation model.

If your budget for a simple mobile app is $30,000, a dedicated team of developers will stay within it.

— You are an enterprise with no time for manual hiring.

Large projects can require more than 50 programmers, which can take months, as you can expect to spend around a month to hire one, and it can take more if you need a technology specialization, like AI or blockchain.

Additionally, even when you have found a candidate, you need to conduct tech interviews, check soft skills, train an employer if they accept offers, maybe pay a fee if you use freelance platforms, and more.

How to hire dedicated development teams?

Let’s find the nitty-gritty behind a complex and challenging process of hiring a team for dedicated creation with professionals who will be 100% dedicated to your product.

Step 1. Define your needs

What do you need to achieve? That is your core question that defines the whole purpose of a project in your mind and which is essential for a vendor of your choice as the more precise it sounds, the smoother cooperation you receive.

It is also advisable to establish the budget based on your capabilities and timeframe for a product creation (which will allow you to select the provider who can jump on the train of your collaboration immediately if you need it).

Step 2. Use shortlists.

Some of them you can find in this article with links, and their point is that they are convenient and robust, with all top-tier companies offering software engineering, with a proven track record, described industries they operate within, prices,years of experience, and other nuances.

For example, our experts gather the information about providers from open source and investigate their case studies, testimonials, make comparisons which is much more efficient for you than searching online and diving into details when you decide to hire dedicated development teams.

Step 3. Conduct an initial interview.

This phase is our personal preference and based on our experience, it works well for clients as they would like to learn more about how a team can fulfill their needs before signing a contract.

Such a consultation is usually free and requires up to 45 minutes of your time (depending on the requirements).

Step 4. Sign a contract and team up.

After establishing a clear vision of your idea and key results, it is preferable to sign an NDA and, optionally, a Scope of Work for you to be protected in all cases. After that, you need to monitor what was done, internal KPIs, keep in touch with developers, and receive feedback about what is going on with your solution.

Such an easy and straightforward guide seems simple, and it is so because we put our background as the company that has been delivering such services for over a decade now. Following these stages, you will hire a reliable team that fulfills your needs 100%.

How to manage a dedicated team of developers?

Management can feel like herding cats if you don’t have a proper objective and vision of the future product. It is like controlling traffic on the road, especially for large crews. A project manager, a part of teams, will avoid micromanagement and set the harmony for every team member.

Typically, a veteran individual with a solid background will smoothly integrate into your brand, and all you need to do is monitor their performance and attend regular calls. Still, there are some rules that you may want to follow when deciding to hire software programmers and setting up the management.

Rule #1. Define OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)

Simply, it is all about what you want to receive from dedicated software development teams and for them, it is the guideline. Let’s say you need to increase the daily number of users by 15%. You need a tech metric to evaluate this goal accomplishment, so how to do it? Here is a simple formula from the tech side:

It is simplified and will look different depending on your goal, so you just need to make it clear for a team. Here, you also work on priorities and how to make progress measurable, and motivate other members.

Rule #2. Communicate well

The reason DDT works so well for startups and other businesses is that you are able to fine-tune communication with a crew even if you are operating in different time zones. You need to keep your hand on the pulse of a project and ensure that you stay on the same page with other members across your goals and priorities.

Typically, they have a well-established Agile process that includes sprint reviews. Based on our experience, the top-tier way to uphold communication is to get in touch for daily meetings (even 5 minutes is enough).

There are numerous tools to be used, from Asana to GitHub, to streamline information, files, document sharing, and so on.

Rule #3. Centralize documentation

It is also about the clarity that you bring to the development process and you can keep it through the channels we named in the previous rule. Why is it essential? Mostly because a dedicated team for software development believes that if something is not written, then it doesn’t exist. Let’s keep going with an example.

One developer writes code without any documentation and they are the one knowing what’s going on there, so in case they leave the project, another coder will have no clue about what to do with the written part of a solution.

We have outlined three must-haves for every product creation that work for every corporation with a crew. If choosing an experienced unit, you will see that such teams typically have all these processes set up, and the provider will explain to you their work style to adapt to your needs.

How much does a dedicated engineering team charge?

To expand on the point we have mentioned below, the cost of involving dedicated specialists in your project can range drastically, as it is based on individual characteristics of an undertaking.

The relevant “cost-effectiveness” of this model can be revealed in numbers, as according to the statistics, the annual salary for a developer was $133,080 in May 2024, and it is quite a lot for new businesses, while you can save money with a DDT.

In order to unveil some semblance of a pricing spectrum, we have to take into account a multiplicity of nuances that influence the budget, most of which are likely to depend on the client’s demands.

In most cases, the expense limit for cooperating with a dedicated developer team is either enlarged or diminished by the following factors:

• The number of specialists. As with a lot of things in life, the bigger the quantity, the higher the price, so if you need several engineers, the expenses are going to be more significant.
• The level of expertise of the team. Тore experienced developers are charging more than less competent ones.
• Duration of the assistance. Regardless of the expenditure model you choose, the more complex and time-consuming your project is, the more the price tag for dedicated development team services increases.
• Location of the professionals. Suppliers from different countries charge more or less for their services; for example, some of the costly specialists are from the US and those that are less expensive are from the Asian region.

For starters, let’s get a glimpse of the range of every professional you might need in terms of hourly fees.

Paying a team per month for development services entails a certain sum for the work of one or all experts, which means you can expect a stable charge from month to month. Alternatively, a fixed-price or retainer option lets you assess the scope of work and agree on a total sum from start to finish, which you pay either upfront or in parts.

Pricing models

This approach brings much flexibility for businesses, even in costs, so that you are able to select the one that suits your requirements and capabilities. Check out this convenient table:

Rates by region

When planning your budget, you may like to investigate different countries to decide on where the prices are the most suitable for you. Our experts gathered information about average rates in four IT hubs that are leaders in today’s market.

Hiring dedicated development teams with geography in mind allows you to be more cost-efficient and not sacrifice the quality and your convenience in time zones and cultural compatibility. Use the table above and balance the price according to your needs.

Hidden costs to consider

You need to pay attention to the following extra fees that are not always obvious from the first consultation. Read on to learn more about the unexpected spending that can be added to your budget by a provider and beware of these moments.

• Management. If your in-house team lacks project managers (or you don’t actually have one), you need to onboard additional professionals. In terms of regular calls, they count like working hours (coders will track time spent on ZOOM, Slack, or another channel), so you can also pay for them.
• Onboarding. If you are cooperating with a non-seasoned crew that is not used to various work environments, they need time to adjust to your operations, time zone, get acquainted with documents, and more.
• Legal considerations. This point is revealed when you hire dedicated software development teams and is not typically hidden on purpose; it can be revealed during the development because regulations change unexpectedly. Your team will inform you about them.

With this knowledge, you will be able to identify extra costs before they appear and keep on track with your balance.

Dedicated team vs. in-house team vs. project-based outsourcing

IT companies typically provide a few cooperation models for you to choose from. Here, our experts created a convenient comparison between three in-demand options for you to ensure that a software development dedicated team is suitable for your project.

Here is a comparison of a dedicated, in-house team and project-based outsourcing for you to make a well-informed decision.

This table shows how a team for dedicated software development benefits product creation, and summing up, we can see that a DDT is the balance between the price, speed, and tech proficiency, while an in-house approach is more stable and costly and outsourcing drives more risks but has a lower cost.

Conclusion

To finish off this topic of the synopsis, we want to highlight some of the essential points we have talked about so far. The possibilities and opportunities that open up to the business owner when they decide to hire a dedicated developers team can be vastly beneficial, but as with anything, the client needs to be fully aware of the drawbacks as well.

We discussed every major nuance associated with this type of cooperation to leave no stone unturned and provided as much comprehensive information as possible. By now, you are fully aware of what such an assembly of the team means, when it is best to seek out its help, tips and tricks for hiring a team and much more.

If you find that a dedicated development teams model is exactly what you are looking for and consider which provider to choose, then you definitely need to contact us. At Limeup, we make future-proof software solutions that meet your requirements and business objectives.

FAQ on hiring and choosing a team