Hiring a software development team is one of the most complicated tasks for tech companies. When you’re a startup, things get even more complicated, because of the time and financial restrictions. Fortunately, We now live in a time when location is no longer a constraint. As a result, software companies can access the world's top talent pool and locate individuals who meet their requirements in terms of education, salary, and experience anywhere in the world.?
Key points between freelance developers and full-time remote developers:
Freelance Developers: A freelancer is a self-employed person with specific skills – in this case, software development, with growing demands from employers. There are currently more than 60 million freelancers in the USA (According to Forbes). When you choose to hand over your project requirements to a freelancer, there are both benefits and drawbacks.
Pros of freelance developers:
- Flexibility - Freelancers are incredibly flexible in terms of working hours, starting date, and ending date. This is advantageous to businesses that are looking to hire freelancers on-demand, with no strings attached.?
- Independence - From the start of your software development, freelancers hit the ground running with your project instead of someone who depends on dedicated teams to assist them.?
- Reduced costs - Freelancing saves businesses high costs compared to hiring new employees, especially when not in a permanent position. Since freelancers are not officially employed, the employer is not obliged to pay for their taxes, medical insurance, and work equipment.
Cons of freelance developers:
- Work quality uncertainty - Not all hired freelancers are keen on their level of work quality. You cannot always check the certifications or the authenticity of a freelancer's skills and experience. Some freelancers are in for some quick cash and whether the project is a success is not their concern.
- Concern about confidentiality - Companies with a high amount of classified information and great security concern need to be careful when outsourcing services to freelancers. There is an increased risk of data leakage that may impact a company negatively.?
- They may disappear - It is frustrating when freelancers disappear with no communication whatsoever concerning a project in progress. It mainly happens when you work with unreliable freelancers or on a shady freelancing platform.?
- No maintenance and support - The developer's contract end with no further maintenance responsibility after developing a particular software, website, or application. If the person is good and the code is readable, hiring other freelancers to fix bugs and do maintenance occasionally is possible.?
Full-time remote developers:
There are various reasons why companies choose to hire remote developers for their IT services from outsourcing teams and companies. The main reasons are
- Lack of full-time expert software developers to build and maintain the software development project.
- Software is critical to business needs; however, there is not enough time or funds to build in-house dedicated teams.
- To enhance service quality.
Pros of full-time remote developers:
- Time-saving - It is common knowledge that if more people work on a project, it will be much faster. While this is not necessarily true, outsourcing work could be a great time-saving benefit for any company if tasks are allocated accordingly.
- Expertise - full-time remote developer has extensive work experience within all software requirements. In addition, they have to get acknowledgement from their clients or past projects to keep up their reputation.?
- Access to more talent - You will have wide access to a broader pool of talented remote developers that can undertake and complete the tasks within the project at a much faster speed.
- Risk reduction - Seeking services from a TaaS company is very secure since they are registered companies that cannot disappear, unlike freelancers. Freelancers can disappear with closer to no risk, except not being paid.?
- Clear deadlines - It is easy to monitor the progress of tasks assigned to outsourcing companies. In the agreement, both parties can decide on daily, weekly, or monthly progress reports.?
Cons of full-time remote developers:
- Poor management - If the person who serves as the entry point for projects lacks professionalism, projects are likely doomed from the beginning. To manage one or several dedicated teams, a manager for such a company requires the following skills:
- Clear communication
- Transparent workflow
- Quick responses
- The problem of choice - The list of available software companies is very long, and it keeps on increasing. It is, therefore, difficult to decide on the best company, especially if you do not know whatsoever about software development. The best way to make this choice is to view customer testimonials and look at finished projects by the company you may be considering.
There is absolutely no wrong choice when it comes to selecting one between these two. If you like to set up a team of full-time remote developers?
Visit the Remoteplatz talents network.
