Remote Development Teams in 2024: Lessons from the Frontline

It seems to me that the war between the adherents of a remote team and a team that is always in sight will never end. But from my experience, often, the fear of the unknown and the fear of losing control speaks for business owners. And I am here to dispel your fears and show the other side of the coin. The technological landscape is changing so rapidly that it is difficult to remain successful if you openly ignore it; competitors will likely operate you fantastically quickly. I have worked with remote teams, and my company has formed them for businesses more than once, so I can safely share my experience and observations.

Remote IT Services Market Review

It's no secret that COVID-19 has become a real booster for developing the employee repair market. A revolution has taken place that has set new rules of the game. In just a couple of years, the number of companies that have found opportunities to scale and attract talent from different markets has grown.

As for the IT market, there are some interesting statistics:

• High demand for specialized IT roles: when everyone switched to repair, it was necessary to ensure that all data remained in place and that any assistance could be provided quickly and effectively. Accordingly, everyone suddenly wanted a DevOps and/or cybersecurity specialist on staff. According to a CompTIA study, 60% of IT job postings in 2023 allowed remote work, which indicates a trend that will remain.
• There are no geographic boundaries and no allocation of IT hubs: today, more than 40% of developers work remotely full-time, and they have no restrictions on the country with which they want to cooperate. In addition, the transition to remote work has highlighted the superiority of some regions over others, such as Eastern Europe, India, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, where technical talent is plentiful.
• Increased salaries and quality of management in remote IT positions: the archaic approach that a remote employee always wants to cheat and needs to be unhealthily monitored 24/7 is gradually being completely erased. Companies are switching to practical team management tools like Jira and Slack, and their salaries can exceed their local market.
• Increased attention to soft skills: Soft skills are more important than ever. Adequate communication is impossible with a person who is incapable of it. This is one of the reasons why we at Unitecode pay great attention to checking soft skills. It is much easier to train a less skilled specialist than to deal with an architectural-level developer with whom it is impossible to conduct a dialogue.

Benefits of Remote Teams for Business

When discussing any type of collaboration, you have to consider what the business will gain or lose. In the case of remote teams, I would focus on the benefits.

The main ones are:

• There are absolutely no limits and restrictions on hiring talent around the world.
• Significantly reduced overhead costs associated with office space, utilities, and commuting.
• Flexible hours and a personalized work environment help significantly improve productivity, which benefits the business.
• Different time zones of different teams allow for 24/7 progress on projects.

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

The Secret to Success of a Remote Team

There are no secrets here, but there is a set of rules that you can follow to make your team work harmoniously and the results predictable. It all starts with understanding that creating a remote team is not only about cutting costs. Yes, this is one of the advantages, but the main goal of this work model is to use diverse, high-quality talent regardless of geography. All this opens up a wider talent pool, increases team job satisfaction, and often leads to increased productivity since teams work in the most comfortable conditions for them.

According to a report from Owl Labs last year, 16% of companies are already entirely remote, and 44% of global companies allow some form of remote work. Developers can efficiently work on projects using various cloud tools, which means everyone remains in the black.

How else can a business regulate remote teams?

• To create a culture of trust and responsibility, introduce transparent processes and set clear expectations for everyone on the team. This is not about micromanagement but about a healthy level of interaction with the team to obtain status and understand the mood within the team.
• Unification of tools: transferring the entire team to a single list of tools can be painful and cause discord, but it is worth it. This allows you to be reassured that the task will not be completed because someone has Slack and someone prefers Skype.
• Unification of working hours for different teams: If you have other teams in different time zones, it is important to determine hours when everyone is in touch and can be reached. This will prevent communication problems and a lack of structure.
• High-quality hiring: From my experience, I can say that a multi-level hiring process is never superfluous. For example, my team uses AI to optimize the selection of candidates based on professional skills, and then we check the candidate's knowledge of the language and soft skills. In this way, we bet on the long game, offering a candidate who is interested in growth and development.

Peculiarities of the Remote Onboarding Process

Despite the demonization of this process, I would say that it is a relatively simple step-by-step process. It all depends on the country since you are tied to local rates, rental costs, etc. I will give an example of calculations using Mexico as an example.

Remote onboarding: buying and installing a laptop

Let's start with the obvious - equipment for work.

• Buying a laptop in Mexico: Costs can vary depending on the model and shipping, but prices often include taxes, shipping costs, and insurance. For example, shipping a laptop to Mexico can cost between $50 and $200, depending on the service provider and location. For security-sensitive projects, providing hardware with pre-installed RMM and MSP applications for tracking and compliance is essential.
• Software for those who work on their hardware: Installing software licenses for remote work is critical, especially for secure installations such as VPNs, RMM tools, and enterprise software. This ensures remote workers comply with security standards and makes it easier to control sensitive data.
• You can also send prepared equipment to employees. Some prices:

Taxes for Remote Workers

Managing taxes for remote workers can be complex due to cross-border tax laws and compliance issues. This is especially important for international teams where different jurisdictions may apply. Companies need to navigate tax registries and payroll laws, which can lead to issues such as double taxation or withholding errors.

How to manage time zone issues

Managing time zone differences in global teams requires effective asynchronous collaboration.

The main strategies in my work are:

• emphasis on overlapping working hours;
• integration of planning tools in different time zones;
• implementation of clear documentation for asynchronous work;
• clear planning with task fragmentation and assignment of responsibilities;
• holding regular meetings in different time zones.

In general, everything depends on how carefully you approach the work process organization. For example, you can read how we optimize agile teams: Agile in action: how to optimize Scrum for your projects.

Bonus: Why don't we like outsourcing?

A remote team is a perfect choice and I will emphasize again that this is not outsourcing. I don't like to be unfounded, so I want to argue why businesses don't like outsourcing and why I agree with it.

• The salary aspect: essentially, the client does not know the actual salaries of engineers and there may be an imbalance between expectations and reality. In addition, outsourcing companies can often withhold up to 50% of developers' earnings, reducing their motivation, and the final result of the work turns out to be worse.
• The problem with agreements: usually the main players in the market are large companies, and if you are a small or medium business, you can simply fall out of this chain of earnings. The problem here is in closed agreements, when everything is built on internal connections of companies, and in this way a monopoly is formed in the market.
• High hidden costs: most often, outsourcing is chosen because of savings, but in fact, you get additional and unobvious expenses. This includes the refinement of functionality and various problems with specific developers who, for example, can suddenly quit.?
• Lack of flexibility and control: The secret to success is adapting to the conditions, and when you deal with outsourcing, this process is more difficult because you have already agreed on aspects of the work and areas of responsibility. The same applies to the ability to control the process fully at each stage. You will have mostly general information without the ability to monitor the status constantly.

Instead of conclusions

Thus, the remote work market in the IT sphere is thriving, offering both companies and professionals ample opportunities for innovation and growth. I can say that learning to interact with a team remotely is a must-have for a business that wants to scale and adapt to changing conditions. Approaches to organizing work continue to change and develop, with the emphasis increasingly shifting to adaptability and flexibility, replacing the outdated hierarchy and format of interaction. I think that stories about mandatory appearances in the office and managing a team under strict supervision will soon become another horror story about the campfire, which is not part of our reality. If we talk about the best countries for remote IT talents, then, in fact, everything is predictable here, and little has changed for a long time. This is almost always India and Eastern Europe (particularly Ukraine, Poland, and Romania); now Latin America has been added to them, confidently declaring itself and turning into a new Mecca of IT talents. Therefore, now the future of your business is literally in your hands ;)

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