Hiring a Dedicated Development Team vs. Freelancers

For businesses looking to hire remote software developers to work on a project, the temptation is often there to look at freelancers. To some extent, this is seen as the faster and easier route. The alternative, to hire a dedicated development team for your software, app or web platform, can be a daunting task for companies with little experience in the field. But which choice is best in the longer term?

It’s sometimes possible to break up a project into smaller sub-projects as you go along, outsourcing each individual task to the person who appears to offer the best value for money. Within this industry, it’s not difficult to find developers with extra time on their hands looking to make some additional income by completing your tasks as quickly as possible.

However, there are several drawbacks to using freelancers which tend to become apparent fairly quickly. When working remotely with people you aren’t familiar with, it’s common for communication to become a major issue, and many important points may get lost in translation (often literally, since many freelancers may be overseas). Security is another concern, depending on the project you’re working on since it’s hard to judge how trustworthy your freelancers are.

In fact, with little vested interest in your larger project, they are likely to be less careful overall. This not only applies to security concerns but perhaps, more importantly, it affects the quality of work you’re getting back in most cases. It’s not surprising that someone with very limited knowledge of your company, your vision and your overall project may struggle to produce work that perfectly satisfies all criteria you were looking for.

In contrast, hiring a dedicated team of software developers to work on your project from beginning to end tends to offer a range of advantages. Of course, the initial cost may be higher, but that investment goes into securing the expertise of the individuals in your team for the duration of the project. By integrating a team of top developers with your in-house work, you can quickly give them a much better insight into what you are trying to achieve compared to dealing with freelancers.

When assembling a team, you should be able to find highly specialised and experienced software development outsourcing companies in the UK with people who bring exactly what you need to the table. This allows for a much more considered and detailed approach to your project on the part of those developers, as each team member has a specific focus. This tends to result in much higher quality products than those completed by freelance developers.

Ultimately, the costs incurred by hiring a dedicated team are often counteracted by the significantly higher returns you can expect. Too many great ideas are wasted due to poor implementation, often resulting from attempts to cut corners. Putting high-quality work into your product will invariably produce better end results, and if you have full confidence in your product when it’s completed, it has a much better chance of reaching its potential.