In House engineers vs Outsourcing engineers: Which one is the best option?

Starting a software development project is a tasks that requires a lot of important decision making. It isn’t only about how you will develop this software, but who will do the job.

When facing this situation, you will encounter two possible outcomes: One, you go for In House engineers, and two, you choose to outsource your software development and work with a third party.

In House engineers or Outsourcing engineers: Which one is the best option?

The tricky thing about this question is that there isn’t a right option. At least not if what you are looking for is an immediate answer. Choosing between in house or outsourcing will highly depend on the type of project you’re going to do.

Are you are going for a big, elaborate project that will most likely take months up to a whole year, consume a lot of your time and resources? Or contrary to that, you’re going for a much smaller project that could potentially be ready in just a few months, won’t require much time, personnel or resources?

These are important factors that should be considered before making your decision, since the scope of your project will ultimately determine the type of engineers you’ll be hiring.

In House Engineers

In house engineers are very similar to onshore outsourcing, with the slight different you aren’t outsourcing your software development process, but rather using your own workforce to create a team that will solemnly focus on develop and deliver the required software.

This means you will be working with someone from your very own company, not with a third party or anyone outside your business. Keep in mind, this method allows you to hire someone else and introduce them as a part of your ongoing team or workforce

Pros of In House engineers

1. Personal relationship: Since you’ll be working alongside someone who will immediately be a part of your company, the work relationship between you (as a company a project leader) and the engineer is much more personal, which is always a good thing.
2. More engagement: One to one conversations, team meetings and overall work interactions usually result in the engineer engaging more with the project and their coworkers, improving the general workflow.
3. Long-term relationship: Being a part of a company allows the engineer to look forward to a long term relationship, and to even aspire to be part of the workforce and have enough room to grow and discover new possibilities within the company.

Cons of In house Engineers

1. It is overall much more expensive: Hiring an in house engineer could significantly affect your company’s budget. Not only you’ll have to offer them a salary, but if the project requires this person to become a permanent part of the team, other benefits should be considered as well, such as medical and dental benefits.
2. The hiring process is much more tedious: We are talking about integrating a new person to your workplace, which of course brings out the fact the interviewing and hiring processes can be incredibly long and tedious.

Outsourcing engineers

Outsourcing engineers are basically outsiders that agree to work with you for an specific period of time to help you successfully develop a software. There are three types of outsourcing methods: Nearshore, offshore and onshore. However, today we will stick to near and offshore development engineers.

This option allows you to work with a third party that focuses exclusively on use all their resources and time to create, test, develop and ultimately deliver a great software.

This method gives you, as a company, access to a full team of engineers that will be under your services from the very start up until the software is successfully finished.

Pros of Outsourcing engineers

1. Lower costs: It has been proven multiple times how outsourcing your software development process automatically results in lower costs rates. This is due to the fact you don’t have to run with the expenses of giving any extra work benefit.
2. Efficient Communication: Although the outsourcing engineer will be working remotely, due to the fact there won’t be language barrier or drastically different time zones, you can expect the communication between your team and theirs to be efficient, quick and clear throughout the process.
3. Quicker hiring process: The truth is, hiring a nearshore or offshore development partner is extremely quicker than the average hiring process.

Cons of Outsourcing engineers

1. Cultural shock: Although this risk is lower when you work with a nearshore partner, you can still experience minor shocks and difficulties when adapting to work with a new outsourcing engineer.
2. Communication gaps: We briefly talked about this during the pros of outsourcing engineers, however keep in mind communication gaps are more likely to happen during offshore outsourcing than nearshore.
3. Impersonal relationship: This doesn’t apply to all outsourcing engineers, however, it is possible for the work relationship between you two to remain a bit impersonal and distant during the project. Although this might not affect the final outcome, it is an important factor to keep in mind.

As you might have noticed, both options have their cons and their pros, and ultimately it is up to you and the characteristics of your project who you’ll end up choosing.

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