How to Build an Offshore Software Development Center

An offshore development center (ODC) is a stronghold of software development expertise behind many North American teams. This approach to handling a project lets organizations’ leaders scale their local teams with skilled engineers and trim expenses associated with building a tech team on site. Moreover, having an offshore software development center is an efficient way to gain more overlapping coverage, given that two squads driving your project on different continents totals to 16 hours of work per day dedicated to your project. 

You’ve probably wound up here in the hope of finding the right vendor for an offshore development center. In this guide, we will walk you through the steps of building your own ODC in Ukraine. 

Project Scope 

A good rule to follow is to always start an endeavor by outlining what you want to achieve. Launching an offshore software development center is no exception. Before you dive into it, break it down into deliverables and set up time frames for each deliverable. Moreover, as the client, you should set clear requirements for each deliverable to have clear parameters for measuring the success. Last but not least, define the budget to enable the vendor to find the fitting developers budget-wise. 

To sum up, the outcome of this stage should be clearly defined deliverables, skill sets, and budget. The role of the vendor here is to find candidates that fit the bill in terms of background and salary. 

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Structure

The next step is to define the skill sets your future offshore development center will include. Having a well-rounded team breakdown is vital for companies and vendors alike. As a client, you should define technologies to fulfill your vision, which will enable the vendor to find the needed talent.

Your offshore software development center will include any skills you lack in your home-based squad. As a company specializing in building offshore development centers in Ukraine, we at nCube can also provide you with a turn-key solution, which refers to building a squad of software architects, developers with versatile backgrounds, UX/UI design professionals, DevOps, QA engineers and project managers. Another option is to scale your in-house unit with the skills you’re missing in your local unit. Whichever option you go with, it’ll still be your offshore software development center,  serving as a vital asset to your company. 

Screening

At this stage, the HR team on the vendor’s side takes over the process and pre-screens candidates available on the job market. If you choose to create an offshore software development center in Ukraine, it isn’t likely to take much time, as Ukraine’s IT industry boasts nearly 200,000K software developers. To join your offshore development center, all candidates undergo interviews that test both their technical skills and soft skills, as well as their English language proficiency. In our model at nCube, you can always count on a personal touch, as our clients always make the final call as to who they want to work with. As such, as our client, you will talk to our chosen candidates first hand before making your final decision to hire.

After our internal interview process, we send you the CVs of those candidates who we believe will make a great asset to your offshore software development center. It means that they have passed our internal screening with flying colors and now it’s your turn to verify them. We’ll help you coordinate interviews with the team members and mediate any questions you may have. 

There can be as many rounds of interviews as you need. After you approve of a candidate, we make it official by sending them a job offer. The same process applies to all members of your future dedicated offshore development center. 

Launch 

The personal account manager on our side will help you make the integration process and further collaboration as efficient as possible, stepping in whenever you need assistance. Your offshore software development center opens its doors on the day your first hire starts. Before the big day, we will take care of preparing and signing all necessary agreements, including a Service Level Agreement, Non-Disclosure Agreement, and contracts with the members of your offshore development center. 

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Benefits of an offshore software development center

• A broad pool of tech talent

In 2023, the lack of qualified candidates is the main problem tech leaders face when building their tech teams. Thus, addressing the talent shortage is one of the biggest challenges for companies, especially in North America and Western Europe. An offshore development center is an excellent way to expand your talent pool and source developers from the most skilled tech hubs in the world while speeding up your team formation process. 

• Streamlined team launch

Building an in-house team, especially when the labor market is tight, takes plenty of extra resources. You have to create a separate budget and build additional teams, such as finance, HR, legal and other departments. An offshore development center lets you cut through the difficulties of creating an in-house unit. You only need to define the team size and structure and delegate the team formation process to the provider. The vendor of an offshore development centre aims to match you with skilled software developers who fit your candidate requirements in the best way. Such an approach allows you to add specialists who will be dedicated to your project, working alongside your team as if they were your local team members. 

• Shorter recruitment cycle

When building an in-house team, you may spend months looking for candidates with the right set of skills and competencies. By creating an offshore software development center, you significantly expand the radius of the talent search. You can dive into vast pools of tech talent like Central and Eastern Europe, which accelerates the team launch process and reduces the time-to-hire skilled developers by weeks. 

• Budget optimization

An offshore software development center is a proven way to combine solid technology expertise with lucrative operational costs. Such a solution lets you add qualified technologists based in affordable offshore tech hubs but at lower rates than your local IT experts. 

Another significant benefit of an offshore development center is that it lets you trim the exorbitant costs of maintaining a local tech unit, including health insurance, vacation, days off, employee bonuses, and more. All of these expenses are typically covered by the provider. 

• 24/7 contribution

Remote software development is typically associated with time zone differences. Despite the common belief, doesn’t necessarily should be a weakness of an offshore development center. If done right, this approach accelerates the software development process. With few hours of overlap between your local and remote staff, you can achieve the state of continuous service supply: In a 24-hour timeline, two teams will put in 8 hours’ worth of work to your project. Unlike having a single team contributing to your tasks, such an approach can bring a lot of value in terms of meeting deadlines. 

What will your own offshore development unit look like with nCube?   

You may wonder how your offshore software development center will function. In our model, it’s a software development team that adds value to the client’s company by providing development expertise the client lacks on-site. 

The team will be fully dedicated to your project, working on it full-time Monday through Friday. The engineers will report to you or your tech leaders, and you can hire a team leader on our side to report to you on behalf of all team members in your offshore development center. If you’re against a middleman when it comes to communication, you can stay in touch with each developer individually. On top of that, the members of your offshore software development center will follow your company’s practices, management, and communication style as well as adapt to your culture. With the right vision, this team may even become the driving force for development within your organization.

One of the most impactful benefits of our model is that you’ll retain full team control, which can be vital in distributed collaboration. In its turn, nCube takes care of all possible operational concerns associated with an in-house squad, such as office space, recruiting & HR, taxes, equipment, insurance, staff education, and motivation.

Our job doesn’t end with rolling out your offshore development center. Our staff includes client success managers, HR specialists, office managers who will make sure your squad has everything needed for comfortable work, motivation, and growth. 

We are located in Kyiv downtown, at the intersection of metro lines, which makes it comfortable for developers to commute. Our quarters are also equipped with all the facilities of modern offices, including:

• Modern PCs or laptops;
• Video conferencing facilities; 
• Full-fledged conference rooms;
• Fully functioning dining areas;
• Recreational facilities;
• Ergonomic office furniture.

Not only does it provide a reliable infrastructure for your offshore development center, but also creates a pleasant environment for your developers.

Finally, your developers’ retention is our top priority. We are proud to maintain an average employee retention rate of 3.5 years, which can be attributed to the comfortable environment we’ve created for them. We provide benefits ranging from health insurance and tax fee compensations to HR support, English classes, team building events, and more. 

If you’re interested to hear more about establishing an offshore development center in Ukraine, let’s connect.