The development of IT products often requires the quick and efficient addition of extra personnel to the project. In such cases, managers face the question: Should they hire specialists in-house or expand their team with temporary workers? This is a rather complex decision, considering both options have advantages and disadvantages.

According to experts at PR Newswire, the global IT staffing augmentation market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.53% by 2025. Consequently, the additional expenses will amount to $81.87 billion. This indicates a growing demand for these services.

AdvantISS experts have conducted their own research on the topic and provided a clear definition of staff augmentation. You will learn from the material the key differences between temporary team expansion, traditional outsourcing, and in-house specialist hiring.

While the staff augmentation meaning suggests that a professional will join your team for a limited duration, this model shares several similarities with outsourcing and in-house onboarding.

First and foremost, it’s the general concept of expanding your team by introducing specialized experts. Typically, these experts possess specific tech skills, in-demand competencies, managerial personnel, QA, and business analysts, among others.

Let’s dive deeper into the characteristics that unite all these collaboration models with external specialists.

Access to Talent

Defining staff augmentation and other staff modeling forms aims to fill gaps in specific specializations for your development team. In other words, if you lack a certain specialist, you can swiftly find them outside your company and add them to your project.

This primarily applies to experts in various technologies, such as:

• C#
• JavaScript (and its frameworks)
• RoR
• PHP
• Python
• Java

IT staff augmentation is the most advantageous option when dealing with Senior, Senior+, or Middle+ roles or when working with startups. You’ll understand why shortly.

Team Expansion

In essence, this is what the meaning of staff augmentation entails. It involves adding certain professionals to your team to cover the shortage of in-house expertise without depleting your brand’s budget.

Moreover, this is your chance to involve experienced workers in your project, for example:

• Project Managers
• Solution Architect
• Business Analyst
• Product Manager
• Team Lead

You can also enlist other necessary roles for quick, high-quality development, process refinement, support, consultations, and more. The key advantage here lies in availability, as you only pay for work, not equipment, training, or logistics.

The Simplicity of Onboarding

Overall, staff aug implies that part of your team will work remotely. According to Buffer’s research, 98% of professionals are satisfied with this setup, leading to increased productivity and engagement.

Indeed, you may receive less loyalty from hired workers regarding the company’s growth. However, they will be invested in the collaboration’s results because specialists’ income depends on it.

Additionally, you won’t require extra:

• Offices or physical spaces
• Equipment, such as computers and peripherals
• Technologies, like OS licenses or products
• Salary expenses
• Frequent meetings

Nevertheless, there are nuances regarding the last point since you’ll still need to conduct some onboarding and team familiarization, synchronize uptime, and manage CI/CD tools. These are where the similarities end, and the differences begin.

The answer to “What is staff augmentation?” includes several distinct features that set this collaboration model apart from other variations. Here’s a brief overview of the differences that explain the essential aspects of this type of hiring.

It may seem that an augmentation team is the best option. Indeed, it often is, but let’s take a closer look at the advantages of each hiring model.

Advantages of In-House Hiring

An internal development team is beneficial when your budget and job specifics allow for maintaining a large team, providing training, and equipping them with the necessary resources. In such cases, you enjoy numerous advantages, including:

• Loyalty: Professionals will work for the results not only of the project but also for the company as a whole.
• Management: Specialists are always in the office, making it easier to establish and control processes.
• Expertise: Continuous development in a single direction makes employees’ experiences invaluable to the brand. However, it can also be a drawback.
• Stability: You can be confident that specialists won’t leave the company mid-project (with some exceptions).
• Prospects: Actively expanding your team ensures the IT company’s growth over time.

As you can see, hiring in-house is a great investment in the brand’s future. So why is IT outsourcing more popular than staff augmentation? Let’s break it down.

Advantages of IT Staff Augmentation

Resources and staff augmentation allow you to execute projects without unnecessary costs and hassles. This is due to instant access to various specializations and talents, competitive pricing, convenience in hiring experts, and more.

The benefits of technical staff augmentation and augmentation team include:

• Well-screened candidates with validated relevant experience (even in a very specialized area).
• Flexibility with the admin management for the employer (no need to grow overheads, easy administration of new team members).
• Well-built onboarding process with the support of senior staff.
• Possibility of replacing the team member in the case of underperforming.
• Availability of extra help and tech expertise in case of need (services of Project Managers, Solution Architect, Business Analyst).
• Cooperation on tech development, including consultancy and innovation support.
• Easy and agile team ramp-ups and ramp-downs in case of need (that it can be a good solution for projects/tasks with a duration under a year).
• Ready teams for projects with niche expertise.
• Cost-efficiency of staffing VS an internal team.
• Sharing of responsibility for the maintenance of the well-being of the team.
• Short-term notification to stop a contract.

These are the reasons why expanding your team with temporary experts is often a better choice than hiring permanent staff, with some exceptions that we’ll discuss later.

When is it more advantageous to hire employees in-house?

If you plan to expand and continually increase service or internal development volumes, it’s better to invest in in-house experts from the start. Although costly, it holds long-term potential. Moreover, you can eventually provide services by delegating your expertise to external projects.

When is it best to use temporary expert assistance?

If you’re a startup or small to medium-sized business owner, periodically involving specialists for projects may be more cost-effective than hiring them in-house. This helps you save on your budget and accelerates product delivery. Over time, you may increase your internal team, but the practicality of this, especially in the early stages, is questionable.

AdvantISS has been active in the IT development market since 2016 and continues to grow. As of 2023, we boast a 100% rating on Clutch and UPWork, indicating that all our clients are satisfied with our collaboration.

Our tech stack and expertise encompass a wide range of solutions, including:

This is just a glimpse of what the AdvantISS team can do. Our staff comprises over 60 professionals with diverse profiles, ensuring that we have the specialization your project needs.

If you require staff augmentation experts, reach out to an AdvantISS manager. We’ll match you with professionals who will help you swiftly and effectively bring your projects to life! Invest in your brand wisely!