IT Staff Augmentation: Ultimate Guide for 2025

What is Staff Augmentation

Staff augmentation is an up-and-coming type of outsourcing that is gaining more and more popularity in the world of IT. This approach allows businesses to easily scale their internal tech teams up as the project requirements change, ensuring the project is kept on track without the pitfalls of long-term hiring. With staff augmentation services, you can enhance your existing team by adding the specific expertise you need or simply bringing on extra support to meet the deadlines. Give it a good go and see how your project succeeds.

The external vendor takes care of choosing the best fit for your project based on its requirements. At Drupfan, we always strive to pick up specialists who have already dealt with similar projects and cases. You still have a possibility to interview and test the potential developers before hiring them.

Resource augmentation is a very efficient model that allows you to hire the best software engineers when and where you need them. There are three types of cooperation models:

• Onshore staff augmentation: It involves hiring IT specialists from the same country where your in-house team is located. This model is beneficial for companies seeking real-time communication, synchronized workflows, the absence of language barriers, and the same time zone. Although the onshore model is the most costly type of staff augmentation, it is still an attractive option for businesses that prioritize seamless integration with in-house teams.

An example of onshore staff augmentation is hiring a developer from the USA when your in-house team is also located in the United States.

• Nearshore staff augmentation: This model involves hiring developers from nearby countries that have the same or similar time zone, with a time difference of 2-3 hours tops. Nearshore cooperation strikes a balance between cost-effectiveness and ease of collaboration, making it a popular choice for software outsourcing. Nearshore developers usually offer competitive rates compared to onshore specialists while still retaining high-quality code and dedication to the project’s success. In addition, nearshore staff share similar or the same views on business processes and communication. 

An example of nearshore staff augmentation is hiring specialists from Mexico when your business is located in the USA.

• Offshore staff augmentation: This outsourcing model involves hiring software engineers from distant countries with huge time zone differences of up to 8-12 hours. This model is perfect for companies looking to cut development costs while not sacrificing the code quality.

An example of offshore staff augmentation is hiring developers from Eastern Europe while your internal team is located in the US.

Resource augmentation is not just a trend but a strategic step that outlines rapid growth and the instant success of your software development project.

Check out our recent guide to offshore software development.

Example of staff augmentation in software development

Imagine your company is developing a mobile app for iOS. You have an in-house team of experienced Swift developers, UX/UI designers, and QA specialists. Suddenly, your stakeholders request a new feature, for example, Augmented Reality (AR) integration that needs to be implemented quickly but all your team members are busy with other ongoing tasks. This is when IT staff augmentation comes into play.

This model allows you to quickly scale the size of your internal team up or down as the project scope changes leaving aside all the hassle connected with hiring and retaining full-time employees on board. You simply contact an external software development services provider like Drupfan and temporarily bring in 1-2 seasoned developers who are experienced in AR. These developers seamlessly join your team and follow your company’s workflows and processes. After their tasks are completed, they immediately leave, so you pay only for services when and where you need them.

Advantages of IT Staff Augmentation Model

The benefits of the staff augmentation model in software development cannot be overestimated. Reduced development costs and accelerated time to market ring true. Let’s look at each advantage in more detail.

Reduced development costs

The most obvious advantage of staff augmentation is reduced budget. It’s more cost-effective to hire web developers when and where you need them rather than maintain full-time internal employees. Usually, the cost of staff augmentation services depends on hourly rates.

Eastern Europe is considered the top location for outsourcing software development projects due to its competitive rates and high quality of code. Most of the top web developers are from countries like Poland, Romania, and Ukraine. Here at Drupfan, we provide augmented developers from around the globe, including Canada, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe.

Accelerated time-to-market

More resources mean a faster development life cycle. No need to change a tack when approaching a deadline: just hire a spare pair of hands! By opting for staff augmentation when you are tough on deadlines, you can significantly accelerate the project's timeline, meet the deadlines, and reduce the product’s time-to-market.

Improved productivity

The main reason why businesses opt for staff augmentation in IT is the need to improve productivity. You get a team solely focused on your project implementation and not distracted by third-party tasks. When a team that includes both in-house and external employees works following the same processes and workflows, as well as performing like a Swiss clock, their productivity will skyrocket and lead to effective collaboration and rapid results.

Access to a global talent pool

Offshore or nearshore staff augmentation, opens the door to a vast global talent pool. Thus, you can choose only the best of the best specialists to work on your projects. Unlike traditional hiring processes that make you stick to a specific region, staff augmentation lets you pick up from a diverse array of experts all over the world. What’s more, you simply might not have the necessary expertise nearby, when it comes to advanced sophisticated technologies like Augmented or Virtual Reality (AR/VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud computing, or machine learning.

Full control over project implementation

In the case of staff augmentation, you retain full control over the development life cycle, as the remorse contractors fully follow your processes and workflows. Unlike full outsourcing, where you delegate the software project to an external vendor, resource augmentation allows remote developers to perform like a part of your in-house team. This means you or your project manager and tech lead directly manage the workload, tasks, and priorities for the augmented staff members.

Quick onboarding

Compared to hiring full-time employees and going through lengthy onboarding processes, staff augmentation significantly speeds up the integration process. External vendors always have a mended process to integrate augmented staff members into new teams. The developers themselves are also used to changing the projects and quickly adapting to new processes. The more experienced the staff augmentation agency, the faster the onboarding process. At Drupfan, we identify, match, and integrate developers into your projects in 1-3 days.

Risk mitigation

Staff augmentation helps business owners to reduce risks associated with hiring full-time internal employees. This also includes the coverage of taxes, perks, insurance, and more. Last but not least, you stare at some risks with your external vendor, which significantly reduces your liability. Partial delegation of responsibilities to a remote company not only eases the pressure of managing internal employees but also provides a buffer against fluctuations in workload and project demands. Staff augmentation allows you to scale your workforce up or down based on current needs without long-term commitments, providing a flexible and cost-effective approach to resource management.

Effective communication

Having remote developers fully dedicated to your project significantly streamlines communication efficiency. Augmented staff members can adjust to your working schedule and time zones to be present at the meetings and discussions. In addition, the usage of Task Trackers like Jira, Trello, or Confluence boosts productivity and brings structure into the work processes.

Exchange of expertise

Bringing in new team members, even temporarily, adds fresh perspectives and new ideas to your daily operations. The exchange of expertise establishes continuous learning and improvement for all team members and allows them to gain insights into the latest industry trends, technologies, and best practices. The augmented staff can also learn from your team and improve their turnarounds.

Learn about the pros and cons of the IT outstaffing model in our recent blog post.

IT Staff Augmentation Challenges

As with any cooperation model, staff augmentation holds its challenges and pitfalls. Understanding all the challenges connected to this model is essential before delegating your project’s tasks to a software development company.

Time zone differences

When opting for offshore staff augmentation, time zone differences might range from 6 to 12 hours, depending on the location of the remote contractor. Such a difference might affect a project's efficiency and disrupt communication. 

Solution: Opt for the “follow-the-sun” model, where work continues around the clock. When your in-house team finishes tasks by the end of the day, the offshore augmented developers pick it up immediately when their working day begins. Make sure everything is structured in task trackers like Trello or Jira.

Cultural barrier

Hiring individuals from diverse nations with varying cultural backgrounds could result in challenges related to misunderstandings and conflicting perspectives on procedures or routines.

Solution: Hire augmented developers from a software services provider that is experienced in working with customers from diverse backgrounds. Team members who are flexible with different workflows tend to be more adaptable, and any confusion can be resolved through effective communication.

Communication challenges

Hiring individuals from diverse nations with varying cultural backgrounds could result in challenges related to misunderstandings and conflicting perspectives on procedures or routines.

Solution: The best way to get rid of any language barriers is by hiring remote developers proficient in English. Make sure your in-house employees can also speak English fluently.

Lack of code consistency

Each individual has their unique handwriting, which results in web developers coding in distinct ways. When several experts collaborate on the same feature, it can result in code discrepancies that hinder comprehension and readability.

Solution: Generate coding standards documents to distribute to augmented developers.

Data loss

Losing data can be quite irritating. Nevertheless, it could occur in the developmental stage.

Solution: Request that remote developers create backups either daily or weekly, based on the size and complexity of the website.

When to Choose Staff Augmentation for Your Software Development Project?

IT staff augmentation is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It is important to understand when this cooperation model can benefit your business and when it is an appropriate solution. Let’s review the situation when resource augmentation is preferred in more detail.

• You need to quickly scale your team up on a short-term basis: When project scope changes or the deadline shrinks, an extra set of hands is crucial. IT Staff augmentation provides an opportunity to quickly scale the team’s size up and down as the workload changes without the long-term commitment of hiring full-time employees.
• You are facing tough deadlines: Time is one of the most important points in the project’s life cycle. When deadlines are drastically approaching and loads and loads of tasks are still on the to-do list, resource augmentation is just what you need. Quickly onboard seasoned developers and see how they contribute to your project.
• You are missing the necessary expertise in-house: Sometimes it happens that the technology expertise necessary for the project implementation is outside the scope of your internal team. Staff augmentation in software development provides you with access to the global talent pool experienced in diverse sophisticated technologies.
• You are short on a budget: Hiring full-time internal developers might be costly, especially with hidden expenses like insurance, perks, promotions, and more. Staff augmentation is a cost-effective alternative with no sacrifice to code quality.
• You want to maintain full control over the project: The staff augmentation model allows you to maintain all decision-making and project management in-house. As a result, you don’t compromise your established workflows, ensuring every step is aligned with your business objectives.
• You want to minimize the onboarding time: Time is money, especially when it comes to the development lifecycle. This outsourcing model allows to reduce the length of onboarding processes, usually requiring only 1-3 days.

Now you understand when staff augmentation is the best march for your project needs. Let’s review when this model is not the best idea.

When is Staff Augmentation not Applicable?

Team extension with remote developers is not always the right fit for project needs. Here are situations where staff augmentation is not the best choice:

• Long-term needs: staff augmentation is not suitable for a long-term commitment. Hiring full-time employees might be more cost-effective in this situation. Alternatively, consider hiring a remote dedicated team.
• Security and confidentiality concerns: If your project includes working with sensitive data, bringing in external developers can impose risks related to security breaches.
• Advanced learning curve: If the role requires high training and deep knowledge, it is a better idea to hire full-time internal developers.

IT Staff Augmentation Services at Drupfan

Drupfan is recognized as the top software development company for outsourcing. Having the hubs strategically located across Canada and Europe, we provide both offshore and nearshore services for customers worldwide. Our focal point is to provide extensive staff augmentation services that exceed client expectations. Drupfan ensures that your project is handled with precision, care, and meticulous attention to detail, while also aligning with your business goals and objectives.

Drupfan provides companies with the ideal combination of technical skills, cost-effectiveness, and top-notch service quality to scale effectively and innovate quickly. Get in touch with us now to talk about your project. Whether you're a startup looking to develop a Minimum Viable Product or a large corporation wanting to enhance your technology systems, Drupfan offers the expertise and resources needed for your success.