Hiring deveopers in Ukraine: How to avoid common mistakes

Toward 2022, globalization of the tech talent enabled flexibility the world couldn't have even imagined some 10 years ago. As a business owner with an open mind, you are free to hire talents from anywhere in the world, choose the model of cooperation you like, select specializations of your remote teams, etc. Everything sounds great until we sometimes come across those spooky stories from distant friends of friends, or, which is more common, from the internet, about ‘that guy's failures’ while setting an offshore team abroad. So where do these rootless rumors come from and what are the simple solutions to avoid the possible mistakes? Let’s take the hiring of IT developers in Ukraine as an example.

DATA SECURITY RISKS

If you have an innovative product that is new on the market and you delegate the development of its core part to a project outsourcing vendor, you practically extend the tech expertise of the developers that are not part of your team. In this case, the business owner generally doesn't communicate with the programmers that work on the product directly, so it becomes more challenging to ensure their dedication and "one team — one dream" attitude, which may put data confidentiality at risk.

This spooky myth from the 2000s goes even further. Though all IP rights belong to the business owner, it won't hurt remote engineers to practice their skills on your product development and after they make sense of it all, take your business idea and implement it on their own with some minor differences.

SOLUTION:

To reduce the possible risk of such "leakages," you need to hire it developers from Ukraine via a model that presupposes the full dedication of an offshore team. In cooperation with a tech partner such as ‘Go Interactive’, you'll have the opportunity to manage your team directly, promote your vision, and build trustworthy relationships with your remote developers in Ukraine. In fact, you extend your local team from the US, Canada, and the UK with full-time employees who work remotely at the vendor's location in Ukraine.

FINANCIAL RISKS

The greater proportion of the companies start outsourcing only because they want to cut expenses, which comes as no surprise, yet isn't the best practice for several reasons. With project outsourcing, you often don't know the developers that are working on your project, so you will have no clue whether you pay reasonable rates for their levels of expertise.

Moreover, the hourly outsourcing rate you pay most probably includes hidden costs for the time developers spend on a bench. Still, the biggest risk is to find a vendor with a low hourly rate and in the end, pay twice as much as initially expected on fixing the poor quality code.

SOLUTION:

Instead of hiring remotely on the basis of hourly rates, opt for an extension of your local team via an offshore development in Ukraine. This way, you'll have the opportunity to recruit and manage the best developers you've personally chosen. Consequently, your remote dedicated development team in Ukraine will be paid according to their seniority level and you won't have to worry about any hidden costs, as management is on your side. Cooperation with a Tech partner gives you all means to hire skilled programmers and to pay for their work exactly what it costs.

POOR COMMUNICATION

No matter local or remote, consistent communication is the basis of successful work relationships. As it has been already mentioned, with project outsourcing, you usually don't collaborate with the developers working on your product directly. Because of it, the business owner never knows whether the developers support company values and views. As a result, you may happen to face misunderstandings with your remote team, which can lead to incorrect implementation of your project.

Even worse when you have doubts about your product vision and change your requirements in the development process. It will not only postpone the project release but also won't come cheap — you may have to pay additional costs for all changes that weren't documented initially.

SOLUTION:

First of all, whatever the pricing model is chosen, you need to determine your company's vision, goals, and values. This will help you build a team of enthusiasts around a common goal — trusted developers in Ukraine don't get hunted by high salaries: they are more prone to choose a company with a big idea behind them than a company that offers luxury perks yet has no conception.

In case your requirements are 100% clear, software development is not at the core of your business, and the project is short-term, project outsourcing will work for you. However, if you expect to implement new ideas throughout the development process, cooperate with the developers in Ukraine directly, and experience full dedication to your product from their side, you need to build your own remote development team as a part of the business.

INEFFICIENT QUALITY CONTROL

The project outsourcing model presupposes quality control on the vendor's side, which means the client doesn't need to have any quality control expertise in their in-house team. However, the absence of this expertise on the client's side may lead to unexpected expenses and delays — in case the tests run on the vendor's side weren't consistent and regular, you may find numerous bugs soon after the project has already been delivered. In this case, you'll have to start a separate project for fixing everything.

SOLUTION:

Primarily, you need to pay attention to the partner's quality control system in detail before starting cooperation. Check whether they have a QA team that works with clearly defined procedures. Also, find out what testing types are applied and whether they have a testing map. All in all, it's better to choose a team extension model, an offshore team to have the opportunity to be involved in all the processes taking place in your remote software development in Ukraine.

INCONSISTENT EXPECTATIONS

Often, companies have inflated expectations regarding the timeframes and costs spent on their project. This problem inevitably leads to unsatisfactory results — developers don't meet the specified deadlines and because of the need to make corrections and changes throughout the development process, the client pays additional costs.

SOLUTION:

For better structuring of your expectations, consult with other business executives who have experience in managing a software development team in Ukraine. It's also better to search for tech partners that can offer process and tech consulting like ‘Go Interactive’ — this way you'll be able to structure relevant expectations.

In most cases, software development via a fixed price model in project outsourcing, in the end, doesn't fit into the predicted budget and timeframes. It happens because of the necessity to advance the product in the process of its development. So in case you're looking to improve your product continuously and work out better ways to implement your business ideas, a remote extension of the local team and offshore team of programmers is your choice.

CHOOSING UNRELIABLE VENDOR

When you're thinking about outsourcing some functions of your software development, you need to realize that you basically entrust a part of your product to unknown programmers. Oftentimes, business owners jump into cooperation with the first available outsourcer without even looking through the previous experience records. Such a carefree attitude usually leads to expected consequences — the remote performer doesn't keep up with their requirements.

SOLUTION:

Perceive your future offshore vendor as your partner in business. Take a diligent approach to choose the right Tech partner for hiring and managing a team of developers in Ukraine:

Ask about the track record of previously successfully delivered projects;
Find out what are the core tech specializations and quality assurance methodologies;
Learn how many offices and employees the tech partner operate. For example, Go Interactive helps out partners to unite more than 150 trusted developers in Ukraine;
Communicate with current and former clients of the reviewed tech partner;
Come to Ukraine and visit the company’s office to communicate with the tech partner and the developers first-hand.