Engineers join your team and work inside your process, your board and your code review.
- Team control
- You manage the day to day
- Pricing
- Monthly per person, by role and seniority
- Minimum
- 1 month
Offshore software development
Five ways to work with us. This page picks one
Fixed price, staff augmentation, dedicated team, offshore development centre, build operate transfer. They differ in who carries the risk, who manages the people, and how easily you can change your mind. Nothing else on this page matters as much.
Book a 30-minute scoping call Compare the five
Most enquiries name the wrong model. That is normal, and it is what the first call is for.
| Fixed price Scope fixed, price fixed | We carry risk |
|---|---|
| Staff augmentation You manage them | You carry risk |
| Dedicated team We staff, you direct | Shared |
| Offshore centre We run the operation | Shared |
| Build operate transfer You end up owning it | Transfers to you |
Engagements we are running
- German software firmDedicated team plus on-call group, 60+ engineers at peak
- Norwegian EdTechDedicated team, phased rollout
- Hydrajaws LimitedProduct work over several years
- Ho Chi Minh City10+ years with US, UK and EU teams
How we work
Five engagement models, and you pick how much you keep
The models differ in one thing: how much of the management you hand over. Everything else, including who owns the code, is the same in all five.
Changing model later is normal. Augmentation into a dedicated team is the common direction, and the people stay.
A team that works only on your product, with a lead on our side running delivery.
- Team control
- Shared. Our lead runs delivery, you set priorities
- Pricing
- Monthly per role, lead included
- Minimum
- 3 months
A long-term engineering site under your standards, where we carry recruitment, HR, payroll and equipment.
- Team control
- You direct the work, we run operations
- Pricing
- Monthly per role plus site costs
- Minimum
- 6 months
04
Fixed Price
One price for a scope that is genuinely settled, with the overrun carried by us.
- Team control
- We deliver, you accept against written criteria
- Pricing
- Fixed bid, paid against milestones
- Minimum
- Project based, usually 10 to 14 weeks
Everything in the centre model, with the whole team moving into your own Vietnamese entity on an agreed date.
- Team control
- Transfers from us to you
- Pricing
- Monthly per role, transfer price agreed up front
- Minimum
- 2 to 6 years
Plain definitions
Two questions people answer with geography when they mean control
Both get used loosely in procurement documents, and both change who carries the risk.
What does offshore development actually mean?
Offshore development is one shape of IT outsourcing. The engineers work for a supplier in another country, on your product, under a commercial arrangement rather than an employment one. The word offshore describes where they sit. It says nothing about who directs the work, which is the part that matters.
That is why the five models on this page exist. Software development outsourcing gets sold as one thing and bought as five, and they differ almost entirely in how much management you keep. The geography is the same in all of them.
Offshore, nearshore or onshore?
Nearshore means a country in or near your own time zone, so the working day overlaps and the travel is short. Onshore means your own country, at your own country rates. Offshore usually means a larger time difference and a materially lower cost.
We are offshore for the UK, the US and Australia, and we will not pretend the time zone is free. Vietnam gives a UK team a morning overlap and an Australian team most of the day. For a US west coast team the overlap has to be engineered rather than assumed, and we say how before you sign anything.
Choosing badly is expensive
Two mistakes we see most often
Mistake one
Fixed price for something undecided
- Scope is described in a paragraph, not a specification
- Nobody has agreed what the first version excludes
- Integrations depend on a system nobody has looked inside
- The buyer wants certainty, so both sides pretend it exists
The result is a change request argument by week six. We will tell you when a fixed price is not honest.
Mistake two
Augmentation with nobody to manage it
- Engineers arrive into a team with no capacity to direct them
- Nobody owns priorities, so work queues behind one busy person
- Onboarding is assumed rather than planned
- Six weeks later the conclusion is that offshore does not work
If you have no management capacity, take a dedicated team with a lead. That is what the lead is for.
Matching the model to the situation
Six situations, and the model that usually fits
People often arrive having already chosen a model. It is worth checking the situation first, because the wrong choice is expensive to unwind after people are hired.
- You have a settled specification and a hard budget ceiling
- Fixed price. The scope has to be genuinely settled, not settled in the sense of somebody having written a paragraph about it.
- You have management capacity and a skills gap
- Staff augmentation. Your lead runs them, your process applies, and you carry delivery risk in exchange for control.
- You have a product and no capacity to run a team
- A dedicated team with a lead who handles the day to day. This is our most common arrangement and it exists because most clients are here.
- You need a long-term engineering site, not a project
- An offshore development centre. We handle recruitment, HR, payroll and equipment; you set standards and direction. A core team of 10 to 20 usually takes two to four months to assemble.
- You want your own entity in Vietnam eventually
- Build, operate and transfer, with the price and the date agreed at the start rather than negotiated when you want to leave.
- You inherited a system and nobody will touch it
- None of the five yet. Start with a support arrangement and decide about a team once somebody understands the code.
Our work
Both of our largest teams started as rescue jobs
A German software firm and a Norwegian EdTech company both came to us after another vendor missed dates. That shaped how we start engagements: small and senior first, scale after trust.
Case study, Germany
From a stalled project to a team that peaked at sixty
The client had poor code quality and missed deadlines from a previous supplier, and needed English-speaking engineers who could work directly with German product owners. We staffed a lead and senior engineers first, then built a hybrid arrangement: a dedicated core team plus an on-call group for urgent work. We ran cultural integration training on German business practice so the two sides could work without account managers in between.
- Node.js
- .NET
- React
- React Native
- AWS
- GraphQL
- Selenium
- Engineers at peak across core team and on-call group
- 60+
- The client's own headcount over the engagement
- 80 to 300+
- Technology staff worldwide in the client group
- 500+
How engagements start
Small and senior, then scale
Week 1
Pick the model
What you are building, who can manage it, and how settled the scope is. The answer decides the arrangement and the price shape.
Week 2 to 6
First people in
A lead plus a small senior group. You interview every candidate. Nobody joins your team without your approval.
Month 2 onwards
Prove, then widen
Delivery running before headcount grows. Both of our largest accounts followed exactly this path.
Whenever you want
Change the model
Augmentation can become a dedicated team, a team can become a centre, a centre can transfer to you. The commercial terms change, the people do not.
Commercials and governance
How each model is priced, and what governs it
Rates come from the roles you need, so we quote against a role list rather than publishing a table. What follows is the structure, which is the part worth agreeing before the number.
- Fixed price
- One price for an agreed scope, with change handled through a written variation. We carry the overrun, which is why the estimate is conservative and the scoping work comes first.
- Staff augmentation
- Monthly per person, with a notice period. You direct the work, so the risk of the work being wrong sits with you rather than with us.
- Dedicated team
- Monthly per role, including the lead. Notice is longer than augmentation because we employ the people, and that is the trade for continuity.
- Development centre and transfer
- Monthly per role plus the site costs, with the transfer price and date written into the original agreement rather than negotiated later.
- What governs any of them
- A named person on each side, a demo every two weeks, and a written definition of done. Governance failures cause more overruns than estimation failures.
- How you leave
- Repositories, pipelines, documentation and the exit terms agreed at the start. Every model on this page ends with you owning the source code and the intellectual property.
Who does the work
Twenty engineers, eight of them senior
Twenty people is small for this list of models, and we would rather say so than imply a bench. It means we can staff a team of four or six well and we would decline a request for thirty next month.
- Engineers in Ho Chi Minh City
- 20
- Senior engineers
- 8
- Average experience
- 5+ yrs
- Working with US, UK and EU teams
- 10+ yrs
You interview everyone on any model here. We screen and shortlist, you take the final call, and nobody joins your team because we needed to place them.
FAQs
Questions we get on the first call
Which model should we start with?
Usually a dedicated team with a lead, because it needs the least management capacity from you and can change shape later. Fixed price suits a settled first version, augmentation suits a team that already has spare management bandwidth.
Can we change model later?
Yes, and clients do. Augmentation becomes a dedicated team, a team becomes a centre, and a centre can transfer to your own entity. We prefer to write the possible paths into the first contract.
What cost savings should we expect?
Most clients see 40 to 60 percent or more on talent and operating costs against equivalent teams in the US, UK or Australia. The saving comes from salary levels and overheads, not from putting junior people on your work.
Do we interview candidates?
Yes, and we recommend it. We screen, test and shortlist, and you take the final interview.
What is the time zone reality?
Vietnam is 6 to 7 hours ahead of the UK, so we overlap your morning rather than your whole day. For US teams the overlap is narrower and needs planning. We would rather say that now than have you discover it in month two.
Who owns the code?
Your company, entirely, in every model on this page.
How do the models compare on cost?
Augmentation looks cheapest per person because you absorb the management. A dedicated team costs more per head and less in your own time, and it usually wins on total cost somewhere past the first year. Fixed price carries a premium because we hold the risk of being wrong. Below about six months augmentation is normally the sensible choice; past a year a dedicated team usually is. We will tell you which side of that line you are on before quoting.
What is the smallest sensible engagement?
One person for augmentation, though a single engineer with nobody to talk to is a fragile arrangement. For a dedicated team, a lead plus two or three engineers. Both of our largest engagements started at roughly that size and grew, which is the pattern we recommend over hiring to a headcount plan.
Can we change model later, and what does that cost?
Yes, and it happens often. Augmentation into a dedicated team is the common direction and costs nothing beyond a new agreement, because the people stay. Moving to your own entity is the one to plan early, since the price and date should be written down while everybody is still happy rather than during a separation.
Tell us who would manage the work
That single answer narrows five models down to one or two. Thirty minutes and you will have a recommendation, including the recommendation not to hire us.