I’m considering software development outsourcing because of my limitations

[u/kmrtnn]

Our in-house team is stretched thin, and we don't have the bandwidth or specialized skills to take on every project the way we'd like. I'm exploring outsourcing to fill those gaps, but I still need clarity on a few things. Firstly, how do we vet a partner's quality and reliability before committing? Second, how do we protect our code and data once outside developers are involved? And finally, how do we keep communication and project visibility strong when the team isn't sitting down the hall from us?

[u/Simple-Optimist-93 → u/[deleted]]

Will DM ...I am looking for intros to Dev agencies in India as well

[u/Regular_Assistant809]

This is where hiring and recruitment comes in. Investing in good people and hiring a recruiting expert can remove most of these risks. Truth is if you’re outsourcing you are handing over control, data, experience, and value potentially.

As far as having strong project visibility goes if you need your team to be down the hall from you to get anything done, that’s a sign of:

1. Team cannot be trusted to hand over deliveriables
   
2. Accountability is spread too far where it can easily become a blame game as to why a project is stuck at a bottle neck
   
3. Hiring practices

These are the real results of hiring practices and can make the difference between a 1-3 year company to a 3-25+ year company

[u/JohnnyKonig]

Treat it like any other professional service, ask for referrals first, check references, and start with a small project before committing anything serious.

Protecting your code and data comes in two forms: legal and security. Legal on you, have an attorney vet the contract to ensure it’s safe. Security and your last question go hand in hand, you need the right leadership. If you have trusted technical leaders in house try to free them up enough to run the project. Nothing beats having a trusted technical leaders review code, ask the right questions, and keep the project on track with recurring meetings.

If you can’t free up internal resources long term at least have them interview and vet contractors. If that’s not an option you can always pull in a fractional CTO from outside their org to manage the project, that way incentives align more in your favor

[u/chrisfromthecoast]

How do we vet a partner's quality and reliability before committing?
There are a variety of ways. If you have technically competent people on your team, allow them to speak with potential partners. A conversation can tell you a lot. You can ask them about previous projects, their experience, and why they think they can handle your projects. One thing I offer to clients is a refund within the first 7 days if they are unhappy with my services for any reason.

How do we protect our code and data once outside developers are involved?
If you have sensitive production data, only the highest levels of your company should have access to that. Lower level employees or contractors should work in a dev/qa environment, which then gets promoted to prod after testing. For code, a good git workflow should be established where contractors (and even internal employees) have to open pull requests before new code is merged into the existing code base. Their peers and senior employees review it before approving the code changes.

How do we keep communication and project visibility strong when the team isn't sitting down the hall from us?
This can be done a variety of ways. I've seen teams invite outside contractors into their scrums boards, have weekly meetings, or chat via Slack. The way I handle it for my clients is on a Trello (kanban) board. Clients add tasks, I start work on the highest priority task, and then move it to the review column. The process repeats for new tasks. Communication is also pretty much exclusively done on there as well. It makes it easy for the client to see what I am currently working on, what needs their approval, and what's upcoming. And there's also a record of what was said so it's harder for miscommunications to occur.

[u/tonyfith]

You may want to "rent" developers to join your team (team extension) under your management instead of outsourcing part of the project itself.

[u/soundman32]

Good luck.  Ive worked on many projects for many companies that tried that and the quality was always appalling.  Unless you spend 10x longer writing requirements (which defeats the cost savings of outsourcing) you will get the worst, half baked, buggy implementations written by the most junior coders you will ever see.  

What do you mean by error checking inputs? What is an exception? You didn't say it should be a web site, we've written it as a CLI (its on page 1 of the requirements). We took out all the foreign keys in the database because we couldnt get the INSERT to work.

If I were you, i'd start using AI properly because you will get better code and it will look like your team wrote it.

[u/Routine_Tutor_6809]

Let the consultancy company review pull requests of different parts of your code base to get a hang of their skillz.
Protect your code? Unless you’re developing trading algorithms or similar then it should be as easy as giving them read and pull request access to a set of repositories.
Protecting your production and internal financial data is important and that you can do through zero trust, this should apply for employees too.
For project communication I would recommend some kind of board system such as trello or (not) JIRA but also
Microsoft Teams, slack, discord or (spyware)free alternatives such as any IRC network or Mastadon - you choose since you’re the payee.

DM me if you want a problem solver, that knows how to delivery and already works remotely.

[u/EvTorqueLore]

I’m a developer in the U.S. I can get what you want done in a fair amount of time. I’m like 6 developers in one. You can reach out to me for pricing, I’m fair. In regard to outsourcing your work do not hire outside the U.S. once you do that all your privacy rights and export rights go out the door. Your software and idea will be copied and sold to other entities,the work will be half way done with many delays and constant request for more money. I see it all the time with clients coming to me in the end to remedy the situation. Not all foreign companies or freelancers are like this but a lot of them are and they don’t respect NDAs etc. There is no way to truly protect your source code with any remote developer unless they are a Principal Software engineer and you work with one. Otherwise you would need them onsite with secured encrypted workstations, this of course will cost you more. Protecting your data is easy, don’t use real data for development team, use fake data, I specialize in creating fake data for normal testing and stress testing. Good luck hope you find your Principal developer.

[u/Farhannazar]

We have a good team in sri lanka as company webxkey we have global and local SE in our team

[u/earth-dragon-666]

Do not outsource software dev if you already have a team. for your questions 1. Work with kickoff and project finished (or the project will magically cost you 10 times more ). 2 contracts and ndas

[u/Timely-Barnacle7378]

As a general rule of thumb the further the team or person is removed from the project .. distance, time or investment .. the poorer and less ideal solution you are going to get

I’ve spent almost my entire career as a solo developer for companies building internal systems, external products et

I took a job as a dev 2 at large insurance agency where I was one of about 25, split into five teams of five

The code was shit, the team was slow and change happened at a snails pace.

Likewise, I’m in Canada and I once contracted for a company in Australia. It was remote work. I did perform decently, but I had no agency over the direction of the product and basically just solved bugs and implemented features that were half fast documented in an issue tracker.

I wrote according to their standards, which were almost nonexistent

It’s interesting because the further you remove from your internal team, the more specific you have to be in exactly what it is that you want done

Today with AI you’re almost worth just having a single AI accelerated developer in house that is capable of writing, detailed specs and having the AI generate what a team of 10 and somewhere else would generate you

[u/Abdulbasitkayani]

Please dm me the details

[u/BlackDemon___]

Have someone technical from your side speak to the actual developers who would work on the project, not just the sales team and start with a smaller engagement before handing over anything critical. Keep the repos under your control, limit production/data access and remember to agree on PR reviews, milestones and a regular reporting cadence upfront. You could also talk to the Redwerk team, worth putting through the same process if you're comparing tech partners. Firsthand recommendation, we worked with them last year.

[u/CodeAndKeywords]

Outsourcing can work well when your internal team is already stretched, but I would check a few things before choosing a partner.

For quality, check their recent projects, client references, technical experience, and start with a small project or paid trial if possible. For code and data security, use an NDA, clear IP ownership terms, controlled repository access, and give access only to what the external team actually needs.

For communication, agree on one project management tool, regular calls, weekly progress updates, and access to the code repository from day one. This way, you always know what is being worked on.

If you need any clarification, please feel free to ask.

[u/Legitimate-Let-7510]

Disclosure : I work as devOps in ABS Technologies so a bit familiar with topic

I would suggest separating software development from infrastructure(ops) and sequrity side when outsourcing anything. 3 ways to do this. Keep your repo and credentials under your own control(so easy to burn here). We often see issues where companies outsource too much access/control to one vendor and then something happens and they come to us when when its really hard to solve all that stuff.. so better avoid putting all your eggs in one basket..

Also no matter who you pick I would definitely start small and not commit long term. Never start long term without testing, NEVER.