Dedicated Developers vs. Freelancers: Which One To Hire For Your Next Project

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Introduction

The concept of outsourcing is no longer alienated. In fact, more and more companies irrespective of their size and industry verticals are found investing heavily in outsourcing services from different countries. When you decide to choose outsourcing, the first question that must poke into your mind is which outsourcing model to pick

Do you know what could be one of the toughest decisions taken by a CTO or the tech lead in their lifetime? It’s quite easy though, which one to choose a or a freelance developer for their upcoming web development project. Now both concepts are pretty popular and pretty much in vogue but that doesn’t mean you can make a random pick.

The key is to make the right choice or else huge repercussions might occur. Each one of these comprises of a wide range of distinctive features and benefits but only one of the two can be considered an ideal choice for the project. The following post is right here to assist you in making the right choice that can save you from unknown and dangerous repercussions.

Here you will come across what exactly are these two concepts, how they are beneficial in the long run, which one needs to be chosen and when, basically you are about to unlock a detailed understanding of each one of these.

Dedicated Developers

First and foremost, who are dedicated developers? Well, as the name implies, dedicated development teams tend to work on a specific project for a specific client. These guys tend to take one project at a time and play a very crucial role in the successful completion of the entire software lifecycle for the project. Also, this model is a way more reliable and cost-effective approach.

So what happens here is a team of dedicated professionals is employed by the tech vendor and these professionals tend to work only on your project and nothing else. Now a dedicated development team include — a UI/UX designer, project manager, BA, frontend and backend developers, data scientists, QA and DevOps, now the team can scale up or down depending on the pre-given requirements.

Now the dedicated development model is quite different from the staff augmentation strategy where it is all about adding talent to the existing tech department. This model can be considered quite a more holistic and business-oriented approach. In fact, this one is more time efficient in comparison to in-house teams.

You see here you can come up with a cross-functioning team right away instead of wasting any time in recruitment, onboarding, and training a full in-house team which won’t be working for the entire year.

Why choose a team of dedicated developers?

#1 Cost-effective

One of the obvious benefits here is cost-effectiveness when you pick outsourcing service providers, cost-effectiveness is one of the core benefits to consider. Firstly, you choose professionals from areas with low taxation and lower development fees, so the overall software development cost automatically decreases. This means there is a large gap between rates and salary expectations again this factor also depends on the location. For example, the pay scale of tech talent in the US, UK and Western Europe is pretty high and you know what is the best part, these expenses can be easily cut more than 4 times by hiring projects to a dedicated development team, especially among the top outsourcing destinations such as India, Philippines, Vietnam and so more.

And let me tell you here the vendor is responsible for all employment expenses, benefits, infrastructure changes, equipment license, and setting up an entire office and the workspace.

#2 Absolute Transparency

The next benefit to consider is absolute transparency. Choosing dedicated development teams means you are choosing a straightforward pricing model where everything is made clear in advance, especially money required for a specific time, it doesn’t change. Also, everything is more predictable right from the beginning.

#3 Flexibility

Flexibility is one of the biggest benefits of choosing a dedicated developer or an entire team. You see there are times when clients don’t even realize what type of specialists they require. A dedicated team incorporates every needed person who is capable enough to ramp up your existing team while sitting overseas.

And above all, the name itself says it’s a fully invested team in your project who will surely have a deep understanding of your business and domain, understand the market scenario, and what your competitors are doing and come up with a solution that significantly impacts on the enhancement of the speed and product strategy.

Are there any cons? Of course, there are!

• More time and effort is taken
• Less flexible in comparison to other outsourcing models
• Loss of expertise once the collaboration is done

So when do you need to choose a dedicated team of developers?

• Long-term continuous projects
• No time and resources for developing an in-house team
• Lacking in terms of tech or management expertise

Also, there are certain situations when dedicated developers aren’t recommended, let’s say when there is a lot of remote work. I mean the working process often gets disrupted, also when you need the dedicated team present on the site physically, issues in the domain knowledge transfer and above all low-budget or time-constrained projects.

Freelancers

Freelancing is no longer a new concept. In fact, there was a time when this was a fallback option but certainly not anymore. Businesses are found to choose this option right away since they might not be better equipped than others or they might be short-staffed, the reason can be anything. As the name implies, freelancing is defined as an independent person who tends to earn money on a per-project basis and is mainly conducted on a short-term basis. Further down below I would like to mention a few benefits offered by freelancing.

• Gives a competitive priority — A competitive and skilled remote workforce is what we need in the present times. In case if the chosen professional doesn’t perform well, they can be replaced anytime.
• Assisting in creating a more mature image — Freelancers today are already successful experts and confident due to their vivid experience, so of course choosing them is a big advantage in itself.
• Avoid all unnecessary expenses — When you hire freelancers, all expenses which come with in-house team members such as career management, worker’s compensation, health insurance, and tax withholding can be well taken care of.
• Great Efficiency — freelance developers tend to work more efficiently enabling them to get the job done right away without compromising in terms of quality, price or any other aspect.
• Specialization — Lastly, hiring freelancers means you are bound to hire professionals who specialize in particular development projects only. So the chances of the job getting quickly done are high.

Are there any Cons?

• Quality issues might not be on par
• The need to find a freelancer every time the previous one backs off
• Communication issues resulting in unexpected outcomes

When to Choose a Freelancer?

• If you are willing to work with specific individuals instead of hiring an entire team
• If your company lacks in management experience, team size, level of responsibility
• If you are willing to reduce the project duration and its complexity

Which one is better — Dedicated Developers or Freelancers?

Well, making the right choice between dedicated developers and freelancers is extremely difficult yet important, one can definitely not get away from it. Here I would like to mention certain factors to take into account.

• Project complexity and scope
• Budget considerations
• Timelines
• Quality and expertise required
• Flexibility and scalability

Of course, there are several other factors required but these are the main ones that should be considered anyhow. I hope you did find the following post worth the read. Keep watching the space to know more regarding the same.