Let’s consider a common situation that many Startups, SMBs, and Entrepreneurs face: You have a little technical work that needs to be done. Maybe you need some work done on your Magento-based eCommerce website, or you need a dedicated iPhone developer to update your app’s SDKs. So you sit down to do some research – and quickly become overwhelmed. Offshore? Onshore? Freelance? Project-based development company? Dedicated Developers in India? Russia? Anywhere??? Dedicated PHP Developers?? .NET developers? There are a lot of options out there for tech entrepreneurs. Sometime’s it can be hard to make a decision. I’m not here to tell you what that decision should be; but as a development company that offers the services of dedicated developers, we would like to offer some evidence as to why we are the option you want. Let’s start by contrasting onshore developers versus offshore, then segue into freelance versus a corporate developer, and finish it all out with some additional reasons why you should hire SDI for dedicated development services. Onshore Vs Offshore Development • Dedicated Onshore Development ○ Onshore development has distinct advantages: ♦ Less chance of language barrier issues; ♦ For development purposes, it helps to be on the same timezone. Having a significant time discrepancies can have serious issues: ♦ Wasted work (i.e. developer acts without guidance, does 12 hours worth of incorrect work – while you’re asleep); ♦ Real-time monitoring is useful to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth; ♦ The developer runs into serious roadblocks while you’re incommunicado can result in a whole day’s worth of wasted work. ○ But this isn’t to say that there aren’t downsides to consider: The expense is often prohibitive for SMBs and entrepreneurs; A lot of US-based developers don’t face the same competition as offshore developers. This means that local developers don’t have as much of an incentive to give you fair business costs nor much of one to do an excellent job. This is often even more true with freelance developers! • Dedicated Offshore Development Offshore dedicated development often gets a bad name. Issues with communication (both because of language and time zones) are extremely common. Issues with the quality of work is another concern, and many entrepreneurs are leary of the expertise that many offshore developers claim. But there are ways around these problems. The truth is that most of the world lives offshore of the US – and there are hucksters in every nation. Coupled with this truth is that the competition abroad is much fiercer than it is locally. Offshore developers need to impress you with quality work. There are dedicated developers in India and the rest of the world whose expertise blows away any local developers – and we’ve hired them. Even better, SDI has a unique business structure that sets us apart from the competition. We hire qualified and vetted developers in India to keep our costs low. But we manage those developers out of local offices from Silicon Valley to Australia. Our project managers are trained experts themselves (pulled from companies like Cisco, Apple, and WebEx) who use a process called Active-Collab to manage developers remotely. Additionally, our managers work with developers in real time, providing guidance and expertise – as well as notes from direct conversations with our clients. Freelance VS Corporate For many entrepreneurs and SMB owners, Freelance Developers are tantalizing option: • It’s a one on one relationship, which is often preferred by many (especially US) business owners; • It’s often seen as less expensive – and it often is; • Freelancers often portray themselves as being wholly dedicated to your project. Obviously, this is an attractive idea to businesspeople considered with efficiency and deadlines. • But is this an accurate representation of a freelance developer? For many, yes. But the issue is that just as often (or perhaps more) that’s all a load of hooey. Even worse – it’s pretty hard to tell who’s being honest and who’s lying. Of course, there are always questions you should ask anytime you want to hire dedicated developers. But consider the strengths of hiring dedicated developers through a professional company like SDI: • An established verifiable portfolio with global customers. This isn’t to say that Freelancers never have a portfolio but there is one big difference: our developers have project experience. They’re repeatedly apart of teams that build projects from concept to launch. This is opposed to many freelancers whose work has been predominantly minor coding projects or maintenance. While you might only need some minor work, the exposure to 360 degree views of the development cycle is extremely useful; • While many freelancers claim to have infinite time, the truth is that they’re one person. SDI has over 200 developers. We have as much manpower to devote to your project as you need. What freelancer can claim that? Hire Dedicated Developers Today SDI only hires developers who are certified developers by an accredited university with no less than 5 years of experience. Our dedicated developers are required to keep up with all new programming languages for web, software and mobile app development – and we test them every 6 months to make sure they’re ahead of the game. If you would like to hire some of our expert developers on a dedicated basis, get in contact with us today! Our prices start at $20 an hour, or $2200 a month (per developer) – call 408.621.8481 or 408.805.0495 to get a free quote.