As the title states my company needs to hire developers
Seeking advice from the community on a critical decision: Should our company hire internal developers or outsource to a third-party team? Some of our senior management advocates for in-house hires to ensure direct and instant contact with the development team. However, others argue that outsourcing could provide specialized expertise and efficient team management, crucial for launching and managing thousands of individual websites for our national franchise. Considering the unique technological requirements and the need for managing and training staff at each location, what are your insights on the best approach for our company? Your input is highly valued.
The specialized tasks of said team include:
– Developing business specific plug ins
– Developing the initial theme/template that all locations would use as duplicates
– Ongoing maintenance of all active sites
– Answering support tickets
– Consolidating analytics reports
– Implementing tracking codes for marketing campaigns
it’s better to have an in house team if you are planning to maintain this much website and create plugins. hiring 3rd party seems easy but when comes to quick response or wanted to do something quickly it’s better to have in house resources, also, might need to consider how to manage confidential data too.
Hire me
I’d recommend a balance between the two. There is expertise you can hire that is offshore and really benefit from it. You would also need in-house hires for the critical and majorly support stuff that regardless of the time zones or availability of your offshore team you are able to mitigate and handle anything.
If your company is okay with the budget, go ahead hire the best ones in-house. A third party team has to have a proven track record of delivering similar projects. Hiring third-party will cost you 20 to 60% less than in-house hires in the long run, especially if you hire an offshore team. Also don’t outsource answering support tickets, it’s crucial feedback information businesses rely on to scale and retain customers.
I’m currently in a similar position, working solo since 2016 and focusing primarily on custom WordPress themes and plugins. A large portion of my work, around 90%, is international, spanning the USA, Canada, and Australia, and recently, there’s been a noticeable increase in demand.
I’m exploring the possibility of bringing a developer on board, potentially a junior, to delegate some of the workload, especially tasks like CSS and basic site construction. The dilemma I’m facing is whether to outsource these tasks or to hire someone locally. I’m leaning towards hiring locally, mainly because some projects require creating sites in languages other than English, which could pose significant challenges for a remote worker. Additionally, having someone in the office allows for greater oversight compared to coordinating with someone remotely.
I’m eager to hear about your experiences once you proceed with hiring. Any insights or advice you could share would be incredibly valuable to me.
I was hired contract and then converted to full time in house. I’ve probably saved the company 3x my salary since conversion.
Oh, this is a fun one. Not necessarily a WordPress thing but I like it and vote for it to STAY! Also, if you haven’t, post this to r/webdev and r/ExperiencedDevs for some more targeted insight?
Here’s my take:
– Hire a Lead Dev and a Mid for in-house, at first.
– Look into outsourcing agencies, particularly in Eastern Europe. Make sure that whomever you go with can communicate with your team very well, written and/or spoken. My preference for Eastern Europe is that our overlap works well. I’m Pacific working Eastern and am able to reach them at reasonable hours for them, as well.
*(This is not meant to be offensive to anyone. It’s based on my personal experience working with developers all over the place.)*
– Hire a project manager. Freelance or in-house, if you have the need. Don’t ask a developer to be a developer and a PM. It’s possible but don’t factor that person into much of your dev timeline.
– Hire an SEO/Digital Marketing Specialist and a Social Media coordinator. Or, outsource this to an agency or freelancer to start.
– Give the team room to breathe and grow. If you’re starting over or from scratch, set some milestones and have the devs meet every morning on a zoom call. Go over each person’s tasks (takes 1-2 min per), present any new projects in the pipeline, ask for help, etc. Have some laughs.
I’ve been in this industry for a long while now. Goin’ all the way back to the end of the last century. – achewww — the dust. I’ve worked in-house to agency and freelance. This is a solid start to the plan that you’re going to need to flesh out.
Always be learning. Stay curious. DM me if you want. Good luck! Sounds like fun.