Hire a Dedicated Team of Mobile App Developers: An Overview of Process

Are you a startup founder, chief technology officer, or delivery manager that’s considering the prospect of hiring app developers?

If yes, the read to learn the following:

Definition of a dedicated app development team, Reasons to hire a dedicated app development team, Things to know before you hire an app development workforce, The ideal structure for a dedicated team of app developers, Steps to hiring a suitable team, And more! If you prefer a visual text experience, go straight to the bonus infographic “How to hire a dedicated mobile app development team?”

Let’s elucidate further on the points made above.

What is a Dedicated Mobile App Development Team A dedicated mobile app development team is a group of professionals hired to create apps for startups and manage the applications for an extended period.

These software engineers are not freelancers. They’re hired full-time by a vendor to work side-by-side with the startup’s in-house team for a purpose.

Startups that outsource via this option enjoy the luxury of beginning their project without hiring developers individually. Beyond this, the startup is absorbed in any welfare responsibility, taxes, and other HR administrative procedures. This way, they can concentrate on core business activities.

The illustration shows what a dedicated mobile app development team means Now that you have some idea about what a dedicated mobile app development team means, let’s also discuss reasons to consider hiring one.

Why you Should Consider Hiring a Dedicated App Development Team You should hire a dedicated app development team because it offers startups and scale-up companies a way to embark on a long-term app development process with an experienced team in the most cost-effective way possible.

Some reasons to opt for this method include:

Flexibility in scaling workforce Access to talents around the world Cheap cost of building and maintaining an application Availability of a wide range of development skills Let’s discuss the points made above.

Hiring Reason 1. Scalable Workforce This is the ability of a startup to adjust its number of developers whenever the need arises.

This hiring model is obtainable with a dedicated team as the workforce is assembled by vendors – who have access to multiple developers and can increase team size at prompt.

Moreso, you can easily reduce your team size by renegotiating your contract with the vendor. These immunes you from lawsuits concerning retrenching and the financial obligations that accompany such activity.

For example, French employment laws grant strong protection to workers: as such, businesses must prove that there are real and serious grounds for dismissal.

Hiring Reason 2. Access to Global Talent Pool According to Statista, there are currently over 24 million developers worldwide. However, the number of developers in the US is about 4 million, while the UK has about 400,00 developers. These statistics reflect that most developers are based outside the US and the UK.

As such, startups domiciled in those nations in need of a vibrant talent pool may opt to hire a dedicated development team to create a mobile app.

Hiring Reason 3. Cost-effective App Development and Maintenance Process A common reason for outsourcing is cost. And rightly so, as you’ll be gaining top-notch quality for a lower price with this hiring method.

A peek into the cost of app development by region shows that the hourly rate of building an application in the US, the UK, and Australia is $100-$150.

While the cost of developing the same product quality only costs $30-$50 per hour in Eastern European countries like Ukraine.

You can benefit from this price difference through a dedicated workforce based outside the country.

Hiring Reason 4. Access to Rare Skills Lack of skills is one of the major causes of startup failure. As a startup that wants to develop an application, it’s imperative to partner with a vibrant development team with a network of different types of developers.

Let’s take this example to help you understand better: assuming you plan to build a solution to key into Facebook’s Metaverse. Such a project requires having a workforce of developers that are experts in the Web3JS programming language.

Only about 18,000 programmers are vast in this programming language: thus, recruitment will be difficult.

Accordingly, if you’d like to build a website in addition to a mobile app, you’ll need to hire a dedicated web development team.

However, outsourcing to a dedicated app development team can easily get the job done as they have access to a vast pool of programmers. You may even outsource a developer from their workforce to join your in-house software developers.

The illustration shows the four main reasons why you should hire a dedicated application development team Now that you understand some benefits attached to hiring a dedicated app development team, let’s discuss a bit on what to know before using this outsourcing model.

What to Know Before Hiring a Dedicated App Development Team Before you hire a dedicated app development team, things to know include what you want to develop, expectations from the partnership, and the development and maintenance budget.

Let’s elucidate the things to know:

  1. Know What you Want to Develop Irrespective of the simplicity or complexity of what you’re planning to develop, it’s imperative to have an idea and communicate it with your outsourced team.

Would you like to develop a native app or web app? Would you like to develop an Android app, an iOS app, or a cross-platform app that works across all operating systems?

It’s the product that determines the tech stack, methodology, and the developers you’ll need.

There are different apps, and each application type requires a different tech stack. Below is a spreadsheet depicting the different types of apps and tech stacks needed.

App Type Tech Stack Native mobile application development
iOS: Objective-C and Swift Android: Kotlin and Java Cross-platform application
React Native, Ionic, and Flutter This picture describes what type of application based on the technology stack your dedicated development team can develop

  1. Define Your Expectation What do you expect from your team? Would you rather have a reliable technical partner, a workforce of doers, a team of industry experts, or a workforce with a mix of all three?

Each of these options has its ideal management, deliverables, and engagement requirements.

For example, a team of doers gets the job done faster and cheaply but requires constant management oversight. Thus, it’s not good for startups that lack an in-house, fully dedicated management workforce.

  1. Think Through Allocated Budget and Deadlines A budget is a key to completing your project according to stipulated goals. It plays a crucial role in determining the features and functionalities of your application.

Unless you have an unlimited budget for development, management, and marketing – which is unfeasible for a startup, it’s imperative to hold a series of meetings with the team’s business analyst and project manager.

This will help you understand the exact financial implication of the workflow.

In the meeting, discuss the mode of communication, regulatory framework, and functionalities.

This picture shows what you need to consider when choosing dedicated mobile app development team to hire After the meeting, you should have the project blueprint – a piece of document elucidating agreed expenses and milestones. This will then determine the deadline for the MVP and full-scaled application.

Beyond this, you should also acquaint yourself with the constituents of your team. Let’s discuss this below.

What is the Typical Structure of a Dedicated App Development Team? Your project intricacies determine your workforce. For a typical app development project, your team will include the following:

Project manager Business analyst Tech lead UX/UI designer Mobile developer or front end developer Back end developer DevOps engineer Quality assurance tester Let’s help non-technical founders understand the meaning of each role:

Role Description Project manager The project manager in the app development company coordinates all members to ensure that all activities synergize to achieve a mutual goal. Additionally, the PM gives feedback to the client at every milestone attained.

Business analyst The business analyst formulates the product’s business requirements and guides the development workflow to attain them. These requirements are the utmost business guideline that the UI/UX designer aims to attain.

Tech lead/CTO Technical leaders oversee tech designs, coding activities, and define technological stacks. They coordinate the activities of both iOS developers and Android app developers.

They also direct the activities of both frontend and backend engineers.

UX/UI designer UI/UX designers collect, research, and evaluate technical requirements. They then use both business and technical requirements to design the user experience and the interface through which the target audience interacts with the solution.

Front end developer Frontend developers implement the design of the UI/UX designers. They create responsible buttons that execute the actions of the product’s users by calling relevant API from the server-side and linking it to each icon.

Usually, they are required if you have a combination of web and mobile apps.

Mobile developer The mobile developer makes the user interface work effectively and ensures that every actionable button appropriately interacts with backend codes. Back end developer The back-end developer writes the codes that determine the entire application’s functionality, features, and goals. Their codes maintain the technology needed for users to interact with server-side information.

Quality assurance tester A QA tester checks the application to ensure that it’s efficient. They also suggest codes, business logic modification, and UI design. The QA tester also ensures a top-notch user experience and security.

DevOps engineer DevOps engineers build, check, and maintain the infrastructure to guarantee optimum app development, launch, and maintenance. They launch and manage the product on the app store.

This picture describes the ideal structure of a dedicated team of application developers Now that you have an apt understanding of team members to onboard. Let’s discuss the types of software dedicated workforce out there.

What Types of Dedicated Software Development Teams Are There? Software development teams can be classified based on the type of company, and the cooperation between the startup and the vendor.

To help you have a better understanding of the different types of the software development team, we’ll elucidate on the types according to the classification model mentioned above.

Classification 1. By the Type of Company Model 1. In-house development team This hiring model is the most common. It involves hiring developers to work full-time for your company, and are remunerated directly by the startup.

Here, the startup performs the full administrative function to manage the workforce. Team members report daily, and they get directions on the project’s workflow directly from the startup’s administrators.

Although this is the most popular hiring model, it also has pros and cons.

Read more about hiring a dedicated mobile app development team here.