A dedicated software development team guide

Using a dedicated software development team is a proven business approach to building software products at a lower cost. That’s why this model is popular among both startups and large businesses that prefer a cost-effective alternative to in-house development.

In this guide, you’ll learn what dedicated teams are, when to use them, how they are structured, and how to manage them effectively, including a look at Globaldev’s own collaboration process.

What is a dedicated software development team?

A dedicated software development team is an outsourced team of carefully selected professionals with specific skills to complete a particular software product. The term “dedicated” means that the team works full-time only on one project.

Dedicated teams are typically located in regions like Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia, where software development costs are lower. That’s why this model can reduce expenses by up to 70% without compromising on quality.

The global IT services outsourcing market was estimated at $744 billion in 2024 and should hit $1,219 billion in six years, which proves the effectiveness of this software development approach.

But should your company outsource?

When you need a dedicated development team

The dedicated software development team is an approach to staff outsourcing that comes in handy in various situations. Limited budgets are perhaps the most common one, but it’s much more than that.

Situations where it’s best to outsource dedicated teams for your project:

• Limited IT budget. Cost reduction is still one of the primary reasons for outsourcing, with 34% of companies confirming that spend optimization was the main driver.
• Lack of in-house IT expertise. Companies often hire dedicated developers when internal resources are insufficient.
• Large, complex, long-term projects. These require stable teams that remain involved throughout the development cycle.
• Software projects that are likely to grow. Projects expected to evolve benefit from long-term team continuity.
• Unclear or incomplete project requirements. If you need help with analyzing the target market’s needs and defining the functionality that meets them, dedicated teams can complete these tasks for you.

Clearly, the benefits of dedicated teams go beyond saving money. Now they’re often strategic tools for growth. But let’s discuss those advantages more specifically.

Advantages of using dedicated development teams for businesses

Businesses working with dedicated development teams are reporting many advantages over in-house teams. Below are the seven main ones.

Cost efficiency

Using the IT budget more effectively is one of the key advantages of this model.

Here’s why:

• Lower employee pay expenses. A median salary for a full-time software developer in the U.S. is about $132,270, while the services of the same-skilled developer from Eastern Europe can cost around $45,000.
• No need to hire more people than needed. The outsourcing vendor provides just the right number of people to complete your project efficiently.
• Lower spending on infrastructure and human resources. Your outsourcing vendor takes care of infrastructure, hiring, onboarding, and training of team members to let you focus on developing your idea.

Outsourcing clients enjoy these benefits while getting high-quality work from professional developers. Needless to say, a dedicated project team remains one of the most cost-effective work models in software development for businesses.

Simpler hiring

Hiring skilled developers locally can be time-consuming and competitive. Assembling a dedicated team helps bypass this challenge.

Here’s how. An outsourcing vendor:

• Provides qualified candidates with experience on similar projects
• Interviews these candidates with (can also be without) you to pick the best ones
• Conducts hiring, onboarding, and training of the newly assembled team

Depending on your availability, the process can take as little as 15 days, far less than the average 44+ days required to hire one IT professional locally.

You stay in control of the final team selection, but the heavy lifting is off your plate.

Focused approach

Dedicated. That means that the team focuses exclusively on your project.

Unlike in-house employees who can get distracted by other important tasks, dedicated teams are hired to complete a specific project, full-time. As a result, you can achieve faster project results and get the product ready for launch.

Lower workload for the in-house team

This model is a good way to prevent burnout.

By offloading a specific project to a dedicated team, your in-house developers can focus on other initiatives. A more manageable workload often results in lower stress, better job satisfaction, and improved employee retention.

Delegation of time-consuming duties

IT infrastructure, payroll, paperwork, employee benefits, office space, employee retention, administration, team building, legal matters, team motivation…

In the dedicated project team model, the outsourcing partner takes care of these duties, either fully or partly. Doing so makes better sense because putting all these responsibilities on the client would complicate the work and cause delays.

Faster product time-to-market time

The dedicated team model is designed to get your product out quickly without compromising quality.

It supports faster delivery thanks to:

• Fast team assembly
• Less budget spending
• Necessary skills and expertise
• Dedication to your project only
• Experience that eliminates many avoidable issues

Now that we know the advantages of hiring a dedicated development team, let’s move on to the folks who make it possible.

Dedicated software team structure

A dedicated software team is structured to have the skills required to complete a specific project (an app, a website, etc.). A typical structure, though, includes a project manager, quality assurance engineers, a DevOps engineer, UX/UI designers, and developers.

Here are the roles they play in software projects.

Project manager

A project manager is someone who plans, manages, and leads the project until the very end. This person has a duty to see the project succeed and do everything to achieve that most efficiently and effectively.

That “everything” includes ensuring that all requirements (project milestones, budget limits, technical specifications, etc.) are met as expected. They also serve as the main point of contact between the client and the development team.

DevOps engineer

A DevOps engineer is a person who works with software developers and other IT staff members to oversee and facilitate the release of quality code using DevOps efficiency principles.

Without a DevOps engineer, the speed of code release might be much slower. Besides, many team members wouldn’t be able to achieve their productivity because DevOps engineers’ duty is to lessen their workload by using automation.

UI/UX designers

UX and UI designers focus on making digital products helpful, accessible, and simple to use. They do so by studying the target users and creating visual prototypes of products to allow for more thorough testing and improvement.

Simply put, these people ensure that your target users can benefit from your digital product without breaking a sweat. So, as a client, you’ll be collaborating with UI/UX designers to create a truly customer-centered product.

Developers

Web developers are the people whose primary responsibility is to write quality code for digital products. Also, they’re involved in defining the needs of target users, testing software, and making improvements based on user feedback.

Software developers can work on the frontend and backend.

Frontend developers create the user-side code, which makes up the graphical interface of the product. So, your dedicated development team will surely have one or multiple frontend developers, depending on the product’s complexity.

Backend developers are team members who create the technology needed to power the graphical interface made by frontend folks. This technology includes a database, scripts, server work, architecture, and/or other factors.

QA Testers

QA testers (also called QA engineers) are responsible for ensuring perfectly functioning software. They do so by performing various kinds of quality checks throughout the project lifecycle, focused on finding bugs, defects, security issues, and other problems.

To perform their work well, QA testers often work together with software developers to facilitate the improvement of any code issues. A DevOps engineer is involved in this process, too, overseeing the collaboration.

How to manage a dedicated development team

Just like any other dedicated software team member, a client has an important role to play. Throughout the project, you will be fully involved, getting updates, providing feedback, motivating the team, and doing other things.

1. Choose candidates provided by the vendor

As mentioned, you have complete control over the team member selection process. The vendor will provide candidates with the skills and experience required for your project, and you’ll make your choice based on interviews.

For example, our clients here at Globaldev get team member recommendations as soon as project requirements are set. A project manager helps make the final picks by explaining the expertise, technologies, and skills necessary.

2. Set up work processes

No worries, this job is done together with a project manager (this person is your link, remember?). Before the project starts, you spend some time organizing work processes and outlining the overall organization.

Setting up processes is an essential requirement to speed up the team’s work because it helps eliminate issues such as unclear roles and delays. You don’t have to have any project management experience — the most important thing is to be involved.

3. Provide software tools

The team will need tools for communication, file sharing, project tracking, and testing. These tools can be provided by your software development vendor and managed on their side, or, depending on the model of cooperation (e.g. outsourcing vs. outstaffing), you can provide the necessary technology to the team.

Common tools in software development include:

• Slack or Teams for communication
• Zoom or Google Meets for video meetings
• JIRA or ClickUp for project management
• GitHub for software development
• Confluence for document management

4. Hold daily meetings

Daily meetings keep everyone on the same page, focused, and accountable.

So, you must be an active part of these events. Depending on the project, the meetings can be of various lengths, which can be agreed upon during the planning phase.

Here, we’ll include tips for business owners (what to ask developers during meetings, how to keep things organized, etc.). Also, we’ll advise you to never skip meetings.

5. Provide regular feedback

Regular feedback from the client is like music to everyone’s ears.

Clients are involved in constant project progress monitoring and review, so having their feedback helps stay on the right track. This is equally important at all project stages, as clients typically have the best knowledge of target users.

So, make sure to give feedback to the dedicated team quickly and frequently and keep meetings regular. The faster your developers get your feedback, the faster they will complete their tasks and resolve any challenges.

6. Motivate your team constantly

Software developers are famously known for their strong internal motivation and the desire to solve complex challenges. Yet, motivating your team should be an ongoing task because great employee experience equals more profits to the company.

Ideas for motivating your dedicated team:

• Give credit and praise when it’s due
• Celebrate project achievements to boost morale
• Look for ways to make the work environment better with anonymous surveys

Our dedicated development team in action

We have been using a dedicated model for years. As our client, you don’t have to worry about things like managing resources, giving tasks, or tracking employee time. You get a personal project manager from the very first day of our collaboration, who will be responsible for the lion’s share of the duties.

Here’s how our engagement model works:

• Client gets a personal project manager who guides them until the project’s end
• Project vision is created to describe the best decisions based on the collected data
• Client and project manager define project requirements and plan the resources
• Team member interviews and selection processes begin
• Product development and testing start
• Product is delivered

Does this approach work, you ask? You bet!

Here are some figures to back this up:

• 4.8 rating on Clutch
• Over 300 successfully completed software projects
• 15 years in the software development market
• 20+ countries with Globaldev clients

By the way, you can see some of our successful projects here: Globaldev case studies portfolio.

Hire a dedicated development team

A dedicated development team is a popular model of collaboration between clients and software development service providers. It’s designed to ensure consistent, quality, and long-term management of software projects.

We hope you now have a better idea about what dedicated teams are and why working with them is a good strategy for businesses. In case you want to find a team that gets work done in the most efficient way, drop us a line today.