“Everything now, everything fast” is the way of a startup. It’s a race against competitors, what’s still interesting and getting users to care. Offshoring engineering teams has become a popular solution for large corporations as well as startups — it’s an easy, cost-efficient way to get things done, right? Not so fast! Offshoring engineering teams can be a huge asset for your startup, but it comes with a sea of entirely new challenges.
As someone who’s done it, here’s what you should be prepared for before you jump overseas:
Determine a single source of truth.
This is a catchier way of saying “you’re going to need a reliable way to manage software development.” Before you even think about building anything, you need a project management and software development tool that will work for you and your team. For us, our “single source of truth,” is Jira, a software development and project management tool. Having a single source of truth also means there’s accountability. You’ll probably cringe at saying “The date says due here and it’s not done,” but likely as a project manager you will.
With a team that’s not in the same physical office, it’s even more important to manage communication, projects and owners; luckily messaging tools like Slack, hangouts, Skype and join.me make it very easy to communicate in real time, regardless of the location. Clear communication and met deadlines are especially crucial at a startup, where it’s always a race against the clock.
Expect a language barrier.
If you’re considering offshoring some or all of your engineering team, a new language often comes with the territory. Does this mean you should power up Duolingo? Not necessarily, but you will want to…