Keeping up with the fast-moving tech industry, where tech talent shortages are frequent and development needs are constantly evolving, can be a significant challenge.
Nowadays, many companies struggle with the same issue: how to accelerate development backlog and meet project timelines without overstretching resources. They typically have two primary options: hiring full-time engineers through traditional methods or leveraging on-demand engineering support.
But which approach is more effective in solving your backlog faster? Let’s break down the benefits and limitations of each model; from that, you can make an informed decision on the best strategy to enhance your development capabilities.
Traditional Hiring vs. On-Demand Engineering Team: An Overview
Traditional Hiring
Hiring full-time engineers has long been the go-to approach for building and maintaining development teams. These engineers are deeply integrated into the organization’s workflows, culture, and long-term strategic goals.
On-Demand Engineering Team
The on-demand engineering team provides businesses with flexible access to skilled developers for short-term or project-based needs. Companies can quickly scale up their software development capacity by tapping into external talent pools for immediate expertise, rapid scaling, and cost-effective engineering solutions.
A Comparative Analysis Between Two Models
While building in-house expertise has long been the go-to method for extending the team’s development capabilities, an on-demand engineering team is a new way for businesses to ramp up specialized talent instantly. To determine which approach best suits your needs, let’s compare traditional hiring and on-demand engineering across key factors such as cost, speed, scalability, and project impact.
1. Speed of Execution
One of the biggest bottlenecks in traditional hiring is the time it takes to find and onboard new employees. The hiring process generally includes multiple steps, such as job postings, resumes, screenings, technical assessments, interviews, and salary negotiations. According to industry benchmarks, hiring a full-time software engineer can take anywhere from 30 to 90 days, depending on the role and location.
While traditional hiring ensures long-term team stability, the delay in securing talent can be a major bottleneck, especially for businesses with urgent project needs.
In contrast, an on-demand engineering surge allows businesses to ramp up experienced engineering teams almost immediately. For some fintech software development teams, engineers can be onboarded in as little as 72 hours to a week, significantly reducing monthly downtime and accelerating project execution.
2. Cost Considerations: Fixed vs. Flexible Investment
It’s essential to notice that hiring full-time internal engineers comes with several long-term financial commitments beyond just salaries. Additional expenses include:
- Recruitment costs (job postings, recruiter fees, referral bonuses)
- Onboarding and training expenses (time and resources spent integrating new hires)
- Employee benefits (healthcare, retirement plans, stock options)
- Long-term commitments (severance packages, performance bonuses, etc.)
On-demand engineering, on the other hand, operates on a project-based pricing model, making them more cost-efficient for businesses that need immediate expertise without long-term financial obligations. Companies can scale up or down based on workload demands, avoiding unnecessary overheads. While this approach may seem higher than a salaried employee’s base rate, the total cost of ownership is often lower because of the flexibility and lack of long-term financial commitments.
3. Project Impact and Scalability
Traditional hiring fosters long-term team cohesion, ensuring employees align with company goals and become integral to the development process. The internal development team ensures code consistency, knowledge retention, and cross-functional collaboration, making them ideal for projects with sustained engineering requirements and ongoing maintenance. However, traditional hiring may pose challenges to accommodating sudden changes in project scope or increasing workloads.
These challenges are overcome by using an on-demand engineering approach. It delivers immediate access to specialized expertise, enabling businesses to effortlessly scale their teams up or down based on their specific requirements. By outsourcing to the external engineering team, businesses can accelerate the development backlog, update the tech stack with minimal downtime, and achieve a faster time-to-market for new features.
4. Skill Specialization
Full-time engineers play an essential role in developing institutional knowledge, ensuring continuity, and maintaining existing systems. Since these generalists contribute across multiple projects, businesses will need to prioritize their ongoing training and skill development to keep up with technological advancements.
These teams consist of specialists who bring immediate, high-level expertise to solve complex problems. They are particularly valuable when a company needs skills in areas like AI/ML, RPA, cybersecurity, or cloud computing. These pre-vetted professionals have extensive experience working across diverse industries and projects, allowing them to quickly identify bottlenecks, implement best practices, and drive results with minimal onboarding.
For instance, the KMS Solutions engineering teams have domain knowledge in the banking and services industries, allowing them to seamlessly integrate with the internal development teams of banks and Fintech companies to deliver measurable results.
Read more: Dedicated software development team: How to hire the right one?
How Does the On-Demand Engineering Team Deliver Faster Results?
According to Deloitte’s 2024 Global Outsourcing Survey, 76% of businesses delegate IT functions to external providers for faster feature delivery and reduced technical debt.
One of the biggest advantages of on-demand engineering surges is the ability to bring in highly specialized talent without the delays and costs of full-time hiring. Here’s how this model accelerates engineering backlogs:
- Instant Access to Specialized Talent
On-demand engineering connects businesses with highly skilled professionals specialized in niche areas such as AI, cloud computing, DevOps, and cybersecurity. Instead of spending months searching for and training an in-house engineer, companies can onboard experienced professionals in days. These engineers bring years of domain-specific knowledge, ensuring faster problem-solving and high-quality code delivery.
- Parallel Development Efficiency
Bringing in an external team is like a robust right hand that allows businesses to run multiple development tasks simultaneously. While internal teams focus on core product functionalities, on-demand engineers can handle urgent fixes, integrations, or experimental features, ensuring no time is wasted.
- Seamless Integration into Existing Workflows
Modern on-demand engineers are well-versed in remote collaboration, making it easy to integrate them into existing workflows. With experience in agile methodologies, CI/CD pipelines, and various development frameworks, they can quickly adapt to a company’s internal processes, ensuring a seamless development experience.
- Increased Issue Solving and Bug Fixes
When businesses encounter critical issues or urgent software bugs, waiting for a new hire to get onboarding and up to speed isn’t practical. The external development teams can step in immediately to diagnose and resolve issues, preventing downtime and ensuring an uninterrupted software development process.
- Flexible Scaling for Project Demands
Engineering backlogs or unexpected surges in workload can occur at anytime during the software development lifecycle (SDLC). Hiring full-time staff for temporary bottlenecks isn’t practical. On-demand teams allow businesses to scale up quickly when a project requires additional manpower and scale down when the workloads subside, helping businesses optimize resource allocation.
When to Opt for an Engineering Surge Over Traditional Hiring?
While traditional hiring is essential for long-term growth, there are several scenarios where leveraging on-demand engineering support is the ideal choice:
- Urgent engineering backlog acceleration: When engineering teams are overwhelmed with pending tasks, delays can impact deadlines and market opportunities. On-demand engineers can quickly scale development capacity, ensuring high-priority tasks are completed efficiently.
- Specialized Technical Expertise for High-Impact Projects: Certain projects may necessitate niche expertise that is not readily available within the existing team. Engaging on-demand professionals with the requisite skills can bridge this gap efficiently without the need for permanent hires.
- Variable Workloads: Businesses experiencing fluctuating demands can benefit from the flexibility of on-demand staffing, allowing them to scale resources in alignment with project peaks and troughs without the financial burden of maintaining a consistently large team.
- Budget Constraints: For companies aiming to manage costs effectively, on-demand engineering provides a means to access top talent without incurring the ongoing expenses associated with full-time employees.
- Short-term Projects: For short-term or project-specific needs—such as launching a minimum viable product (MVP) or implementing specific features—traditional hiring often proves inefficient. On-demand engineering teams are ideally suited for clearly scoped, short-duration projects, offering swift, targeted outcomes without prolonged financial commitments.
Choosing the Right Approach to Solve Your Backlog Faster
Both on-demand engineering surges and traditional hiring offer unique advantages, but the best choice depends on a company’s immediate needs, long-term goals, and project demands. For businesses facing urgent backlog items, fluctuating workloads, or specialized technical challenges, on-demand engineering teams provide instant expertise and cost-effective scalability. They eliminate hiring delays, reduce onboarding time, and bring in specialists who can tackle complex issues immediately.
Contact us today for your demanded engineering team!
