Staff augmentation: team expansion for software development
Implementing large and complex app development or software development projects often presents companies with major challenges. According to a study by the German Economic Institute (IW), there will still be a shortage of IT specialists in 2025. This makes it difficult to build up qualified development teams and larger companies in particular are therefore increasingly turning to staff augmentation in order to expand existing internal resources with external software development specialists.
What does augmentation mean?
Staff augmentation” refers to the targeted expansion of an existing internal software development or IT team with specialized external programmers and specialists. Team augmentation makes it possible to quickly upgrade technical areas of expertise that cannot be covered by in-house resources. This often concerns areas such as AI app development, cross-platform app development or other areas of software development in which specialist knowledge is required.
Operational control remains the responsibility of the commissioning company and, similar to consulting projects, external service providers are temporarily integrated into all work processes as fully-fledged team members. They have access to internal tools and take part in project-related meetings. The decisive factor is a modular approach in which it is determined exactly which services are provided by an external app agency and how external experts can be most effectively integrated into internal workflows.
This results in very close cooperation and makes it possible to release new digital products or special software features quickly.
What are the advantages of staff augmentation?
Short-term & professional
Specialized software experts who exactly match your requirements profile may be difficult to find on the job market and are often not immediately available.
Faster go-to-market
Time is money and every day that new app features or digital products are not available can, in the worst case, be measured in lost revenue.
Full project control
The risk that you lose control of your project or that external partners develop solutions that ultimately cannot be implemented or integrated is very low.
Flexible costs
Instead of having to hire new employees who are then tied to your company in the long term, flexible team expansions allow you to reduce resources at any time.
Complete integration into internal processes
You can integrate external specialists directly into your company. Either directly on site or remotely in the same time zone.
Augmentation vs. offshoring vs. nearshoring – all the differences explained
Staff augmentation, offshoring or nearshoring? Companies often opt for development nearshoring or offshoring primarily for cost reasons. However, all three approaches differ in other key respects.
Staff augmentation briefly explained
Similar to consultants, external specialists are fully integrated into your internal software development team for a certain period of time.
They work on clearly defined subtasks and actively contribute to the completion or further development of your software product.
In addition to seamless integration into your own processes, a certain amount of knowledge transfer from the external service provider to your own team is a major advantage. This makes it easier to successfully maintain a digital product later on without having to rely on external help in the long term.
Offshoring briefly explained
In offshoring, a software development project is outsourced to an external service provider who, as the term “offshoring” suggests, is based in a different geographical region.
In offshoring, all or most of the tasks are usually taken over by a third-party provider.
In practice, this can lead to problems if there are misunderstandings in the definition of objectives or if a service provider cannot deliver as discussed.
Communication barriers, cultural differences and working in different time zones can exacerbate this problem.
Nearshoring briefly explained
In contrast to offshoring, nearshoring places importance on external providers working in similar time zones to your customers.
This facilitates communication and can also have cost benefits if tasks are carried out in locations with lower labor costs.
However, many of the disadvantages of offshoring remain: communication barriers can cause problems and seamless integration into internal teams is difficult. Therefore, without excellent project management, this approach is also prone to problems.
When is developer staff augmentation worthwhile?
While companies that have no internal development resources often choose to work with an app agency, or an offshoring or nearshoring provider, there are also many situations where augmentation may be the best solution. This applies in the following cases:
For projects that require specialized expert knowledge
In situations where development speed is a high priority and risks need to be minimized at the same time
For companies that have their own development teams that only need targeted support for clearly defined tasks
In cases where external specialists with relevant practical experience can immediately contribute fresh ideas and new best practices
For projects where the integration of externally developed code elements and features is important (keyword: knowledge transfer)
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Team expansion through augmentation: an overview of costs
In addition to points such as long-term skills development or the ability to integrate external partners into your own teams, costs naturally also play an important role. A comparison of the various cost factors provides information on when staff augmentation can be more economical than outsourcing, offshoring, nearshoring or even increasing your own team.
Project costs vs service provider hourly rates
For software development projects with clearly defined goals and KPIs, external providers can often submit a precise cost estimate and, in the best case, keep to it as planned. This means that the more clearly a project is defined and the fewer factors arise during the programming phase, the more likely it makes sense to completely outsource a software development project. This allows you to calculate with fixed costs.
Conversely, in situations that require an iterative approach and more flexibility, it is often better to rely on augmentation. Fixed hourly rates also enable good cost control with this approach. If necessary, costs can also be saved as certain tasks can be taken over by your in-house team.
Direct personnel costs vs. staff augmentation
Another alternative is to augment the in-house team. However, this incurs monthly fixed costs due to salaries and social security contributions. It is also difficult to reduce staff again if they are not available.
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