Since becoming a fully remote team, we've made adjustments along the way. Now, instead of our core team being located only in Portland, Oregon, we're spanned across all North American time zones and beyond. As our team's locations have diversified, so have our talents, perspectives, and experiences. We've discovered that by expanding our "borders," we've also enriched our team significantly, and with that, we can offer so much more to our clients.
Most of our clients are in North America (and the UK), so we understand the importance of having team members in similar time zones. But they don't necessarily have to be located in the US. We've added team members in Brazil, Mexico, and Romania, and each of them has helped to shape the dynamic perspectives we have here at Planet Argon.
Our success in this area has inspired us to begin working with more nearshore contractors for various projects over the last few months, and we've been thrilled to discover such incredible talent and skill sets!
We're going to continue exploring nearshore outsourcing as opportunities arise. That means adding developers to our team and helping you find talent for YOUR team through our recruiting services.
If you're curious about what this looks like and the benefits, we'll cover those in the article below.
Benefits of Nearshore Staff Augmentation
Nearshore staff augmentation is becoming a more common strategy as organizations seek to optimize operations while leveraging talent beyond their borders. We've definitely found some incredible team members this way.
What are some of the benefits your organization could enjoy by welcoming a nearshore developer onto your team?
Diverse Experiences.
Your team will collaborate with professionals from different cultural and professional backgrounds, enriching projects with diverse perspectives and insights.
Favorable Cost Structures.
By tapping into regions with cost structures different from your own, you have the opportunity to save on contractor costs without compromising work quality.
Time-Zone Compatibility.
We're also connecting with more contractors in Latin America, ensuring overlapping time zones and work hours and enhancing real-time communication.
Access to Specialized Skills and Knowledge.
By looking beyond location-based candidates, you'll gain access to a vast pool of talent, enabling your team to harness expertise that may not be available locally.
Flexibility and Scalability.
You can utilize resources and scale operations up or down according to your project's requirements as it progresses.
Encourages Innovation and Collaboration.
Nearshore outsourcing fosters an environment that welcomes innovation and encourages collaboration and creativity among your team.
Why Partner With Us?
As we expand our recruiting services to include nearshore developers, we're excited to help organizations meet your projects' needs. You could hire them on your own - or - you could enlist our help, which has some extra benefits.
- We'll help evaluate workloads and identify tasks suitable for outsourcing, which optimizes resource allocation and efficiency.
- We've been immersed in the Ruby on Rails community for decades, but we've been making new connections and pre-vetting candidates in South America lately. We were even more blown away after attending Tropical.rb in Brazil recently—the talent and skillsets our fellow Ruby on Rails enthusiasts have are pretty amazing.
- We have contacts with developers who work with other technologies, too!
- We're here to help with the onboarding and set-up, so you can lean on our team for support.
- We have several quality assurance measures in place, ensuring that everyone involved is producing their best work.
- As part of our recruiting services, we incorporate quality assurance measures, ensuring high standards and satisfaction among you and your team.
- You're not limited to the experience of developers assigned to your project. If our engineers notice that you might benefit from guidance from another team member, they will advocate that we loop them in for a few hours (or more) to assist.
Addressing Concerns
Bringing in a new team member doesn't have to be stressful. That's why we do the pre-vetting legwork ahead of time! But you may still have some concerns about bringing on an international team member. If so, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Communication
Creating a welcoming environment is important for any new team member. Remember that English might not be the first language of many nearshore developers. On our end, if a contractor doesn't feel 100% speaking in English, our Engineering Manager, Ben Parisot, schedules brief, non-work-related talks between them and English-speaking team members. This way, they can feel more comfortable without the pressure of speaking in a work-related discussion. You could set up a similar situation among your team. You might also ensure they understand any slang or colloquial terms used during these chats.
In some instances, a contractor might not be totally comfortable meeting with a client right off the bat. If that's the case, it's ok to hold off scheduling them in a meeting with a client until they are comfortable with it.
As for written communication, you could recommend using AI or a grammar checker before sending emails or leaving comments in Jira.
Security Measures
Security is in place per application or client, not per person, but some guardrails can be set up for extra protection, like using a VPN that allows you to turn off access to servers, email accounts, repositories, etc., with just a single flip of a switch (if it's ever necessary). We also recommend being conservative with permissions and allowing contributor-level permissions, not admin, for specific tools.
Visa/Work Concerns
For this type of arrangement, we're hiring contractors, not full-time international employees (which is challenging, to say the least!). We're more skilled in building Rails applications than deciphering international law, so we recommend checking with your legal team with specific questions or concerns.
That said, we're familiar with making necessary adjustments with contractors for things like schedules, meeting requirements, and benefits.
Want to Learn More?
The world is getting smaller as technology grows, so let's embrace it! Let's bring more developers into our organizations and create a more diverse collaborative environment. If this is a path you'd like to explore further, we'd love to chat with you and discover how we can help.