Busting 5 Myths About Working with Remote App Developers
People say you can’t trust remote app developers. Ask them why, and they introduce you to their nephew or some cheap developers. Of course, not all remote developers are unqualified. They could be in India, but they could also be in Arizona. However, if you’re open-minded, you can find the service and product you want, assuming you know how to bust myths about remote app developers. By the way, it’s not a secret that many wildly successful companies have built their early products with a help of remote developers.
For starters, the world is at work in technology. Cultural and language differences are disappearing. You’re not talking telecommuting. Remote app development teams might be located anywhere in the world.
Dell and other lean producers, hardware and software, have contributed to the global demand for unique, dependable, and high quality work — despite some pervasive myths.
#1 Myth: They don’t know what they are doing.
They say there is a talent shortage. If so, trying to build and sustain in-house talent may be a losing battle. And, given increasing wages, it may be time to look for talent outside of Silicon Valley.
Code does not have an accent or location. It’s taught everywhere. And, location has nothing to do with passion, commitment, and dedication.
Moreover, coding now seems independent of formal education. Great universities do not turn out programmers as the science has left the textbooks and faculties in the dust. Their education is just measured in different ways — marked mostly by outcomes.
#2 Myth: It’s tough to work with foreigners.
It’s easy to label remote app dev teams as foreign. Though accents do not confirm someone as native-born or foreign resident. After all, techies born, raised, and educated in Austin, Texas, have an accent to some ears.
Now, there’s some truth to the idea that it is sometimes harder to work with people who aren’t quite like you. But, that says as much about you as it does about them. With that said, working with remote app development teams may present challenges in language, culture, and scheduling.
Language
Problem: Everyone speaks English, but some speak it better than others. However, programmers have not learned independent of strong English skills. Reading and speaking English is no guarantee that programmers are easy to understand. It’s also true that communicating by phone seems to complicate the problems in articulation and perception.
Solution: If this core communication problem presents an issue, you simply have to search further for your app developer and find those who speak English good enough and have a local representative, for example here http://devteam.space.
Culture
Problem: You will certainly find a difference between your business culture and that of the remote developers. But, to be honest, much of that depends on your bias. If you have trouble with a multicultural work ethic or behavior, it probably reflects your own predisposition. Of course, individuals — customer or provider — may present a problem in terms of polite conversation, good questions, cooperative demeanor, and more. But, the individual does not invalidate the team you care exploring.
Solution: Be multicultural and open minded. Some people have a stronger work ethic or deeper focus on their work, so there is no value in hanging the culture out to dry. And certainly, you can learn from other successful companies, like Mindvalley.
Time
Problem: Just because the app dev team is based remotely, it doesn’t mean they are offshore. They might be within the same time zone or anywhere within a few hours east or west. If the remote team is significantly offshore, it could cause some issues only if you don’t know how to use this as an advantage.
Solution: First of all, remote dev teams are fully prepared to meet your time preferences. The team may be 10 or 15 hours away, but they expect to work 24/7 for client availability. And besides that, you can implement two things:
#1. Implement specific time during the day when you can communicate with developers. At DevTeam.Space, many of our dev teams are based in Eastern Europe, so we usually schedule technical daily updates and communication with our clients from 9am PST to 12pm PST.
#2. Having remote dev team is actually a great advantage. When you finish your work day, their day is just starting. So you actually can build your product 24 hours per day, literally. That’s a great news!
#3 Myth: Made in _________ means poor quality.
Some critics label remote work of any sort as low quality, short-lived, and undependable. There is a passion for “Made in the U.S.A.” But, performance excellence isn’t necessarily native.
After all, 9 of the 10 highest ranked tech centers in the U.S. fall outside of Silicon Valley. And, it’s naive to ignore the economic and technology influence of centers like Vancouver, London, Berlin, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Russia, and Ukraine.
There is no nationality for algorithms, and coding languages are universal. And, the U.S. has been embarrassingly behind other cultures in math and STEM education. Qualification and quality have no local bearing.
#4 Myth: Quality remote app dev teams are impossible to find.
It is true that any programmer, given the chance, will throw his or her hat into the ring. But, not all programmers are created equal.
Some are more talented than others. Some are easier to get along with. Some are more reasonably affordable. It’s your burden to shop smarter and wiser.
Best place to find great developers
Platforms like DevTeamSpace, Gigster, Crew, and TopTal are offering a vetted pull of top level developers and dev teams.
DevTeam.Space offers to work with tech-stack focused development teams, while supporting you with two project manages and a smart AI-enhanced reporting dashboard.
Tech-stack focused dev teams are the best to work with as each team is focused only on one particular technology stack. That means they can build your product faster and with a higher level of quality than an average dev team who works with multiple tech stacks. Each dev team has an inhouse project managers, front-end and back-end developers, and can easily allocate more developers to your project when it’s time to scale.
- Having a local project manager is great too, because you can reach out to them while remote developers aren’t available.
- Daily communication is handled by a smart reporting dashboard. It pushes developers to post daily updates at the end of their work day. Once the updates are posted, dashboard sends an automatic email notification to you with an overall project progress in percent, a short description of what have been done during the day, and roadblocks tracking. With this system, you’re always up to date and simply can’t miss any issues.
You can submit your project and schedule a free strategy session on the DevTeamSpace website.
Gigster offers to work with top level remote developers from across the world, while supporting you with a project manager and a communication dashboard. You would ask — “how are they different from the DevTeamSpace?” — the answer is that you work with individual freelancers, they don’t allow you to communicate directly with developers, and their dashboard is more of a chat rather than a reporting system. You can learn more about them on their website.
Crew is very similar to Gigster and offers you to work with top level remote developers from across the world, though they are open about who do you work with and are more transparent in terms of communication. You can learn more about them on their website.
TopTal is the oldest player in the field and serves you top level developers, and an optional project management support. You can learn more about them on their website.
Other places to search for developers
Big job sites: Individual providers post their skills and availability on job boards like Monster, CareerBuilder, and Indeed. You might find them on Craigslist. And, if your work is temporary and focused, you might even check into local universities and tech schools. But, none of these present a best first choice. Simply put — there is too much risk involved.
Freelance resources: Sites like Freelancer.com will provide data on available freelance developers from around the world. And, there are scores of ads online. If you feel driven by price only, online offers might be the way to go. But, this may be money misspent. Cheap developers will create more problems for your own money.
Independent contractors: Consultants are too often unemployed technicians looking for work to get them through down time. And, they tend to have a narrow focus earned by their specific experience. If that skill — graphics, sound, iOS — is what you need, that’s fine. But, they may not be fit for a total app development project as they don’t have a support of team and a project manager. You can narrow your search for consultants at LinkedIn.
Offshore offers: Too many long distance workers are not only up to the task, but also oversell and over promise. They are the source of the bad image and profile attributed to remote app development.
Networking: There is talent and high performance out there. It produces a lot of great work. So, if you can picture some draft of what you want, you can find appdev teams that impress you. If you talk to them, you will find them helpful, willing to share their sources and experiences. You can also reach out to engineers you know or who appear on directories like Application Developers Alliance, “a non-profit global membership organization supporting developers as creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs.”
#5 Myth: Out of sight is out of mind.
There’s almost a conspiracy to convince you that remote development takes things out of your hands — and control. But, that’s only true if you let it happen. You have all the technological tools available to communicate clearly and frequently. Some distance management tools, like Slack, Github, Bitbucket, and Essential Tracker, have been created to solve that problem. They offer repositories, calendars, tracking, and real-time communication.
How to bust these myths:
1. Shop well. You have to spend some time and research on locating the team you need based on skills and proof of product rather than price.
2. Avoid problems. You can and should build in some defenses ahead of time. Any contract should be an agreement to specific communication habits, project development markers, and shared metrics and goals.
3. Value diversity. A team approach assures you of diverse talents, and the best remote app developers will assign members to your team to best serve your needs. For example, your in-house technology people may be very strong in organizational needs, but very weak in creative apps, so a remote team will also relieve your staff to do what they do best.
4. Form a team. As a customer, you must take the team leadership. If you make this relationship clear from the beginning, the team owes you collaboration and feedback. You have sought a team because it brings several players to the table, each with a special expertise. Both sides must understand and buy into that relationship.
5. Open your mind. App development is not local. You’ll find expert talent throughout the world. So, if you are prone to dismiss anyone from Arizona, Eastern Europe countries, Uruguay, or anywhere else, your bias may cost you.
A fair summary would reiterate that a business owner who wants to develop an app to put their business on the map, expedite their business’ operation, or serve their community, should give serious thought to a remote app developer team. Remote teams are talented, reliable, effective, and reasonably priced. And, appdev teams offer partnership in mutually dependent relationships.
To the extent that there are myths, they are mostly the byproduct of customer bias. In fact, remote app development offers a relationship that is all yours to own, build, and sustain!
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