For you, who need developers or engineers, and consider finding them outside national borders.

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There is often a bit of uncertainty in engaging remote workers outside of the physical business location. Unfortunately, many people have bad experiences with traditional outsourcing, and wonder how Noustack's Elastic Teams avoids the classic pitfalls.

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We will therefore take you through the entire start-up phase of a Elastic Teams collaboration, until the operation is running. Hopefully you will see that the Elastic Teams model has more in common with recruiting its own employees, and thus gives you far greater ownership of the project than many expect.

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First phase - from first contact to signed agreement

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A collaboration often begins with a series of meetings, where we can get to know each other, identify needs, and find out if Elastic Teams can solve your challenges. This process is not set in stone, and can vary depending on the complexity of the project or the size of the company.

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Nevertheless, we set up a preliminary timeline and a work plan to give both parties something to aim for. It is likely that the process will look something like this:

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1st meeting: Get to know each other

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The first meeting is usually quite informal and involves getting to know each other and exploring what kind of opportunities there are. We present Noustack and how our business model works, and you tell us about your own company and the challenges you face.

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Some people are reluctant to ask the questions they are really wondering about. Even though they are skeptical of offshoring they don't want to hurt someone's feelings. We encourage you to ask whatever it might be. It is important for us to be a transparent and customer-oriented company, and is happy to highlight both the advantages, disadvantages and pitfalls of Elastic Teams.

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If after the meeting, you think it is interesting to explore a collaboration more closely, we will book a new meeting in the near future, typically within one to two weeks.

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2nd meeting: Clarifying Needs

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In the second meeting, we go more in depth on how the collaboration will look like. The framework for the project is set here:

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• What time perspective do we have?
• What kind of competence do you need?
• How many developers/engineers do you need?
• How do you envision the team composition?
• What will be the form of cooperation between your team and our team?

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Based on this, we will find sample CVs from existing developers in Noustack Elastic Teams, to match the type of expertise you want to have in your team.

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However, these are rarely the actual people you will get on your team, since they are already counting as permanent employees of other customers. As soon as the contract is signed, we begin an extensive recruitment process, to find developers who meet the criteria we have set up together.

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At this point in the process, we would also very much like you to talk to at least one or two of our existing customers. Then you will be able to hear about their experiences working with Noustack Elastic Teams, to determine if it will be a good fit for you.

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3rd meeting: Contract signing

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In the contract meeting, we will review our specific proposal for a cooperation agreement with time frames, prices and normal agreement terms.

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Once all relevant questions have been clarified and the contract has been signed, we can begin the recruitment process.

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Second phase - recruiting and onboarding

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All recruitment processes involve a certain degree of uncertainty, and most people are well aware of the fear of paying dearly for something that does not meet expectations.

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At Noustack Elastic Teams, we give you our guarantee that we will provide you with the candidates with the competence profile we agreed on, and we will not give up until you are satisfied. We do not charge for the work we put into the recruitment phase; The cost to you does not start to run until the developers actually start working.

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As a rule, we work for several months before we get paid. We think it's worth it.

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First, it makes you feel confident that you are not committing to something you are not happy with. Secondly, we rarely experience that customers are dissatisfied, so in practice we do not offer much by having such a guarantee. In fact, one of the most frequent feedbacks we get from customers is that if they had known how well Noustack Elastic Teams could work, they would never have hesitated in the first place.

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So, how do we work to find the best candidates?

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The recruitment process

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We find developers through two channels: Our self built recruitment platform and Talent Network, and by using the network of Talent Tech Scouts in 28 different countries. Then we select the best through a comprehensive verification process:

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1. Screening - We review all the scouted candidates and the applications we have received, and select those with the desired expertise, from the ten best universities.
2. Language check - We call all relevant candidates, to make sure that their English maintains a high enough level to communicate well with employers.
3. Programming test - We invite the candidates who pass the language check to test their programming skills in a 1:1 session, usually in a uncheatable self-build "broken-application" test that is overlooked by a senior.
4. Senior Interview - Three of our seniors do in-depth interviews with the remaining candidates on problem solving and technology. Only those who get a vote from all three seniors go through to the next step.
5. Reference check - We contact the references of those who pass the senior interview.
6. Management interview - Our management discusses with the candidate whether there are reasons not to hire them, or if the employment relationship could have a risk for being short-lived. This is how we avoid high turnover.
7. Optional customer meeting - If you want a final check on the candidate, you get the opportunity to take a video or telephone interview with him / her before we hire.

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This process typically takes one to two months. In addition, you often have to expect a one-month notice period when we hire developers who have to terminate an existing employment relationship. Skilled developers are rarely unemployed - in neither parts of the world.

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Third phase - ongoing operation

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For the ongoing collaboration to work, it is important that you have discussed in clear context what both parties expect from each other, set some fixed routines, and that you use a flexible methodology such as LEAN, AGILE, SCRUM etc. You must also have selected some tools to facilitate video conferencing, chat and continuous deployment.

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You probably already have many of both the tools and routines in place, so there will often be fewer changes than many have envisioned. Nevertheless, it is important to point out that formal communication, in the form of written specifications and frequent meetings, becomes all the more important now that informal communication becomes a little more difficult.

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Organization and division of roles

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There are many ways to divide the roles between your in-house team and the Noustack Elastic Teams developers, but this is a fairly common model:

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• In-house: Product owner / project manager
• In-house or Noustack: Architect, design
• Noustack: Team leader, developers, testers (preferably with your own developers)
• Most of our customers have close ownership of what they make, and are happy to provide the product owner themselves. The product owner maintains the backlog and keeps track of the product and progress.

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Depending on the size of the project or product, you may also have the architectural role in-house. The same goes for design: In most cases, our customers use their own designer or a designer they know well from before. That said, we can also make our own designers available, if you wish.

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Our team in  usually consists of a team leader (or Scrum master), x number of senior developers, x number of junior developers and x number of testers. We recommend that there is one test per 4-6 developers.

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This is what a two-week sprint with Noustack Elastic Teams looks like

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If you, like most of our customers, work in a sprint for two weeks, a sprint will look something like this:

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• Written specifications - This is the product owner's responsibility, and will usually be spread over the previous sprint. Here it is important to describe the tasks with a sufficient level of detail, so that no misunderstandings arise. This typically takes 10% of the total time allocated to the developers in the sprint.
• Scheduling Meeting - A video meeting at the start of each sprint, lasting between 30 minutes and two hours. Developers and project managers discuss the tasks of the period, and clarify questions, find out if the right time estimates has been set, and so on.
• Daily video conference - We recommend having a 10-30 minute check-in every day. This is both to lower the threshold for taking up things you might not otherwise care about, and to keep frequent contact between the offices.
• Sprint demo - The sprints often end with a sprint demo where the team demonstrates what has been achieved during the sprint.
• Sprint evaluation - At the end of each sprint you should also schedule a video conference where the developers can bring up what they think has worked and/or not, so that you can continuously improve your work processes.

In addition to this, the ongoing communication goes through e-mail, Slack and video meetings. Dialogue about product specification often takes place in tools such as Jira, Trello, Linear etc. and code is most often stored in GitHub or GitLab.

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What if you are dissatisfied with something?

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Noustack Elastic Teams is known for having skilled developers who work well with global employers. Still, recruiting is not an exact science, and bad hires can occur. If you are dissatisfied with something, you can raise it directly with us, and we will take it from there.

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You should be able to think of the developers as your permanent employees. We also tend to have quarterly status meetings to reconcile the status of the collaboration. This is a great opportunity to address your thoughts and give concrete feedback.

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One of the benefits of using Noustack Elastic Teams to hire developers is that we take care of HR and recruitment, at no extra cost to you. If you want to scale your team up or down, we will solve this. It's not uncommon for customers starting with a few developers to expand their team when they see how well it works.

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A collaboration with Noustack Elastic Teams is intended to last for a longer period, and you should be able to think of your developers as permanent employees. The more you put into the collaboration, the more you also get back.

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Do you have questions that were not answered in the article? Curious about whether your project is suitable for external development? Feel free to contact us and we will do our best to give you the answers you need.