The Challenges of Going Global//

You Have Never Done It Before

We see many founders and CTOs who have simply never worked with global talent before. Where do you get started? How can you trust the people you work with? Questions like this regularly pop up. Once you start talking with some of the skilled professionals around the world you quickly realize that like anyone else, there are all-stars and there are those who you don’t want to work with again. Recruitment is similar to sales in that it can be a process of repetition and if you just keep working on it you will find better and better partners for your business who have highly specific skills and abilities. Just get started, it is very worth it.

How Can I Trust Someone I Don’t Know?

If you find the right talent from a platform like ours or others you know that the talent has been vetted and checked to make sure that only the best are admitted. When going out on your own you will need to do this yourself. We know from experience that there are amazing people all over the world. The single best way to know if a remote software developer is good is a track record of excellent projects. If you find someone with a beautiful portfolio or a project that was very similar to yours, you are in good hands.

Why Can’t I Find The Talent Locally?

With many skills, if you look hard enough you can find the skills locally, depending on where you are. The problem is that this will usually take much longer and you will not get nearly the return for your money. We recommend that entrepreneurs look for their core leadership team to be local or at least people who you have worked with before and have a deep understanding and trust built. This will allow the type of collaboration that creates great companies and solves problems at a rapid pace.

Where Should I Start?

The best way to learn something is to do it. Just start trying it out and you will quickly see what works and what does not. Over 10 years ago we started working with remote talent and started to build up our expertise. Today, we have a deep understanding of exactly how we can leverage the global workforce. Try out platforms like UpWork, Fivver, and /dev. See how they work. Check what else is in the market. There are constantly new platforms coming out and many different projects you can build with freelancers or remote teams if you try it out.

What Do You Miss Out On With Remote Software Developers?

Working with remote talent has challenges as well. It is much harder to just problem-solve or get to know each other when everything needs to be digital. We find that you need to do extra diligence and align on expectations when taking in a remote engineer in a senior leadership role such as a CTO. Although you do also need to do this when bringing on a CTO locally, there are even more challenges when it comes to remote work. We recommend in most cases that you have some technical leadership within the core team already if you want the best collaboration. However, we have seen many cases where a remote developer with CTO experience can work out great. Since bringing on someone as a CTO is a bigger bet than bringing them on to support your development backlog, we recommend taking the time that is needed to find the right person. With enough time and effort you could find many CTO-level professionals in networks like ours. However, you should always look at all the factors at play and make sure that this is what you really want for your business. Depending on your industry and what you are looking for in your leadership team, a remote CTO might not be best.

What Do You Gain?

The value of a remote engineer is clear. You get more for your money, you start building in a matter of days, and you can find someone with deep technical skill in your tech stack. It might sound simple but this value has been enormous for many entrepreneurs we have worked with. Projects that would have cost $10,000 were dropped below $1,000 and delivered ahead of schedule. With the right management and communication, this is one of the biggest advantages you can give your business.