Full Delivery Pods
Hire an Offshore Development Team
An offshore team that owns delivery, not just tickets.
Offshore fails when the vendor waits to be told what to do. It works when someone on their side is accountable for the outcome.
Quick Answer
Updated August 22, 2026
What does an offshore development team cost?
A three-to-four person offshore pod from India — typically two engineers, part-time QA, and delivery ownership — runs roughly $12,000–$20,000 per month, or ₹10–17 lakh. Compared with an equivalent in-house team in the US or UK, that is about 60–70% lower, and the saving is real. What it does not remove is your need for a product owner: offshore teams fail far more often from absent decision-making on the client side than from engineering quality.
Pod cost
$12,000 – $20,000 per month
Timezone overlap
4+ hours, guaranteed
Time to start
2 – 4 weeks
Best for
- Funded startups that need throughput without a hiring cycle
- Companies with a roadmap and a product owner but no engineering capacity
- Teams that want one accountable partner rather than several contractors
Not best for
- Companies with nobody available to make product decisions
- Work needing constant same-room collaboration
- Organisations that cannot share access to systems or data
Rate Card
What does it cost to hire offshore development teams?
Pods are priced monthly rather than hourly. The rate card above is what the individual seats cost; a pod bundles them with delivery ownership and QA time.
| Level | Experience | Monthly (INR) | Hourly (USD) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid-level | 3–5 years | ₹2,20,000 – ₹3,20,000 | $22 – $32 | Feature delivery inside an existing codebase and review structure |
| Senior | 5–8 years | ₹3,50,000 – ₹5,00,000 | $32 – $45 | Owning a module end to end, setting patterns, reviewing others |
| Lead / architect | 8+ years | ₹5,00,000 – ₹6,50,000 | $45 – $60 | Architecture, delivery sequencing, and technical accountability |
Rates are for dedicated engagements with at least four hours of daily overlap with your working hours. Longer commitments reduce the rate; more overlap increases it.
Capability
What our offshore development teams actually do
- A named delivery owner accountable for the sprint outcome, not just for reporting it
- Engineers who join your standups, your repository, and your ticket tracker
- Written weekly reporting on what shipped, what slipped, and why
- Documentation and handover discipline, so the work survives team changes
- Timezone overlap committed contractually rather than promised informally
- IP assignment and NDA signed before any technical detail is shared
Working stack
We staff for the stack you already run wherever we can. Where we think a different choice would serve you better, we will say so once — with the reasoning — and then work in yours.
Common Engagements
What teams usually hire offshore delivery engineers for
Extending an in-house team
A pod that takes a defined area of the roadmap so your in-house engineers can stay on the core product.
Building a product from zero
Discovery, architecture, build, and launch handled end to end while you retain product ownership.
Covering a capability gap
Mobile, AI, or infrastructure work your existing team does not have and does not want to hire for permanently.
Replacing a failing vendor
Taking over an inherited codebase, auditing it honestly, and restoring a predictable release cadence.
Vetting
How we decide who is good enough to place
Vetting is the entire value of hiring through an agency rather than a marketplace. If we are not rejecting most applicants, we are not doing the job you are paying for.
Step 1
Technical interview
A senior engineer from our team runs the interview. Not a recruiter with a checklist, and not an automated coding test.
Step 2
Practical exercise
A task close to the work you are actually hiring for, reviewed the way we would review a pull request.
Step 3
Reference and delivery check
We ask what they shipped recently, who reviewed it, and what went wrong on it. The last question is the useful one.
Step 4
Fit call with you
You speak to the engineer before committing. If the fit is wrong at that point, nothing has been signed.
Comparison
A delivery pod vs individual offshore contractors
Hiring three contractors is not the same as hiring a team, and the difference is who is accountable when a sprint slips.
With SoftwareCrafting
- One named person accountable for delivery, not just for status updates
- Cover when someone is ill or on leave, at no extra cost to you
- Code review inside the pod, so quality does not depend on your review capacity
- Monthly rolling contract you can end with two weeks notice
Typical alternative
- Three individuals each waiting for direction from you
- Delivery stopping entirely when one person is unavailable
- All review load landing on your in-house team
- Annual contracts with penalties for early termination
Engagement Models
Four ways to work with us, and when each one fits
Dedicated seat
One engineer working full time inside your team, your repo, and your process. Monthly rolling, two weeks notice.
Ongoing roadmap work with no defined end date
Part-time seat
From roughly 20 hours a week. Below that, context reloading eats most of the value, and we will say so.
Specialist input alongside an existing team
Fixed-scope project
A defined deliverable at an agreed price. Only where scope is genuinely clear enough to fix without a change-request cycle.
Migrations, audits, and well-specified builds
Delivery pod
Three to four people including QA and a named delivery owner accountable for the sprint outcome.
Whole product areas you want owned end to end
What you get either way
- You interview the engineer before anything is signed
- Replacement at our cost if the fit is wrong in the first two weeks
- IP assignment and NDA signed before technical access is granted
- Code committed to your repository, under your organisation, from day one
- Monthly rolling contract — two weeks notice, no annual lock-in
Quick Brief
Start the conversation here
Tell us the role, the stack, and when you need someone. We will come back with availability and a rate.
Your Name
Work Email
What do you need help with?
Proof
Products we have shipped with offshore delivery
Driftload — user app and website
Next.js web app plus React Native client with live Google Maps tracking.
Prime Cares — doctor dashboard
Next.js and Node.js dashboard with authentication and document verification for clinicians.
CareerLyze — AI resume analysis platform
Next.js 15, React 19, and Google Gemini behind a resume scoring and career optimisation product.
FAQ
Questions buyers ask before hiring offshore delivery engineers
How much does an offshore development team cost?
A three-to-four person pod from India runs roughly $12,000–$20,000 per month depending on seniority mix. An equivalent in-house team in the US or UK typically costs $40,000–$60,000 per month fully loaded.
How do you handle timezone differences?
We commit to at least four hours of daily overlap with your working hours — full overlap for UAE, Singapore, and Australia, mornings for the UK, and early-afternoon-onward for US Eastern. That commitment is in the contract, not an informal arrangement.
Who owns the code and the IP?
You do. IP assignment is signed before technical work starts and everything is committed to your repository under your organisation from day one.
Why do offshore projects fail?
In our experience: no decision-maker available on the client side, scope agreed verbally and remembered differently, and vendors who report status instead of raising problems. All three are process failures rather than skill failures, and all three are avoidable.
Can we start small and scale up?
Yes, and we recommend it. Start with one engineer or a small fixed-scope project, see whether the working relationship holds, then expand. Anyone pushing you to commit to a large team before you have worked together is optimising for their revenue.
What happens if we want to end the engagement?
Two weeks notice, monthly rolling. We hand over documentation, credentials, and a written state-of-play. We would rather end cleanly and be recommended than lock you into a contract you regret.
Related services
The service pages behind this role
What this engineer works on day to day, and how we scope it commercially.