Hire dedicated developers: a dedicated development team
A team assembled for your product, run with you.
Hire dedicated developers as one team, not as separate contracts: senior engineers, QA, a product owner and a Scrum master from Lisbon, working only on your product. Your roadmap, your tools, your time zone — English by default.
What is a dedicated development team?
A dedicated development team is a group of engineers — usually with QA, a product owner and a Scrum master — that a provider assembles to work only on your product, for as long as the roadmap needs it. You set the priorities and own the backlog; the provider handles hiring, team management and delivery cadence. It works like an in-house department without the recruiting.
That's the dedicated team model: a stable team, a known monthly cost, and context that compounds sprint after sprint because the same people stay on the product. It sits between staff augmentation, where you manage individual engineers, and a scoped MVP or product build, where we own the outcome.
Who's on a dedicated development team
Team structure follows the backlog, not a template. Most teams are built around senior developers, with the other roles added when the work calls for them. Every role below is one we staff, and you approve each profile before kickoff.
Product owner
Owns the product vision and keeps stakeholders and the team pointed at the same goal.
Business analyst
Turns business goals into decisions the team can build against, working beside the product owner.
Developers
Senior engineers planning and delivering working, user-facing features inside every sprint.
Scrum master
Keeps the cadence honest — runs the rituals, removes the blockers, protects the focus.
QA engineers
Test plans, automated tests and regression checks, so quality isn't the last sprint's problem.
Technical project manager
Timeline, budget and dependencies — keeps delivery visible to the stakeholders outside the team.
UI/UX designer
Flows and interfaces designed with the engineers, not thrown over the wall to them.
DevOps engineer
Pipelines, environments and cloud infrastructure, so the team ships to production, not to a staging folder.
How to hire a dedicated development team in 4 steps
A discovery session on success criteria, timeline, budget and the skill sets the roadmap actually needs.
We assemble the team from senior engineers. You see and approve every profile before kickoff.
First sprint planned, environments set up, ways of working agreed. The team ships in week one.
Working software demoed on a cadence, progress visible in your tools. The team grows, shrinks or re-skills with the roadmap — with notice.
Dedicated team vs staff augmentation vs fixed-price project
Three contracts, one question: how much of the delivery do you want to run yourself?
Dedicated team
Our team on your roadmap
- Who manages the day-to-day
- Us, with you
- Who owns the backlog
- You
- Pricing
- Monthly, per team
- Changing priorities mid-way
- Normal — every sprint
- Team size changes
- Monthly, with notice
- Best when
- A product with a long roadmap
Staff augmentation
Our engineer in your team
- Who manages the day-to-day
- You
- Who owns the backlog
- You
- Pricing
- Monthly, per engineer
- Changing priorities mid-way
- Normal — your call
- Team size changes
- Monthly, with notice
- Best when
- A skill or capacity gap
Fixed-price project
Scope agreed, we deliver
- Who manages the day-to-day
- Us
- Who owns the backlog
- The agreed scope
- Pricing
- Fixed, per scope
- Changing priorities mid-way
- A change request
- Team size changes
- Fixed for the project
- Best when
- A defined outcome, like an MVP
We compared the first two in depth in staff augmentation vs dedicated teams.
When a dedicated team is the wrong model
A dedicated team pays off when the roadmap is long enough for context to compound. It's the wrong answer when:
The scope is small and fixed
A defined MVP or feature is cheaper as a fixed-price build — you pay for an outcome, not for months of capacity.
You need one skill, not a team
If the gap is one senior engineer, staff augmentation is faster and cheaper.
Nobody on your side can own priorities
A dedicated team needs a decision-maker for the backlog. Without one, you're paying a team to wait.
The work is a one-off spike
A few weeks of extra capacity doesn't justify assembling and onboarding a team.
If one of these is you, we'll say so on the first call and point you to the model that fits.
How much does a dedicated development team cost?
A dedicated team costs the sum of its roles at their rates, billed monthly, and location moves the number most. As market ranges: nearshore engineers typically bill around $40–75 an hour, offshore teams $20–50 and onshore UK or US agencies $100–150+. A four-person nearshore team at roughly 160 hours a month each comes to about $25,600–48,000 a month at those ranges.
Inside a range, the mix decides it: how many seniors, whether QA, design and DevOps are full-time or shared, and how scarce the stack is. With us the team has a known monthly cost, and it changes only when the team does.
Market ranges, not a quote — rates vary with seniority, stack and contract. Sources: our nearshore vs offshore comparison, and Accelerance's late-2025 survey of 60 development firms, which puts senior developers at $64–76/h in Europe, $60–75/h in Latin America and $31–41/h in Asia (Accelerance, Nov 2025).
NDA, IP and data protection
Put an NDA in place before you share code, data or a roadmap. With us, the code, the repositories and the IP are yours from day one, and the team works in your tools — progress, decisions and documentation stay where your company can see them.
The team is EU-based, so GDPR applies to how it handles your data by default. If your sector needs more — health data, financial records — raise it on the first call so access and environments are set up for it from the first sprint.
Red flags when you hire dedicated developers
The same warning signs show up in most bad engagements. Check for them before you sign, not after the first sprint:
CVs that change after signing
The people you met should be the people who show up. Ask for it in writing.
No access to the engineers before the contract
If you can only talk to sales, you're buying a promise, not a team.
Seniority on the slide, juniors on the invoice
Ask who writes the code, and check it in the first sprint's pull requests.
The vendor owns the repository
Code in their accounts is a bargaining chip against you. It should live in yours from day one.
No overlap with your working day
A team that answers tomorrow turns every question into a handoff.
Long lock-in, no exit
Monthly terms with notice keep the provider honest.
What to expect from a dedicated software development team
Development, analysis and delivery in one unit — fewer handoffs, fewer things lost between them.
You steer through the product owner instead of chasing individuals. Less management surface, same control.
Progress, decisions and costs visible at all times. Bad news travels as fast as good news.
A stable team with a known monthly cost. Estimates improve every sprint because the same people make them.
The team works for you only — context compounds instead of evaporating between projects.
Short cycles, working software every sprint, course corrections while they're still cheap.
How we run delivery: Scrum or Kanban
Scrum or Kanban — whichever ships your roadmap. Both run by people who write code, not by a methodology department.
With Scrum
Sprints of two to four weeks, each ending in a demo of working software. Scope is planned per sprint, so changing course is cheap — feedback lands in the next planning, not in next quarter's.
With Kanban
A visible board, work pulled when there's capacity, current tasks finished before new ones start. Continuous delivery at a steady pace, without overloading the team.
The other two models
Dedicated development team: frequently asked questions
Define the roadmap and the skills it needs, then pick a provider who lets you meet the engineers before signing. With us it's four steps: a needs assessment, a proposed team you see and approve profile by profile, a kickoff where the first sprint is planned, and delivery on a sprint cadence. Most engagements start within 2–3 weeks.
Five roles cover most teams: a product owner who sets priorities, a business analyst who turns goals into requirements, developers who build, QA engineers who test, and a Scrum master who runs the cadence. Larger teams add a technical project manager, UI/UX design and DevOps. The structure should follow the backlog, not a template.
Most engagements start within 2–3 weeks of the first call: a discovery session, a proposed team you approve, then kickoff. From there the team ships in the first week of the first sprint, working in your tools. The main variable is how quickly you can approve profiles and grant access.
The sum of its roles at their rates, billed monthly. As market ranges, not a quote: nearshore engineers typically bill $40–75 an hour, offshore $20–50, and onshore UK or US agencies $100–150+. A four-person nearshore team is roughly $25,600–48,000 a month at those ranges. We give a known monthly cost for the team after the needs assessment.
With staff augmentation you add individual engineers to your team and manage them yourself. With a dedicated team we assemble a cross-functional team for your product and run delivery with you, through a product owner and a Scrum master. Staff augmentation fits a skill gap; a dedicated team fits a product roadmap.
You do, from day one. The code, the repositories and the IP are yours, and the team works in your tools. The team is EU-based, so GDPR applies to your data by default. Put an NDA in place before you share code or data with any provider.
Start your deployment.
Talk directly to a principal engineer.
No sales team.
No discovery workshops.
No procurement circus.
We scope, build and ship.
- Reply within one business day
- Engineer-led assessment
- Written proposal
- Lisbon · UK time zone
No commitment. Just an engineer.