When you need more engineering capacity, you essentially have two options: augment your existing team with embedded developers (staff augmentation), or hand off a project to an external team (outsourcing). Both models work, but they work for very different situations.
When Staff Augmentation Makes Sense
Choose augmentation when: you have a strong technical team that just needs more capacity, you want to maintain full control over architecture and process decisions, you need specific expertise your current team lacks (e.g., cloud migration, performance optimization), or you have an established development workflow and tools. The augmented developers work within your processes, attend your standups, and use your tools.
When Project Outsourcing Makes Sense
Choose outsourcing when: you don't have an internal development team, you need a complete solution delivered end-to-end, the project has well-defined requirements and a clear finish line, or you want someone else to handle architecture, testing, and deployment decisions.
The Hidden Costs of Each Model
Staff augmentation's hidden cost is management overhead. You need someone technical on your side to onboard, review code, and align the augmented developers. Without this, quality can suffer. Outsourcing's hidden cost is communication friction. When the development team works separately from your business team, requirements get lost in translation, leading to rework. The more complex and evolving your project, the more expensive this friction becomes.
Our Approach: The Best of Both
At Smoother Development, we offer both models — and we're transparent about which one fits your situation better. For most growth-stage companies, we recommend starting with a project-based engagement (outsourcing) to build the foundation, then transitioning to staff augmentation as your internal team grows. Either way, you talk directly to senior engineers, and every engagement starts with a risk-free trial sprint.
