Top offshore development companies: 7 picks + expert advice
A whopping 74% of companies cite challenges to finding the right tech talent [Source: ManpowerGroup, 2025 Global Talent Shortage report].
Most of them share the same problem: there aren’t enough qualified software engineers to design and build tech in their countries and neighbouring regions. Does it sound familiar?
In this article, we’ve reviewed the best offshore software development companies, from Indian-based firms like The Scalers to industry giants like Intellectsoft. Besides analysing organisations, we’ve outlined the factors you should consider before working with an offshore partner.
We hope you find it helpful!
What do offshore software development companies do?
Offshore software development companies help organisations move technology operations overseas, building world-class dedicated engineering teams.
Businesses with the right offshore partner work with top developers who are (generally) more skilled and innovative than their domestic counterparts while enjoying lower hiring and operational costs.
For example, a US-based firm that can’t find the right tech talent locally can set up a top tech team in India with all the benefits offshore software development brings to their business.
A reliable offshore software development company doesn’t only hire and onboard talented developers but also takes care of all the legal and administrative tasks, as well as infrastructure management and HR processes, including keeping engineers engaged after they’re hired.
If you want to keep learning more about offshoring, we recommend you read our article on the ethics of offshoring.
What are the factors to consider when deciding on offshore software development companies?
When selecting an offshore development partner, consider these crucial aspects every company should offer:
A large tech talent pool
The number one reason for companies to offshore software development is the lack of top tech talent in their region. If you’re a tech leader in a US, European, or Australian organisation, you know the struggle.
Western countries are suffering from an unprecedented tech talent scarcity, with businesses unable to find local candidates with the right skill set. For instance, in the UK, 84% of businesses are facing an IT and tech skills gap.
When deciding on an offshore software development company, evaluate the talent pool and the country they are sourcing talent from. Verify that the specialists who could potentially join your team have the niche skills you’re looking for.
Which countries are best for offshore software development?
The most popular offshoring destinations are the ones that provide a fresh, steady stream of highly qualified tech talent yearly.
These are some of the best countries to build a team with the help of an offshore partner of your choice:
- In Asia, India and The Philippines are known for their abundant talent pools with professionals possessing a high English proficiency and niche programming skills. Bangalore, known as ‘The Silicon Valley of Asia’, produces 90,000 engineers every year.
- In Europe, Poland, Ukraine, and Romania are home to the most talented offshore engineers on the continent. Some US and UK organisations still opt to establish R&D centres in Eastern Europe, despite the rising rates in the Polish engineering industry and the ongoing war in Ukraine.
- In Latin America, Colombia and Argentina are emerging IT hotspots. These countries especially appeal to US corporations who want to build an offshore team in a similar time zone.
Seamless flexibility and scalability
Teaming up with an offshore software development company means building a lasting partnership. While short-term goals are important, it’s crucial to prioritise the future, especially when integrating a dedicated full-time development team that you can scale up whenever needed.
Since offshore contracts usually span years, your partner must comprehend your immediate and future business requirements — in two, five, or even ten years.
Make sure your partner offers flexibility and adaptability as standards.
Robust data security
If you read (almost) any list of the pros and cons of offshoring, you’ll see tech leaders are concerned about privacy and security when going offshore. It’s understandable. When you work with an offshore partner, you trust a team thousands of kilometres away from your headquarters with sensitive data.
That’s why you must ensure your offshore partner complies with the latest policies and procedures to manage organisations’ sensitive data. For instance, a company accredited with the ISO/IEC 27001 certification demonstrates a robust information security management system that follows global best practices.
Rigorous quality assurance
Partnering with an offshore software development company prioritising quality assurance means having an engineering team that can effectively solve communication challenges and technical issues.
This involves setting up processes for monitoring and resolving bugs and scheduling regular detailed performance reports — procedures that ensure smoother development, quicker issue resolution, and higher-quality software delivery.
Key steps to help you choose the best offshore development company
After evaluating your potential partner’s access to large talent pools, among other key factors, you should follow a few steps to move closer to signing a collaboration contract and start reaping the benefits of offshore teams.
1. Begin by defining what you want
Make sure you know what you want to gain from hiring an offshore development partner. Write a proposal that outlines your specific goals and metrics, the types of processes you want to offshore, the skills and requirements you need, and the size of your desired team.
Preparation is crucial for dealing with offshore software development companies. With a clear understanding of your expectations, you’ll avoid misunderstandings down the line.
2. Ensure they demonstrate experience
You need a company with proven expertise in offshore software development that can demonstrate its success in building resilient, high-performing teams.
Analyse their business portfolio or look for references from colleagues or acquaintances. At a minimum, you can ask your potential partner to send you detailed case studies that show how they solve real problems. If everything lines up, you can move forward.
3. Investigate management capabilities and cultural fit
If you’ve tried offshoring or outsourcing before, you’ve probably noticed many partners make bold claims but fail to deliver later. This often points to weak management and organisational flaws.
Your potential partner might have a great vision, but clumsy execution can hamstring it. Given the logistical challenges (distance, time zone differences, communication barriers…), you need a strong management team supervising your offshore operations.
Some of the best offshore development companies blend local engineering expertise with an international, inclusive, and multicultural management structure. For example, your ideal partner might be based in India, with leadership teams from both Europe and India, and operations supported by top Indian engineering talent.
These types of partners are generally more capable of hiring high-quality professionals due to their deep knowledge of local talent pools and for sharing cultural nuances with organisations’ headquartered teams.
4. Evaluate cost-effectiveness, not cost
Given that the cost of living is lower in popular offshoring destinations, every offshoring partner will offer you more competitive rates than the equivalent back home in Western Europe, Australia, or the US.
One of the most common misconceptions about offshore software development is that organisations should go with the cheapest offer. The reality is they should focus on assessing value.
For example, company X might charge 50% more than company Y but deliver 3x better results — higher cost, but better return. While company Y offers more affordable rates, company X provides greater cost-effectiveness in the long run.
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LEARN MORETop 7 offshore development companies you can trust
Now that you understand what to consider and the steps to choose the right offshore company, it’s time to narrow your search.
We’ve analysed seven top partners, each with unique strengths, specialising in different needs, and sourcing engineers from leading tech hubs in India, Poland, and other talent-rich locations.
The Scalers
The name says it all: The Scalers helps companies scale and grow their technical workforce by building dedicated software development teams in Bangalore, India. With 80+ dedicated offshore teams built since 2014, The Scalers has never lost a partnership and keeps proving its value to current partners across various industries.
This offshore development company puts emphasis on partnerships and a people-centred culture. It’s a Certified Great Place to Work™️ firm that hires the top 1% of Indian developers and takes the hassle out of the recruitment, operations, and onboarding processes.
Their team hires for you, so you get developers who match the skills you’re looking for.
Partners collaborate with The Scalers to have an offshore team that meets these three conditions:
- A fully dedicated offshore software development team: software developers work exclusively with partners and are engaged and aligned with their mission.
- A team built to last: The Scalers hires engineers who work with partners for an average of 3-5 years.
- A team that can scale on demand: the teams that The Scalers builds usually grow after a year, which allows tech leaders to scale as their products and needs grow.
With the Scalers, you can build your own software development team in Bangalore from a talent pool of 1M+ engineers. The company strikes the ideal balance by blending top Indian engineers with European administration and processes.
Best for
Organisations looking for a long-term in-house software development team and trusted partner on the ground. Working with The Scalers means accessing world-class tech talent and enjoying close collaboration with your newly formed team.
N-iX
N-iX is a software development services company that offers four core services to customers worldwide:
- Custom software development: end-to-end solutions, from vision to implementation and support.
- Product discovery: a two to five-week product testing phase.
- Team extension: a vast pool of talented engineers ready to join clients’ projects.
- Technology consulting: a team of tech consultants who design tech strategies.
The firm runs operations from its headquarters in Malta and has delivery centres on three continents: North America (USA), South America (Colombia), and Europe (Poland, Ukraine, Sweden, and Bulgaria).
Best for
Businesses who want to build engineering teams and software products. The company specialises in offering cloud, data analytics, and embedded software solutions.
Your Team in India
Your Team in India does what its site’s tagline suggests: making businesses more agile, resilient, and future-ready.
This offshore development company helps organisations to set up offshore development centres in India or hire dedicated developers for their projects. How? Using a flexible and easy-to-understand hiring model.
Customers can choose a monthly, hourly, or fixed-cost project engagement model to work with elite Indian developers.
Best for
Short-term software development projects. If you need a company that can assist you in finding engineers in India for short-duration projects, Your Team in India is a good choice.
Grid Dynamics
Grid Dynamics is a cloud-native organisation that offers various services across delivery centres in the US, Mexico, Europe, and India, from technology consulting to agile engineering teams.
The organisation has 14 years of experience in remote working and virtual global collaboration expertise, and it excels for its excellent productivity and efficiency in any work environment.
As proof of their commitment, the firm ensures that company employees have access to secure equipment and cloud tools available 24/7 from anywhere.
Best for
US-based companies looking for agile engineering remote teams. Grid Dynamics is established as one of the most popular software solutions providers in the tech and Ecommerce sector.
BairesDev
BairesDev builds autonomous, dedicated, and tailor-made development teams and runs operations from San Francisco, California. Their engineers collaborate with businesses in over a hundred sectors and work on complex and niche products like developing real estate data management software and edtech platforms.
Essentially, the company offers software development services from conceptualisation to implementation. Customers can augment their engineering teams with other key project players like QA engineers, UX designers, data scientists, and project managers.
Best for
Companies searching for time zone-aligned engineering teams and expertise. BairesDev’s mission is to link companies searching for high-quality software solutions with the top 1% of Latin American developers.
Belitsoft
Belitsoft builds software development teams to modernise, rebuild, or customise software, as well as create new software from scratch.
This Polish-headquartered company works mainly with organisations based in the USA, Europe and Israel and its expertise ranges from developing Elearning and Healthcare software to providing cloud solutions.
Belitsoft offers project-based services. The firm is known for completing large and medium-scale projects with DevOps teams distributed in Poland, Latvia, and Georgia.
Best for
Companies that need cloud migration services to optimise their costs and implement cybersecurity measures. Belitsoft offers this service using platforms like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud.
Intellectsoft
Intellectsoft helps Fortune 500 companies to build and scale software solutions. Its core services include product engineering, mobile development, and dedicated development teams.
Intellecsoft’s intelligent team extension allows customers to access the best technical talent in Eastern Europe. The organisation is responsible for resource hiring, team development, staff retention, and standard office/IT infrastructure.
Best for
End-to-end app development services, from ideation to ongoing support, for iOS and Android platforms.
Questions to ask offshore development companies before choosing them
Once you’ve narrowed down your list of potential partners, you’ll likely begin having conversations with them to finalise the details of your collaboration. Before signing any contracts, it’s worth asking them a few questions to ensure a successful, long-term partnership.
How will they identify your needs?
If you are considering offshoring, you must make sure that the offshore software company understands your goals.
- What are your specific goals, metrics, and growth targets?
- What are you working on now?
- Are they aware of your current business needs?
Offshore partners should research your business before meeting you. Discuss the finer details, like the size of the team and the skills you need. In the next step, the company will draft a proposal.
They are probably not the right fit if they cannot identify your business needs.
What are their rates, and how do they charge?
In countries like India, the cost of living is lower, so most partners will offer you a lower rate than at home.
However, you should always ask about quotes, timelines, and unforeseen costs during the project. Is the monthly fee that you’ll be paying fixed or variable? What expenses does the fee cover? Are there any hidden costs?
The right partner will be able to put your mind at ease and give you all the answers without any hesitation.
How does their recruitment process work?
A meticulous hiring process increases the chances of hiring the most qualified tech talent in the industry — and that’s just what you need.
Ask your potential partner how they source candidates:
- How are engineers filtered out?
- Which criteria do they use?
- Do they value cultural compatibility?
You can even ask them for a portfolio of the teams they’ve built over the years. If the company can’t demonstrate its success in building offshore teams, it’s wise to walk away.
How long does it take to build a team?
The time to build a team depends on developer availability, project complexity, and required technical expertise. While this can vary, an experienced offshore partner can provide a rough estimate.
If the company is uncertain about timelines, it risks delays, potentially causing significant capital loss for your business.
Bear in mind that quick turnarounds might indicate a lack of thorough vetting, resulting in poor fits and delays from wasted time and additional recruitment cycles.
Who handles the administrative and legal activities?
With your offshore team located thousands of miles away, your partner must be your trusted advisor, handling all administrative and legal activities on your behalf.
They should manage recruitment and onboarding and provide regular updates on your team. If an offshore development company can’t offer these, it’s time to look elsewhere.
How we helped a Legal SaaS company scale its Ruby on Rails team to deliver a groundbreaking product
DOWNLOAD CASE STUDYWhy choose The Scalers as your offshore software development company?
Establishing your offshore team isn’t as intimidating as it might seem. At The Scalers, we have a proven record of walking companies through the process, from initial requirements to setting up a dedicated offshore development team with our proven expertise.
Led by European and Indian leadership, we’ve crafted the best offshore model for long-term teams in Bangalore. This is what we do for our partners:
- Sourcing Bangalore’s top tech talent.
- Handling all on-site operations.
- Promoting a people-centric culture.
Want to learn more? Feel free to reach out to us by filling out the contact form at the end of the page or by contacting us here. One of our senior executives will get back to you within the next 24 hours.
In summary
Choosing the right offshore partner is a defining moment for your business. As a tech leader, you’ll want to work with a company that offers the best talent available and flexible collaboration models that align with your goals.
This way, you’ll be able to harness global talent, maximise cost-effectiveness, and achieve success.
So there you have it: the offshore roadmap to decide on the perfect partner is yours for the taking. But the journey doesn’t end here. After choosing your partner, you’ll need an offshoring strategy that works.
We’ve interviewed 100 CTOs and asked them about the strategies they’re using to build their offshore teams. Download our free CTO report and learn what’s working for other successful tech leaders!
