- Offshoring is the right call when you can’t find the right Python developers at home and want to build a fully dedicated team (not contractors who leave when the contract ends).
- The mistakes that sink Python offshore teams are predictable: buying on price rather than value, leaving the team out of the loop, building just for speed, and starting with no clear roadmap.
- Make sure you match the offshore engagement model/solution to your business needs: team extension, dedicated team, ODC, GCC, or BOT.
More and more companies are building their Python teams in offshore locations like Bangalore. In these tech hubs, you can hire senior, AI-capable engineers who are hard to find at home, at a fraction of the cost, without compromising on quality.
But offshore has a reputation for going wrong, too, with teams that churn and projects that stall. Whether your setup succeeds or fails, in most cases, comes down to the decisions you make before you hire anyone.
This guide walks you through each one: deciding if offshore is right for you, avoiding the common mistakes, choosing the right engagement model, and picking where to hire the right Python developers.
Do you (really) need to hire offshore Python developers?
Let’s make something clear before we move on: not every company needs to go offshore to find the right Python developers. Maybe your local talent pool is booming with top Python developers, or you just need a couple of developers to cover a spike in work or a short-term task. In those cases, hiring in-house or a freelancer may be all you need.
However, if one or more of these conditions is true, offshoring is the right choice for you:
- You can’t find the talent at home. Senior Python engineers with the right stack and domain experience are scarce in many Western markets.
- You are looking for a more cost-effective solution. Hiring an offshore Python developer in India with the same skills as an equivalent developer in Europe or the US costs 25-40% less.
- You need niche specialists. Your product needs specific expertise (a framework, an industry, a data or ML background) that’s faster and easier to find in offshore talent pools.
- You want ownership. You’re building something long-term and want engineers invested in the product, not contractors who disappear when the statement of work ends.
Offshore Python developers work exclusively for your company, on your tools and processes, as a long-term extension of your team rather than a short-term outsourced resource.
They are dedicated, meaning they commit their time and expertise to your product. If you work with the right offshore development partner, you can build a team that feels in-house, even if it’s located offshore.
| Way to hire | Control & ownership | Best for |
| In-house (local) | High | Core work you must keep on-site |
| Freelancers | Low | Short, well-scoped tasks with a clear end |
| Outsourcing | Low | One-off builds or temporary tasks |
| Nearshore | Medium–high | Real-time collaboration in a close time zone; smaller talent pools |
| Offshoring (dedicated) | High | Long-term product work; you want full, direct control over your team |
Common mistakes when building an offshore Python development team
Most offshore Python setups fail for reasons unrelated to technical skill, and those failures are predictable.
Mistake #1: Buying on price, not value
The main reason tech leaders hire Python developers offshore is to cut costs. But in the race to the lowest possible price, it’s easy to fall for an offer that looks too good to be true. Those offers almost always hide something: juniors doing work meant for seniors, no one owning code quality, fees for onboarding or infrastructure that appear the moment you sign…
Call it the “outsourcing paradox”: you save on day one and pay it back threefold in rework later.
The question you should be asking yourself is, “what am I actually getting for the money?” An offshore partner with a proven track record may charge higher rates, but in return you get senior engineers and a team that stays for the long term, worth far more than a cheap team you have to rebuild later.
Mistake #2: Leaving the team out of the loop
Here’s a quick way to waste top talent: hire them, then treat them like an outside vendor. Feed them tickets and never explain the reasoning behind the work.
If you do that, your engineers may build what you asked for, but miss the problems they’d have caught if they knew where the product was heading.
Your offshore engineers are as much a part of your team as the people in your headquarters; the only difference is the office they sit in. When you structure your offshore team to bring them into planning, sprints, and the decisions behind the work, they start solving problems, often in ways you’d never have thought of.
Mistake #3: Building just for speed
A setup that promises to bring in top Python engineers overnight sounds great, until they leave almost as fast. It’s the classic operating model trap: if you optimise for speed, recruitment gets handed off wholesale, leadership steps back expecting people to “slot in,” and roles get written around just “tech stack.”
This is closer to traditional outsourcing and may work only if you want to hire engineers to complete temporary tasks.
Building for the long term looks different. You hire senior engineers who can own the work, and integrate them into your company so they feel part of the business, not outsourced help. It’s hard to get right on your own, which is exactly where your offshore development partner should guide you.
Mistake #4: Starting with no clear roadmap
Some tech leaders hire a few Python engineers, onboard them, and they’re ready to go, but… there’s nothing queued up for them to build.
Before your first developers join your team, line up at least one or two development cycles of work, and begin planning about 30 days out. A team waiting for direction just burns budget.
Which offshore engagement model should you choose to build your Python team?
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to building an offshore Python team. The right setup depends on how many engineers you need, whether you need additional professionals (not just Python developers), and how much ownership and control you want.
Here are five solutions you can choose from:
- Development team extension. Offshore Python developers fully integrated into your existing team, working your sprints and reporting to your leads. Best for adding capacity or specific skills.
- Dedicated development team. A fully integrated development team that works just for you. Best when you want long-term ownership and roadmap continuity.
- Offshore development centre (ODC). Multiple teams operating as your engineering hub, working under one roof. Best for product development and continuous innovation.
- Global capability centre (GCC). A strategic entity you fully control, often spanning engineering, data, and support. Best for companies building a long-term strategic presence in an offshore location.
- Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT). Your offshore partner builds and runs the team, then transfers it to you as your own legal entity.
None of these is a one-way door. Many companies start with an extension or a dedicated team and grow into an ODC or GCC as their needs change.
Where to build your offshore Python development team?
The best offshore Python developers live and work in cities like Bangalore (India), Warsaw (Poland), and Medellin (Colombia). These tech hubs attract world-class talent, given their high concentration of startups and multinationals that offer excellent opportunities for professional growth.
Top global location to hire offshore Python developers: India
With a talent pool of 5.8 million software developers (and counting), India is known for producing elite Python talent year in, year out.
Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, and Chennai are some of the fastest-growing tech hubs in the world, thanks to their vast talent pools. Big industry names like Google, Microsoft, and Meta have R&D centres in these metropolises.
One of the best, if not the best offshore location for SMBs is Bangalore. This city is referred to as ‘The Silicon Valley of Asia‘ and leads all Indian cities in:
- Funding. Most funded startups, highest total funding, and highest average funding per round.
- Angel investors. Most investors and the highest number of investments.
- First-wave sectors. Leading in funding for e-commerce, edtech, SaaS, and data analytics.
- Second-wave sectors. Strong growth in AI, EVs, and space tech startups.
- Unicorns. Highest number, most capital raised, and biggest combined valuation.
Leading the way in innovation are Python software engineers who possess niche programming skills, high English proficiency, and extensive experience working with Western companies.
Top country in Europe to get Python talent: Poland
Polish tech talent has long been recognised as some of the best in the industry. On a trip to Poland in 2023, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, remarked: “I don’t know what Poland does as a culture and a system to create such incredible engineering and research talent.”
Such talent is concentrated in Warsaw, Krakow, and Wroclaw, the three largest tech hubs in the country. Python is a popular choice among Polish developers, who study at top universities like AGH University of Science and Technology and Warsaw University of Technology.
Due to its deep talent pool, Poland is an excellent choice for organisations looking to nearshore or outsource Python development. However, the rising engineering rates in the region are catching up with the West, forcing companies to rethink their hiring strategies.
Top destination in LATAM to find Python experts: Colombia
Latin American countries are emerging as great alternatives for US companies that used to outsource Python development to Eastern Europe.
See Colombia. The nation offers highly skilled, dedicated developers who work in a similar time zone to businesses based in New York or Miami for a lower price than in Poland.
Maturing tech ecosystems in cities like Medellin and Bogota are drawing talented developers from all over the country. With the re-establishment of the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR), Medellin is becoming a leading AI innovation hub and a hotspot for tech talent ready to make an impact.
Looking for an experienced offshore partner to hire Python developers?
Many tech leaders hire Python developers through outsourcing and end up dissatisfied with the lack of visibility and control they have over the development process.
This may be your case.
Preqin, a UK FinTech, came to us with the same problem. The quality of work with their outsourcing provider was good, but they wanted more control over their offshore team and how their product was built.
In six years, the company scaled from a four-person team to a 450+ person GCC (Python developers among the roles) and, through our Build-Operate-Transfer model, eventually transferred the whole operation into its own Indian entity.
We wanted to have our own team and make it very ‘Preqin’ and we wouldn’t have been able to build that team so quickly without The Scalers. They handled all of the hassles so we could spend our time building quality software and collecting quality data. And we wouldn’t have grown as Preqin without the team in India.
Do you want to know more about our approach to building offshore tech and data teams and how we can help you hire the right Python developers? Fill out this form telling us about your unique needs and one of our senior executives will contact you promptly.
FAQs
It depends on your business goals and needs. Outsourcing suits short, fixed-scope work. Hiring Python developers through offshoring gives you full ownership and control over your team’s work. The offshore developers you hire work only for you, in your tools and processes, like your in-house team.
Yes, and many companies do. It’s common to start with a team extension or a dedicated team and grow into an ODC or GCC as the work scales. Starting with the model that fits today doesn’t lock you out of a bigger setup later.
Of course! You can scale gradually. That said, at The Scalers we build dedicated teams (usually from two engineers up) rather than placing single contractors.
It depends on the engagement model you choose, and other factors like the size of your team or the roles you need. At The Scalers, it generally takes 45–60 days from project kick-off to onboarding your first engineers.
The best way to assess a Python developer’s expertise is through practical coding tests, technical interviews, and reviewing past projects. You can also ask for examples of how they’ve tackled complex problems in Python. Your development partner can help ensure the developers you hire are truly up to the task.
Build Your Offshore Python Team in Bangalore
Hire senior Python developers and set up a fully dedicated team built for the long run in the Silicon Valley of Asia.
