What an augmentation provider actually supplies
An augmentation provider does four things. It finds candidates for the role you describe, from its own bench or through new recruiting. It checks their skills, usually with a technical interview or a test. It employs them, which covers the contract, salary, payroll, taxes and local employment rules. And it invoices you for their time. An IT outstaffing company does the same four things under another name.
Some providers add equipment, a workplace and a replacement promise. Few go further. Once the person starts, you plan their work, run their standups, review their output and handle performance. The provider’s job after day one is mostly administration.
That’s the model working as designed. It’s quick to start, flexible to end and gives you full control over the work. It suits a clear skill gap and a lead with time to direct someone.
The roles companies add through augmentation
Requests cluster around a handful of roles:
- Backend, frontend and full stack developers, because feature work never stops and these roles take the longest to hire locally.
- QA engineers and test automation engineers, usually when releases start slipping on testing.
- Cloud and DevOps engineers, when infrastructure work keeps pulling developers away from features.
- Data engineers, data scientists and AI engineers, where local supply is thinnest in most markets.
- UX/UI designers, when design can’t keep pace with what the developers could build.
The same roles appear in a managed team, and companies that hire remote software developers through one get the same kind of people. What changes is who manages them day to day.
How augmentation providers price a developer
Three pricing structures cover most of the market, and offshore staffing solutions use the same three.
Hourly or daily rates. You pay for the hours logged. Invoices change every month with holidays, sick days and overtime, and someone on your side checks them.
A monthly rate per person. Simpler to budget, still charged per head, and usually with a notice period per person.
Salary plus markup. Some providers show the developer’s salary and add a percentage on top for their margin and overheads. It looks transparent, but the markup on extras such as equipment and replacements varies a lot between providers.
The cost a quote leaves out is management time. By our estimate, directing an augmented developer takes four to eight hours a week of a lead’s time.
Whatever the structure, ask what else can end up on the invoice. An upfront fee, a charge for equipment, a management surcharge or a replacement fee can make a low rate expensive.
Contract terms to check before you sign
The rate gets the attention. These terms decide what the arrangement costs when something changes.
- Notice period. How quickly you can reduce capacity, and how quickly the provider can withdraw someone.
- Replacement promise. Whether a specialist who leaves or doesn’t fit is replaced, how fast, and who pays for the ramp-up.
- Conversion fee. What it costs to hire the person directly, if you ever want to.
- IP and confidentiality. Assignment of everything the developer writes, and an NDA before you share details. Under US copyright law, for example, work an employee creates belongs to the employer, as the US Copyright Office explains. Here the employer is the provider, so the assignment to you has to be in the contract.
- Exclusivity. Whether the person can work for other clients at the same time.
- Equipment and access. Whose laptop, whose network, and what happens to access when someone leaves.
Augmented developers compared with a managed offshore team
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
| Compared | Typical augmentation provider | Managed offshore team from Azendo |
|---|---|---|
| Who manages the people day to day | You | Azendo |
| Who acts when the work slips | You | Azendo, with training and correction |
| Billing | Hourly, daily or per person, varies | One fixed monthly fee |
| Training and development | Usually left to the individual | A quarterly development plan and tailored coaching for every specialist |
| When someone leaves | You onboard the replacement | We recruit and onboard the replacement |
| How long it lasts | Until you end it | As long as you have work for the team |
The full comparison of the two models is in staff augmentation vs managed services. If you’re comparing suppliers, the differences between an agency, a marketplace and a managed partner matter more than the rate.
When augmentation is the right buy
Augmentation is the better buy when most of these are true:
- the gap is one or two people and has a foreseeable end
- a lead on your side has several free hours a week for each new person
- the work is well specified and the architecture is settled
- you want to direct every task yourself
An offshore dedicated development team is the better buy when most of these are true instead:
- the work runs for years and keeps growing
- your leads are already at capacity
- you want the same people on the product long enough to know it deeply
- you’d like one fixed monthly cost and one person to call about delivery
What a managed team adds
Management included. We manage the people day to day. Every two weeks an Azendo service delivery manager asks how the work has gone. What needs to improve goes into a plan with our Talent Success team.
Product knowledge that stays. The same engineers stay on your product for years. Ours stay with Azendo for 3.3 years on average.
One fixed monthly fee. You agree the hours once. After that the whole team is on one invoice, and the amount doesn’t change from month to month.
Growth without extra overhead. A second or third developer doesn’t mean another person for your leads to manage. New roles join under the same agreement.
People who keep improving. A Talent Success manager builds a development plan with each specialist every quarter and coaches them against it. Our Academy trains everyone in AI.
How we add developers to your team, fully managed
At Azendo, augmentation comes fully managed, and for tech roles only. The people we assign are our employees. Each one is assigned full time to a single client and has a desk and equipment in our Chiang Mai or Bangkok office. They work in your tools, your repositories and your sprints, and the priorities are yours. Managing them, developing them and replacing anyone who moves on is our work, all inside a committed monthly capacity with no separate management charge.
When the work calls for several roles, a dedicated software development team puts developers, testers and DevOps engineers under one agreement and one service delivery manager.
Our prices, what every team member comes with and how a team starts are on the page for our IT staff augmentation services.
