Guest author: Kirimgeray Kirimli, Director at Flatiron Software Co.
From early-stage companies to established enterprises, software engineers are in high demand due to rapid tech advancements. However, there is currently a shortage of skilled engineering professionals, and companies have been left reeling from the escalating costs of hiring in-house talent.
It’s evident that it’s impossible to find all talent needs in a single location and at a good value, so tech recruiters have been seeking solutions from abroad and outsourcing software development to offshore companies.
Partnering with a third-party company to find well-trained software engineers in countries like China, Vietnam, Colombia, and Brazil has advantages. But it has also led to problems with poor communication, language barriers, skill set gaps, security risks, and time zone hiccups.
That’s why vendors providing offshore services are now turning to intense bootcamps (also following the bootcamp market boom) to ensure onboarding is more streamlined. As director of a software development company, I am also aware of the difficulties in keeping software engineers fulfilled in their roles—and these bootcamps can drastically improve employee engagement by equipping engineers with the necessary skills to succeed.
So, let’s look at the benefits of these engineering bootcamps in more detail.
More Rigorous Vetting of Engineers for Peace of Mind
Companies looking for offshore engineering talent will often be very interested in a software development vendor’s track record and industry reputation. They will read extensively about client reviews and the security technologies used before investing.
When these concerns are top of mind, a three- or four-week bootcamp is an indicator that vendors are committed to vetting software engineers and recruiting the most qualified candidates. Through bootcamps, vendors can prioritize assessing personality skills, overall computer science understanding, and cyber security knowledge, instead of just presumed expertise in a specific technology or programming language.
Enterprises Can Focus on Their Core Business
During bootcamps, engineers are equipped with the core fundamentals. While most have the necessary skills already, vendor bootcamps cover the basics, including an introduction to AWS, CI/CD, caching principles, terraform, containerizing a simple application, and other components.
These bootcamps can also teach engineers to work with multiple containers locally or use a browser inspector efficiently, and even help with preparation for an AWS Cloud Practitioner certificate.
Many of the projects global engineers take on while working with offshore vendors involve not only navigating codebase, but also swiftly identifying and resolving pre-existing issues left from other developers. Therefore, core training at bootcamps can mean that future projects focus on being fully aligned with business goals and timelines, leading to new applications moving into production rapidly. This delivers immediate value to both customers and business operations.
GitHub explanations are also essential during the basic training and should get engineers questioning:
- How big should a pull request be?
- What is an expected turnaround time for a constructive code review?
- What is a good commit size, and what should a commit message say?
This developer training equips companies with the confidence and knowledge needed to navigate future transformations with greater agility and reduced risk. While offshore companies handle the development and maintenance of software applications with ease, engineering leads and managers can focus on research, strategic planning, and continuous innovation.
Engineers Equipped To Understand Emerging Trends
Although the basics are number one, many offshore vendor bootcamps also choose to focus on emerging technologies like AI, ML, and cloud computing. And these trainings are often run by industry experts who have a deep understanding of the latest trends. This gives engineers the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with the latest technologies and apply these skills to real-world problems.
Companies looking to offshore vendors can also benefit from the engineers’ global perspective. They work with companies worldwide, testing, implementing, and debugging software applications, so they pick up essential and transferable knowledge.
For example, currently, one trend is that many companies are moving away from legacy systems to more adaptable cloud storage solutions. Bootcamps are ahead of the game, delivering several sessions on database migrations. And another example is that some offshore vendor bootcamps have a focus on the ever-growing popularity of PostgreSQL, an open-source relational database.
With many more hands on deck, these offshore vendors can provide up-to-date training on the latest industry trends and technologies.
Efficient Scrum Education
During bootcamps, some offshore vendors assign engineers to an experienced internal project team, knowledgeable about various processes and best practices. This team may choose to use a popular stack of PostgreSQL, Node.js, and React to ensure easy onboarding. An engineer should spend at least a full sprint cycle and a half getting to grips with the technology, allowing them to cover all scrum ceremonies at least once and observe the rest of the team.
Technical scrum training sessions are vital to learn the importance of clear communication and know who to reach out to when facing an issue.
Companies could ask their offshore vendors if they offer bootcamps for scrum education and what they intend to cover. But engineers should be well-versed in the following:
- Knowing how to give updates during a stand up
- Understanding when to raise a blocker and when to do a parking lot
- What should be raised during a sprint retrospective
- How to point a ticket during grooming
- Why having a good burn-down chart matters
- What to look out for during a Zoom meeting
Engaged Engineers Make Better Employees
Did you know that only around 29% of IT engineers are satisfied with their jobs? And employee satisfaction also says a lot about the success and well-being of a software development vendor—and, in turn, their clients.
It’s also not news that a culture of continuous learning can stimulate engineers to deliver and that opportunities for career development can reduce turnover. That’s why training at bootcamps aims to teach engineers how to navigate corporate clients, attend meetings, collaborate with other engineers, do code reviews and receive them, and deliver projects on time.
Armed with in-demand skills and the knowledge needed to succeed, engineers are more productive, motivated, and likely to become better employees. And they can very quickly influence the greater teams at companies using offshore development teams, raising the overall standards.
Whether it’s pressure from VCs to reduce costs or an accelerated software development push due to emerging technologies, many ambitious enterprises are considering outsourcing IT development overseas. But it doesn’t come without its risks. That’s why bootcamps can be a good indicator to watch out for, guaranteeing that a top-performing offshore engineering team is within reach.
Kirimgeray Kirimli is the Director of Flatiron Software Co, a leading full stack software development company.
