Development Team Churn Rates – What to Expect Nearshore?

Cyril Samovskiy

This post is an extension of the Linkedin post I had published a while ago.
“What is your developers churn rate, or, more positively, retention” is a very good question for those considering #nearshore dedicated development teams model.
My typical answer starts with a vague yet important statement – one very much depends on clients, and this is why.

See the chart.

Red reflects how we as the nearshoring vendor, provider work. This “red” quality of work, in general, is pretty much equal working with every client of ours – may it be a digital agency taking web development team from us, or a Swiss startup disrupting the AdTech industry. You may see this normalized value is more or less stable, having no massive jumps or downs. This red part reflects our part of work on development team retention.

Blue part though, depends on a client, much.

As the vendor providing remote development teams, we are capable of doing some 49% of retention job.
Corporate culture, knowledge sharing, working environment, office location and parking spots availability, English classes or music band – this is purely on us, true.

Yet, other 51% will be fully dependant on how you as the client would be working with your remote team.

Things on you that matter are:

1. Product itself (industry, complexity, hype-ness)
2. Technology stack and its “sexiness” (yes, angular1 is not considered to be sexy anymore)
3. Methodology used to manage the team and its delivery
4. Client mentality, passion, ability to work with the team as they are on board, not just outsourcers

Points 1 and 2 are clear at the Recruiting stage. We will know that, and we will be certain the candidates are interested in what you have to offer.
Points 3 and 4 are something we will trust based on what we are told by a potential client of ours, yet, things will be exactly as the client will then execute them.