Key Takeaways
- Building a remote engineering team involves more than hiring developers because leadership, time-zone overlap, onboarding and operational support determine how effectively the team works after hiring.
- Staff augmentation, dedicated teams and R&D-center models give businesses different levels of control, responsibility and operational support.
- Time-zone alignment can be as important as salary when deciding where a remote engineering team should be based.
- A strong client-side engineering lead, clear roles and meaningful onboarding can determine whether a remote team integrates successfully during its first 90 days.
- The best provider depends on the company’s hiring needs, geography, technical requirements, management model and willingness to handle responsibilities internally.
A remote engineering team gets built twice. The first time is on paper, when someone lists the roles and signs off the budget. The second time happens over the first 90 days, when those people have to ship something together with the rest of the company. A provider can help with the paper version. How the 90 days go depends on decisions the client makes before signing anything.
We build these teams ourselves through IT staff augmentation services, so the method below comes from how our placements run. The other 9 companies in the table share that basic shape: engineers join the client’s team and take direction from it, while the provider handles hiring and administration. Their details come from their own sites and public profiles, as published in 2026. Row order in the table doesn’t rank anyone.
10 companies that build remote teams the client runs
| Company | Founded | Where the engineers sit | Working hours it lines up with | How a team is formed, per its own materials |
| Newxel | 2017 | Hiring hubs across Europe and Israel, plus other countries on request | European business hours | Single engineers or a full team led by the client; we handle HR, payroll, compliance, legal support and equipment |
| nCube | 2008 | 19 countries; offices in Warsaw, Sao Paulo, London and Kyiv | European hours, with a Latin American option | Dedicated teams and R&D centers working under the client’s leadership |
| Beetroot | 2012 | Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria and Vietnam; head office in Stockholm | European and Southeast Asian hours | Dedicated developers the client manages directly |
| Globaldev | 2011, per Clutch | Poland, Ukraine, Armenia, Vietnam, Israel, Germany; HQ in Warsaw, per Clutch | European and Southeast Asian hours | Team extension alongside custom software engineering |
| Inoxoft | 2014 | Ukraine and Poland, with US offices | European hours | Team extension; handles HR, onboarding and performance reviews |
| SoftKraft | 2015, per Clutch | Poland and Central Europe; head office in Bielsko-Biala | European hours | Engineers added to in-house teams, alongside project work |
| Planeks | 2019 | Ukraine, with a London office | European hours | Python engineers placed on the client’s existing team |
| Tikal | 25+ years in operation | Israel; head office in Tel Aviv | Israeli hours, close to Europe’s | Hands-on experts and squads embedded in client teams |
| Devlane | 2020 | 15 Latin American countries; head office in Montevideo | US hours | Senior engineers who integrate into the client’s team |
| ParallelStaff | 2018, per Clutch | Latin America; head office in Dallas | US hours | Engineers work in the client’s tools; the provider runs performance reviews |
The hours column shapes how a team talks: shared afternoons let questions get settled in real time, while an hour of overlap means planned written handoffs.
How to build a remote engineering team, step by step
What should the team look like before anyone is hired?
Write the roles down with seniority attached. A backend lead, 2 mid-level engineers and a QA engineer is a team, while “4 developers” is a budget line. Decide as well whether this is one unit working on its own roadmap or several people joining squads that already exist. A single unit is closer to fullstack dedicated development team services, where the group ramps up together under its own lead. Engineers joining existing squads is individual staff augmentation, where each person slots into a team that already has a lead.
Where should the engineers sit?
Choose the location by shared working hours first and cost second. For startup teams that also need occasional in-person collaboration, a shared workspace can provide a flexible setting without committing to a traditional office. Senior engineering salaries in Eastern Europe and Latin America run lower than in the US, but that savings shrinks fast when every question waits a day for an answer. US companies tend to get the most shared hours from Latin America, and European companies from Central and Eastern Europe. Then confirm the provider already employs people in that country.
Who will lead the team day to day?
A remote team needs a named lead on the client side from day one: someone who owns the backlog, reviews the code and runs the standup. If that person doesn’t exist yet, hire or assign them before the engineers start. The model this list is built around assumes the client directs the work, so without a client-side lead the team drifts.
What should the first 90 days include?
Give the team full access on day one, including repositories, tickets, chat and onboarding documents. Pick a small first task that can reach production within 2 weeks, so the team learns the deploy path early. Add one-to-ones between the client’s lead and each engineer, and book a check-in with the provider after the first month.
How do you keep the team together after year one?
The client decides whether the work is interesting and whether remote engineers get treated as part of the team. Pay reviews, HR support and career conversations sit with the provider. Ask each provider how it runs its half. Once a remote team spans several squads and needs its own office, equipment and local management, offshore development center services become the next step.
By the numbers
Our clients stay with us for 5+ years, and we have 500+ developers on board across their teams. Both figures come from our own records. Client tenure is the one to ask every provider for, since a relationship that long means the team got past its first year.
Frequently asked questions about building a remote engineering team
How long does it take to build a remote engineering team?
It depends more on seniority and location than on the provider. A mid-level role in a common stack fills faster than a senior lead in a rare one. Ask each provider how long similar roles took to fill recently.
Should the team be hired in one country or several?
One country, or at least one time zone band, is easier to run: shared holidays, shared hours and one set of labor rules. Spreading across countries makes sense when a rare skill only exists elsewhere, or when the client wants coverage across time zones.
What does the provider do once the team is in place?
In our case, we keep handling payroll, taxes, compliance, equipment and HR support for as long as the team runs. Priorities, code review and the rest of the daily work stay with the client.
How do remote engineers stay connected to the rest of the company?
Invite them to planning sessions and demos as well as standups, and give them the same documents and channels as everyone else. Engineers left out of decisions start to feel like contractors, and that tends to show up later as turnover.
Is a remote team cheaper than hiring locally?
In salary terms it often is, when the team sits in a region where engineering pay is lower than in the client’s home market. A fair comparison also counts the provider’s fee, the cost of slower feedback across time zones and the lead’s management time.
What’s the first sign a remote team isn’t working?
Pull requests that wait a day or more for review, and engineers who go quiet in planning meetings.