Best of Both Worlds: Staff Augmentation for Sports Tech Companies
Anyone who has watched the FX television show “The Bear” has inevitably become familiar with the jargon used around professional kitchens. One of the most common phrases viewers have picked up from the show was “I need hands,” which means hot food is waiting and ready to be served. In short, it means, “We need help!” Sports technology companies can find themselves in this position, too. Which is where staff augmentation services can come into play.
Progress on your software is going well—until a developer gets poached and a critical piece of your team is gone. Or your customers are asking for yet another system update, but your project queue is already painfully long.
There are all kinds of scenarios in the technology world where you’ll need more hands. Replacing those permanent hires takes time and doesn’t consider your project timelines. What’s a founder to do? There’s an answer for that: staff augmentation.
What Is Staff Augmentation?
“Freelance” is an adjective you see everywhere these days. Freelance marketer or Freelance developer or freelance gardener. Given the term’s origin from the early 19th century of a mercenary for hire, freelance paints a romantic picture of an individual who roams the countryside going from job to job. Freelancers make their way and living by their wits in a moment-to-moment life. Freelance is the micro-version of staff augmentation services.
Staff augmentation services, on a macro level, are defined by Toptal Research as the “use of outside personnel on a temporary basis to augment the capacity of your organization.” Staff augmentation is extremely popular nowadays.
The global staffing industry is estimated to have supported almost half a trillion dollars in annual spending in pre-pandemic times. Combined with roughly one-third of the US workforce having done freelance or gig work, you can expect that staff augmentation is here to stay — and grow.
Especially for more mature app development companies, staff augmentation makes a lot of sense to help scale up teams while developing new products on the fly. To best understand how to use staff augmentation, let’s review the different types and how they’ll work best with your organization.
Types of Staff Augmentation
- Commodity: This is “I need hands.” You need bodies who can do work but not much beyond that.
- Skill-based: This is, “I need someone who can do (fill-in-the-blank).“ You know what you need them to do, but it’s not specific to how skilled they need to be.
- Highly skilled: This is, “I need a project manager familiar with Agile methodologies, who is comfortable interfacing across teams with conflicting priorities.” You know exactly what needs you’re filling.
Common Use Cases for Staff Augmentation
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Address Software Engineer Demand Gap
Hiring is challenging and takes time and negotiation. When you need someone to fill a gap immediately, staff augmentation services for software engineers are a great option.
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Increase Capacity Related to a Deadline
There’s a feature you’ve mapped out with your team that won’t be ready for a deadline an executive team has set for you. You need extra hands who can help finish that feature. Staff augmentation services can help you meet the deadline.
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Hire for Specific Needs on Your Team
Your junior engineer has been able to cross off several simple tasks during the recent sprint. But more technical support is needed for future development projects. Bringing in a senior, full-stack developer can ensure less mistakes are made and the more complicated features can get done on time.
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Localized Subject Matter Expert Required
You could be an international company looking for specialized subject matter experts within a specific market. Instead of leasing local office space and hiring an entire management team to oversee the engineers, find a trusted partner to outsource to.
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Fill an Emergency Need
Oh no, one of your developers has quit! If you have an absolute and immediate need, staff augmentation services are a great way to fill that gap and keep things moving.
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Scale up a Certain Team
You’re getting a lot of customer feedback, but the tech team can’t keep up with the incoming tickets. Hire a few on-demand engineering resources for a short period to clear the queue. A great way to improve overall customer satisfaction.
Ready To Accelerate Your Product Development?
When building sports technology, you need help on all fronts. Sometimes, you need to sit down with someone and go over the whole strategy. Someone who you can talk everything out with, from idea to execution.
Other times, you know what you need. You need a developer who works in a specific framework or a subject matter expert familiar with gambling law in the U.S.. Sometimes, you need a flexible piece. Like extra hands who can respond to customer requests and maybe coordinate some insights about the product to share with the product team.
As you assess opportunities for staff augmentation services for your sports tech team, think of Locker Room Labs. We can meet your staff augmentation needs and services in the ways you prefer.
Want a partner who can help you skip the software engineer demand gap? We can do that. Or a partner to help you through a growing to-do list or specialize in a new market? We can do that too. We provide the additional development resources you need to achieve a new development deliverable.
If you need immediate, highly skilled software engineering resources for your sports technology business. Let’s talk.
