Hiring a dedicated developer from India is a common way to add capacity without a long local hiring process. When it works, you get a full-time developer who uses your tools, joins your standups and stays for years. When it doesn’t, you get vanishing hours, slow replies and code someone has to rewrite.
We’ve been building software from Ahmedabad since 2015 and regularly place developers on clients’ teams. What follows is what we tell people to check, whoever they end up hiring.
Choose the engagement model first
A dedicated developer works full time on your product, in your tools, and suits ongoing product work. Part-time or hourly suits a defined backlog or maintenance. A small team, developers plus a lead who plans the work and reviews code, makes sense when you don’t have a technical lead of your own.
For dedicated hiring we guarantee 160 hours a month. Whoever you work with, ask exactly how hours are guaranteed and how you’ll see them.
Make the time difference work for you
India is 9.5 to 10.5 hours ahead of New York and 4.5 to 5.5 hours ahead of London, depending on daylight saving. For UK and European teams a normal Indian working day already overlaps most of yours. US teams should ask for shifted hours so there’s a solid block of overlap each day for standups and questions. Our standard day is 9:00 am to 7:00 pm IST, and we shift it for US clients.
Handled well, the gap is useful: work you hand over in the evening can be done by your morning.
Interview the developer, not the salesperson
Insist on speaking to the actual developer who’ll work with you. Ask about your stack and how they’d approach a real task from your backlog. Pay attention to written and spoken English, because most of the job is communication. And ask who reviews their code, and who steps in when they’re ill or on holiday. Each of our hire pages lists the vetting questions we use, for example for Python developers.
Protect your code and IP
Sign an NDA before you share the codebase, and make sure the contract says outright that you own the code and IP. Keep the code in your own repositories and cloud accounts, never the vendor’s. And ask whether the developer is an employee or a freelancer the vendor has subcontracted; it changes who’s accountable. All of ours are full-time Widle employees.
Ask for a trial and an easy way out
A partner who’s confident in their people will let you try before you commit. We offer a two-week trial, a free replacement if the developer isn’t the right fit, and no minimum term. Be wary of long lock-in contracts or big upfront commitments before you’ve seen a line of code.
Set up the first month properly
Give access to the repository, task board, chat and documentation on day one; a developer waiting three days for access starts on the wrong foot. Agree how work is tracked (we use Jira for tasks and Hubstaff for billable hours, with daily or weekly reports by email). Start with small, well-defined tasks and widen the scope as trust builds. Then hold an honest review at the end of week two, which is when our trial ends.
Day-to-day communication
Most remote-developer problems are communication problems, not technical ones. The developers who work out best behave like part of your team: they’re in your chat, post a short update at the end of each day, ask questions early rather than guessing, and flag risks before a deadline instead of on it.
Help them by keeping one chat channel and one task board, a weekly call to review priorities, and decisions written down so nothing depends on someone’s memory across time zones.
Red flags
You can’t speak to the developer before hiring. Hours and progress aren’t visible to you. The code lives in the vendor’s accounts. Or every answer is “yes, no problem”, with no questions back about your project. Good developers ask questions.
Questions we often hear
How quickly can a developer start?
With us, usually within one to two weeks of your enquiry.
Can we interview developers before hiring?
Yes. You interview them and choose the developer yourself.
What seniority levels are available?
Junior, mid-level and senior developers, or a lead who plans the work and reviews code.
