Running a small or even a medium-sized business in Australia means competing for software developers against enterprise recruiting locally and international companies recruiting remote workers. Both can offer compensation packages that are hard to match.
Then there’s traditional recruitment. It takes too long and costs too much. The hiring cycle runs for months as you post jobs, screen resumes, run interviews, and negotiate salaries.
The costs pile up beyond job ads and agency fees. Your HR team and tech leads spend hours reviewing applications and interviewing candidates instead of working on your business.
The competition for talent combined with the stress of recruiting stretches out development cycles and puts pressure on your existing team. Your business needs a different approach to finding and keeping developers.
The Global Competition For Tech Talent
Remote work has made competition for developers global. International companies and large enterprises offer compensation packages well above what you can match. These companies use remote work to build teams in regions with lower costs while maintaining high salaries for key positions.
The shortage of developers in Australia makes this worse. There are more development roles than there are developers to fill them. This leaves you choosing between waiting for the right candidate or paying above market rates to compete with bigger companies.
The costs of recruitment become clear when you look at the numbers. Research shows Australian businesses spend around $23,000 per role on hiring, with the process taking 33-40 days to complete. When you need multiple developers, these costs multiply while your projects stay on hold.
This creates a cycle where recruitment costs eat into the budget you could use to offer competitive salaries. Meanwhile your existing developers take on additional work or spend time interviewing candidates instead of shipping features.
The Hidden Costs Of Traditional Hiring
The costs of traditional hiring go beyond recruitment. Each developer needs office space, a workstation, and equipment. These infrastructure costs take capital away from core business needs.
Developer salaries keep rising, and this impacts the broader economy. Add in the resources needed for management and training, and the total cost of building a development team becomes a major challenge.
What you need is a different approach to building development teams.
A different approach to team building
Team extension services let you skip traditional recruitment by giving you direct access to remote developers. These developers work from the team provider’s office using their equipment and infrastructure.
The team provider also handles management, training and supervision of the developers. This removes the overhead costs that make traditional recruitment expensive for SMBs and the risks of using random freelancers. It also means you can get developers working on your projects in days rather than months.
The Speed And Cost Benefits Of Team Extension
Team extension services cut through recruitment delays. The speed of team extension lets you respond to market changes faster. You can tailor your team to budget and purpose. You can start new projects sooner and get features to market quicker than waiting for traditional recruitment to deliver results.
Team extension also gives you access to developers at rates below the Australian market. Enterprise competition has pushed local developer salaries beyond what most SMEs can afford. By using a team extension, you get skilled developers that match your budget instead of the local market.
Moving management, training and supervision to the provider also frees up your internal resources. Your teams can focus on building products and serving customers instead of supporting new developers. This keeps your business moving forward while maintaining development capability.
The Management And Support Advantage
Team extension moves the management burden off your business. Traditional hiring requires you to handle HR processes, admin work, and career development. The provider takes on all these responsibilities. They handle recruitment, onboarding, reviews and training to keep developers’ skills current.
This management support works for companies that need specialists for specific projects like migrations or app rewrites. The provider maintains training programs that match developers to your technical requirements while handling the HR overhead.
Moving these responsibilities to the provider lets your internal teams focus on your business goals. Your tech leads spend their time building instead of managing recruitment and training processes.
Moving Forward With Team Extension
The numbers tell the story. Research shows Australian businesses spend around $23,000 per role on hiring, with the process taking 33-40 days to complete. Add workspace, equipment, and competitive salaries, and traditional recruitment becomes unsustainable for SMBs.
Software development team extension solves these problems. It puts skilled developers on your team immediately, bypassing recruitment cycles. The provider covers workspace and equipment costs while offering rates below the Australian market. Your internal teams stay focused on building products instead of managing HR processes.
This isn’t just about streamlining recruitment. A team extension changes how you build development capability and provides a clear path to scaling your development team (up and down) while maintaining control over costs.
Making The Smart Choice For Your Development Team
Traditional recruitment is broken for Australian SMEs. The global competition for developers, rising salary expectations, and infrastructure costs make it increasingly difficult to build and maintain development teams. Team extension services flip this equation by handling workspace, equipment, management and training while giving you immediate access to skilled developers at competitive rates. It’s a practical solution that lets you focus on building products instead of managing recruitment processes.
If you’re struggling with development team recruitment and the costs are impacting your ability to grow, it’s time to look at team extension as an alternative. The speed of implementation and reduction in overhead costs make it worth investigating. Take the time to research providers who understand the Australian market and can demonstrate a track record of successful team extension partnerships. Your business’s ability to compete may depend on it.
