Hiring software engineers today can feel more complex and time-consuming than ever. High salaries, long recruitment cycles, and brutal retention battles have made it harder than ever for startups and growing product teams to hire internally without slowing down. That is why more and more companies are shifting to dedicated software development teams.
If you are still weighing whether to build in-house or work with a dedicated team, this post will help you see what the fastest-moving companies already know: in 2025, speed, focus, and flexibility win.
A dedicated software development team is exactly what it sounds like: a full-time team that works exclusively on your product, but is not hired as in-house employees. Typically assembled through a partner like Bertoni Solutions, these teams function as a remote extension of your company. Same tools, same rituals, full alignment with your internal goals.
They are not freelancers. They are not temporary contractors juggling multiple clients. They are your team, just based elsewhere, often nearshore in regions like Latin America or Eastern Europe.
The key difference is in how they are built: rather than spending months recruiting, onboarding, and managing HR, you get a ready-to-run team tailored to your stack, your workflow, and your roadmap.
Hiring and retaining great engineers is a priority for every growing company and many teams are doing everything they can to build strong, local, in-house talent. But even with the best efforts, it is not always easy. Today’s hiring landscape is more competitive than ever, and the path from job post to productive developer can be longer and more costly than expected.
Let’s look at the reality: hiring a mid-to-senior software engineer in the U.S. now takes an average of 45–60 days, not counting the time needed for onboarding and initial ramp-up. According to the 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, over 60% of developers say they’re open to new jobs, yet ghosting, offer declines, and counter-offers are at an all-time high.
And then there is cost. In the U.S., average total compensation for a senior engineer has climbed past $180,000 annually. Add health benefits, equity, recruitment fees, and internal HR time, and the total cost is even higher.
That’s just for one hire. If you need an entire product squad, the timelines and cost multiply, and the risk of attrition only grows.
Because of this, more companies are exploring dedicated software development teams as a way to move faster, reduce early-stage risk, and free up internal bandwidth when momentum matters most.
Speed-to-build is often talked about, but speed-to-start is just as critical. With dedicated software development teams, you can often go from kickoff to sprint planning in a matter of weeks. These teams are already assembled, already aligned on process, and often already trained in your preferred stack or tooling.
Compare that to the traditional hiring cycle. Waiting three months for an in-house backend hire means three months of delayed architecture, postponed feature delivery, and developer burnout as existing staff pick up the slack.
When startups say their dedicated team saved their launch timeline, they are not exaggerating; it is the difference between momentum and stagnation. Bertoni helps teams bypass that drag entirely, giving you access to curated engineers and ready-to-launch squads who can step in and start contributing immediately.
One of the hidden benefits of working with dedicated software development teams is how much hiring friction they remove. Finding a great DevOps engineer or a frontend lead with React and AI experience is not just a hiring task; it is often a business bottleneck.
Providers who specialize in dedicated teams usually have pre-vetted talent on standby across multiple roles. They’ve done the interviews, the code challenges, and the culture checks, so you don’t have to.
This doesn’t mean you skip vetting entirely, but it does mean you skip the 3-month sourcing cycle. You meet the candidates who have already passed the bar.
The problem with hiring in-house is that it assumes static needs. But product teams don’t work like that. You might need two full-time engineers for six months, then shift to one maintainer while other areas grow. Or you may need to spin up a QA and DevOps pair for a new launch, then sunset those roles when the work is done.
With dedicated software development teams, you can scale resources up or down based on your roadmap, not on internal headcount pressure. This flexibility helps you stay lean, avoid layoffs, and match talent spend to real business milestones.
In 2025, burn rate matters more than ever. And dedicated teams help you avoid unnecessary bloat.
A common concern about working with remote teams is communication. But the truth is, collaboration problems usually come from unclear roles, scattered specs, or poor planning, not time zones.
With tools like Linear, Jira, Slack, and Notion, distributed teams now collaborate more smoothly than many colocated ones. In fact, asynchronous collaboration often leads to better documentation, cleaner specs, and fewer meetings.
And when you work with nearshore teams like those in Latin America, you’re often working in overlapping time zones with your U.S. team. That means real-time standups, fast feedback loops, and less delay when product priorities shift.
The best dedicated software development teams feel like they’re just a Slack ping away, because they are. Our clients routinely tell us that their dedicated teams collaborate more effectively than past in-house hires, thanks to clearer scope, tighter ownership, and stronger delivery discipline.
Cost savings are real. A full-stack developer based in LATAM or Eastern Europe can cost 40–60% less than their U.S. equivalent, even with the same experience level. But the real win isn’t just the dollar figure, it’s what you get for the price.
Dedicated teams give you focus. You don’t manage HR. You don’t handle payroll. You don’t lose sleep over churn. Instead, you focus on building the product while your partner handles delivery and staffing.
You also get continuity. Unlike freelance networks or one-off contractors, dedicated software development teams are structured to stay with you long-term. They grow with your product, absorb your tech stack, and share in your roadmap.
For most startups, that continuity is the difference between launching on time and getting buried in rewrites.
In-house hiring isn’t wrong, but it’s often misaligned with how fast modern teams need to move. If you’re scaling a product, chasing funding, or trying to hit key delivery milestones in the next six months, the real question isn’t whether to build internally. It’s whether a dedicated team can help you move faster while still building your long-term goals.
Dedicated software development teams give you the power to start faster, move smarter, and adapt without friction. They remove the talent bottleneck so your core team can focus on strategy, not staffing.
If you’re ready to move faster, hire better, and build without the chaos, we can help you get there. Talk to us today about assembling your dedicated team.