The most overrated thing in software: a big in-house IT team
Headcount feels like control. Often it is just fixed cost with a slower feedback loop attached — and the wrong shape for work that comes in waves.
Nobody sets out to build a slow IT department. It happens because software work arrives unevenly and headcount does not: you hire for the peak, and then the peak passes and the team stays.
What the fixed cost actually buys
A permanent engineer is a twelve-month commitment paid for a workload that fluctuates monthly, plus recruitment, plus onboarding, plus the management layer that appears once the team passes about six people. None of that is waste in a company whose product is software. In a company whose product is something else, most of it is.
When in-house is clearly right
Two cases, and we say so to prospects regularly. If the software is your product and the domain knowledge is your moat, own it. And if you need someone in the building every day, physically alongside operations, hire that person.
When a dedicated remote team wins
The honest framing is not outsourced versus in-house. It is which parts of your software need to be permanent, and which need to be good and then finished.
What would it cost either way?
Price a dedicated team in the estimator and compare it against a job posting, a recruiter fee and a six-month ramp.
Get an estimate →