What does Technical Debt have to do with Staff Augmentation?
Innovation is an ongoing demand. We often feel like we're in a race to find the next "it software" or "it technology"... And suddenly we realize we're going in circles. It's very hard to break out of the routine.
In a nutshell: innovation requires creativity, analysis, and time. And we know that urgent projects aren't going away. Neither are the truly innovative projects - those that require specific technologies and professionals. Managing truly innovative IT projects is inversely proportional to the management workload. The result of this is the absolute lack of time and energy to even think about delighting stakeholders.
It's safe to say that nowadays, softwares fuels society. In business, this becomes even more evident: the study "Developer Velocity: How software excellence fuels business performance" created the Developer Velocity Index (DVI) metric, which managed to correlate software development speed with business results. In 2022, for example, this study showed that the cost of poor software quality in the US has risen to at least $2.41 trillion annually, while the accumulated technical debt of software has grown to approximately $1.52 trillion. The impact is enormous.
Well… Innovation is definitely not simple.
All of this leads us to the (unfortunately) well-known Technical Debt. According to data from The Growing Threat of Technical Debt, 69% of IT leaders interviewed consider technical debt a threat to innovation.
The cost of Technical Debt is high: it can represent up to 40% of the IT balance sheet, according to recent research by McKinsey & Company. Companies pay an additional 10% to 20% to deal with technical debt on top of the costs of any project. Approximately 30% of CIOs believe that more than 20% of their technical budget, ostensibly dedicated to new products, is diverted to solving technical debt-related issues.
Technical Debt is a recurring problem in agile methodologies - for both new and experienced development teams - as it is a project management-focused topic. It refers to the result of actions taken by development teams to speed up the delivery of a feature or project that needs to be refactored later. And as you probably already know, this doesn't mean the code was poorly written. It speaks to the result of prioritizing quick delivery over perfect code.
In IT, you can't sustain improvisations for long. If you have any "technical improvisation" that lasts for many years, it means you have a small product that hasn't scaled yet. It's very difficult (almost impossible) to sustain improvisations in scaled products/businesses.
The proper use of new technologies like code-generating AI-based tools and low-code platforms helps reduce this technical debt, motivating and encouraging companies to create applications more quickly, reducing the constant maintenance burden on their IT teams. Open source also plays a significant role in mitigating tech debt. But that's a topic for other posts.
Anyway…
To scale products, quality and specificity are needed. For this, it is necessary to hire talents tailored to your business needs. Attracting and retaining top-tier tech talent has always been a challenge, but in 2024, the competition for skilled professionals has definitely intensified.
There is technical debt. There are talent gaps. Perhaps you have strong front-end developers but no back-end developers. No matter where the gap is, an IT team augmentation vendor can identify external resources with knowledge and experience to complement your team.
Technology is made by people and for people. And the data shows that developing people in technology is a solution for technical debt:
76% of global employers have difficulty securing qualified IT and technology talent.
In the USA, 78% of the talent gap is in the IT industry.
A possible shortage of 85 million tech workers is projected.
77% of global employers face difficulties in attracting qualified talent.
78% of these are in the IT industry.
The US IT staffing market is projected to reach around $39 billion by 2024.
(Sources: ManPower Group Survey and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Forecast for 2030).
This dismal data underscores the growing importance and urgency of innovative solutions like IT staff augmentation to bridge the ever-widening talent gap in the tech industry.
Okay. But what now?
Staff augmentation is definitely a viable solution. And we'll tell you why:
Staff augmentation is an outsourcing model that provides temporary, specialized IT professionals to complement an organization’s existing workforce. Unlike project outsourcing, where a company hands over an entire project to an external vendor, staff augmentation allows companies to maintain full control over their teams while filling crucial skill gaps.
This model enables businesses to:
Increase development capacity without the long-term cost of hiring full-time employees.
Scale teams flexibly based on project needs.
Reduce dependency on external service providers while keeping in-house control.
Gain insights from experienced technology experts who bring fresh perspectives.
Enhance internal team mentoring by integrating senior professionals into ongoing projects.
The Cost and Efficiency Advantage
While managed IT services often come with higher costs and less flexibility, staff augmentation provides a cost-effective solution. Organizations only pay for the expertise they need, for as long as they need it, optimizing resources while ensuring high-quality project execution.
By leveraging IT staff augmentation, companies combat turnover, close skill gaps, and accelerate project timelines—all while maintaining agility in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
In an industry where software fuels business success, ensuring the right talent at the right time is crucial for mitigating technical debt and driving sustainable growth.