Frequently asked questions

How do you recruit your developers?

All our developers go through our partners' eight step recruitment process, that includes technology, quality assurance, information security and efficiency tests. Ottia reviews each developers code quality and instructs our standards before working with customers. All our developers have a minimum of 5 years of experience.

How many developers do you have?

We have more than 70 software development partners mainly from Asia.

What programming languages you master?

We master all modern (and not so modern) programming languages and you can find a list with most of them on the bottom of the front page of our website.

Our work is focused mainly on the following tech:

  • Web site development (incl. Hubspot, WordPress, Webflow, Custom)
  • Mobile application development (incl. React Native, Flutter, Native)
  • Platform & Service development (incl. React, Node.js, PHP, NET
  • Web Application development (incl. Google Cloud, Salesforce, AWS, Azure)
  • Unit & Manual testing, App & service integrations

Read more about languages on our blog here, here and here

What is a virtual team extention?

Our team extension is an extended resource to your development team, that works virtually alongside your team whenever you need the support in your software development. You can switch freely between technology stacks within the chosen amount of hours, so you can get all the resources you need from one vendor. For example, you can easily replace recruiting with our team extension.

Read more in our blog

Can I communicate directly with the developer?

Our team lead is your first point of contact and handles onboarding, development process and code quality control. This is especially convenient when the number of developers rise, you get the development power of many developers but you don't have to worry about managing them.

Where do your developers come from?

Our developers are from Asia and they are professional developers (not freelancers) with a minimum of 5 years of experience. They are hand-picked from our global tech talent partners.

How do you guarantee code quality?

We have high code quality standards and follow industry best practices and guidelines. Our developers perform functional tests throughout the development process, and our team leads conduct unit and automated testing. For example, for PHP we use PHPUnit and for JavaScript we use JEST. We do testing as a service also, so if there's a testing method you would like us to use, please ask us.

Read more in our blog

Is Ottia a freelancer developer network?

No. We are not a freelancer network and we don't use freelancers in our work.

Why should I choose you and not hire my own software dev team?

We recommend a hybrid team of in-house developers and Ottia. The problem with recruiting is that it is often slow, good developers are hard to find and having a large in-house team will make your fixed costs very high.

Read more in our blog

Does Ottia introduce outsourced team members to my own in-house team?

No, we work as a flexible virtual team extension that does not require hiring or renting developers. We do like to adapt to the workflow of your inhouse team and communicate daily.

How to start

What does onboarding mean?

Onboarding is the process of preparing the project. Preparation includes reading technical documentation, drafting project specifications, setting up required systems and getting familiar with the existing codebase.

Read more in our blog

Is onboarding really free of charge?

Yes, it is. We are not a consulting company, so we have no hidden fees or overheads. You pay for coding only.

I have just one developer, can I work with you?

Yes, you can. Our way of working requires that there is technical knowhow in the client’s team. The headcount can be a thousand or one.

Can  I check a developer's resume?

We do the developer vetting process for you, so we don’t provide developer resumes for our clients. At the end of the day, delivering resumes really slows down the onboarding process and we like to operate fast and deliver high quality.

What tecnical tasks do you handle?

We can help you with almost anything with our expertise. Our recommendation is that you have your team work on the business logic that requires experience on the system and outsource front-end development, integrations and backlog tasks to us.

Read more in our blog

I have smaller backlog tasks that need to be done, can you help me?

Yes, we can. We don’t have a minimum order and onboarding is free of charge, so a big list of smaller tasks are just another day at the office for us.

Should I prepare the technical documentation before contacting you?

No, not necessarily. We can have a chat first and have an overview of the project.

Who is my first point of contact?

A team lead from our Nordic tech team will be your first point of contact from day one. We speak either English or Finnish with you.

How do you handle work estimations?

We work within the clients budget. We give a time estimation on each added task and communicate spent hours daily. This way there is no surprises waiting on the final invoice.

Process

Can you tell me more about how you work?

We kick-off projects with a technical meeting with your team lead which your first point of contact from NerdCloud will join also. After, we setup the Kanban board, you can add the first tasks and we give time estimations to the tasks. Meanwhile we onboard the developer(s) and prepare everything for the start.

Read more in our handbook

What if the first time estimation is not enough?

We always work within the clients budget. We give a time estimation on each added task and communicate spent hours daily. If the clients budget seems too small, we have a quick chat to get on the same page. This way there is no surprises waiting on the final invoice.

How can I be sure you work on my project as much as you declare?

We monitor the development process in real time through our systems. We are 100% transparent about estimations, development tasks and efficiency. We are doing our job right if we are at least as fast as our clients tech team.

How fast can my team be scaled up?

The modern, more common tech stacks are easily scaled. We can scale your team from 1 developer to five developers in a week. For more exotic languages, ask more from your technical expert.

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