US founders search offshore developers for USA when local hiring stalls or burn rate spikes. The US market is still the most expensive place in the world to employ senior engineers. India is still the largest supply of English-speaking senior engineers. The match is obvious; the execution is where companies stumble.
Dedicated team vs staff aug vs dev shop
Dedicated offshore team: engineers work only on your product, employed by the vendor, sit in the vendor's office. You direct work. Best for 6+ month roadmaps.
Staff augmentation: you manage individuals embedded in your process. Flexible, higher coordination cost.
Dev shop: vendor owns delivery to a spec. Good for defined projects; weak when product evolves weekly.
Most YC-stage and Series A companies we work with want dedicated.
Money
US senior fully loaded $150K-$200K is common on the coasts. Dedicated seniors through our Gurgaon office often land $36K-$54K per year fully loaded in USD billing. Five US seniors might cost $900K; five offshore seniors might cost $200K. You feel that in runway.
Details: /countries/usa/.
Time zone reality
EST gets 3-5 hours overlap with a shifted Indian day. PST is tighter (3 hours) and needs async discipline. We are honest about PST on the USA page. Many West Coast clients still make it work with strong written culture.
IP and tax shape US founders care about
- Engineers sign work-for-hire and IP assignment
- Code in your GitHub org
- Vendor provides W-8BEN-E
- You pay a foreign B2B vendor; no US payroll for those engineers
Your counsel has seen this before.
Developers for USA searches
Some searches mean hire US citizens only. Others mean build product for a US company using offshore capacity. We target the second on /countries/usa/ without pretending we place US W-2 employees.
Red flags
- No interview before start
- Cannot explain attrition replacement
- Will not do background checks
- IP language missing from contracts
- No real office address
If you are comparing vendors
Ask for a reference call, a written proposal with per-role USD pricing, and a trial period with replacement terms. Then read /locations/gurgaon/ to see where the team actually sits.
