IT staff augmentation that reads as a direct hire Senior engineers in your sprint in one to two weeks
IT staff augmentation is a co-sourcing model where you add pre-vetted external engineers directly to your own team while keeping full control of the roadmap, the architecture and the repository. InApps recruits, employs and supports them in Ho Chi Minh City. They report to your engineering manager, work in your tools, and follow your definition of done.
Trusted by engineering teams across 15+ countries - from startups to Fortune 500.
Hiring one senior engineer takes a quarter
your roadmap does not wait
Six failure modes we hear on almost every first call - and the six that staff augmentation exists to remove.
Three to four months from open req to first commit, while the backlog grows and your core team absorbs the overflow.
An agency sends whoever is on the bench this month, and you find out what they can actually build in sprint three.
No way to test a contractor's real skill level before they start - the CV says senior and the pull requests say otherwise.
Six weeks of ramp-up on a six-month engagement. A quarter of the contract spent learning the codebase.
English that holds up in the interview and not in a design review, turning every clarification into a day of sprint friction.
A twelve-month minimum term signed against a roadmap that gets rewritten every quarter.
What IT staff augmentation actually is
and how it differs from outsourcing
Need two more senior engineers by next sprint?
Engineers on your org chart, not on ours
Staff augmentation adds individual engineers to a team you already run. They join your standups, your repository and your sprint board, and they take direction from your engineering manager. On the org chart they look exactly like everyone else.
That is the line between augmentation and outsourcing. Outsourcing hands a scope to a vendor who manages delivery against milestones. Augmentation hands you people and leaves the architecture, the methodology and the daily priorities where they already are - with you. We carry recruiting, employment, payroll and Vietnamese compliance so you carry none of it.
What stays with you
Everything that decides what gets built.
- Roadmap, backlog and sprint priorities
- Architecture and technical decisions
- Code review, merge rights and the repository
- Day-to-day direction and feedback
- Ownership of the code from the first commit
What InApps carries
Everything that would otherwise be a local entity.
- Sourcing, four-stage vetting and shortlisting
- Employment, payroll and Vietnamese labour compliance
- Equipment, workspace and ISO 27001:2022 controls
- Retention, replacement and escalation
- Performance check-ins every four weeks
Staff augmentation, dedicated team, or your own center
Three ways to add engineers in Vietnam
The choice turns on two things: how many engineers you need, and who you want managing them day to day. Staff augmentation is the right answer when the number is small and the manager is you.
| Criterion | Staff Augmentation | Dedicated Team | Offshore Dev Center |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical size | 1–2 engineers | 3–8 engineers | Multiple squads |
| Who manages them daily | Your engineering manager | Your lead, with a delivery lead from us | We operate it, you set technical direction |
| What you are buying | Named individuals on your team | A standing squad on your product | A branded center with its own HR |
| Best when | You have a specific skill gap | You have a product line to own | You want a lasting capability in Vietnam |
| Time to first commit | 1–2 weeks | 4–6 weeks | 4–6 weeks |
| Commercial model | Monthly, per engineer | Monthly retainer | Monthly retainer plus setup |
| Who owns the code | You, from the first commit | You, from the first commit | You, from the first commit |
Need three or more engineers working as one unit? The offshore development center gives you more structure for the same people - and we will tell you so on the first call.
Proof, not promises
Ten years of placements, condensed into four numbers we are happy to have audited.
Four reasons teams pick us
and one reason they stay
Pick a reason to see what it actually looks like.
Nobody joins your team without your yes, and a no costs you nothing.
An engagement manager handles HR and team health, not your technical direction.
Sourced from a pool that is already vetted, which is why it is days and not months.
Four stages, plus your own interview. 92% are still on the same team a year later.
Augment, hire, or call an agency
Here is the honest comparison
| Criterion | InApps | In-house hire | Other vendors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to first commit | 1–2 weeks | 3–4 months to hire | 4–8 weeks, bench-heavy |
| Technical vetting | Four stages, top 3% of applicants | Your own process | Generic CV screening |
| Stack match | Matched to your stack before you see a profile | Yours to control | Whoever is on the bench |
| Who they report to | Your engineering manager | Your engineering manager | Often a vendor-side manager |
| If the fit is wrong | 30-day guarantee, replaced at our cost | A performance process and a re-hire | Rarely guaranteed |
| Cost of overhead | No recruitment fee, no bench charge | Salary plus employer overhead | Variable, often undisclosed |
| Changing your mind | Scale either way on two weeks' notice | Rigid headcount process | Often a 12-month minimum |
Everything in one engagement
Matching, onboarding, management, protection
Four things happen around every placement. You pay for none of them separately, and three of them are the reason a placement takes days rather than a quarter.
Engineer matching
We take the role and skills brief within 24 hours and put two to three matched profiles in front of you in two to three days. Stack fit and communication are both assessed before a CV reaches you - and you interview and select before any offer goes out.
Fast onboarding
Contract signed and tool access provisioned in week one, codebase and architecture walkthrough inside the first three days, first tasks assigned by the end of week one. An account manager stays on hand for any friction during ramp-up.
Ongoing management
HR, payroll and Vietnamese labour compliance sit with us, not with you. Performance check-ins every four weeks, an escalation path that does not route through sales, and scaling either way on two weeks' notice.
Risk protection
A 30-day replacement guarantee at no cost, with the replacement sourced and ready in five to seven business days so your timeline does not move. Exit on two weeks' notice after the initial term.
Who is on your team
Named people, not a pool
Every engineer placed through InApps is a named individual, vetted for your stack and matched to your team context before you ever see a profile. Nobody is rotated out for a higher-paying account.
Your placed engineers
Embedded in your team from day one. Your tools, your processes, your standups. They report to your tech lead, not to an InApps project manager.
Your tech lead unchanged
The part that does not move. Task assignment, code review and technical direction stay exactly where they are today.
Account manager
Your InApps point of contact for performance, escalations and scaling requests. Deliberately outside your technical chain of command.
-
Growing past five
Individual placements start at one engineer. Once three or more work together as a unit, a dedicated center gives you better structure for the same headcount.
Roles and tech stacks we augment
matched to your stack before you see a profile
If a stack is not on this list, ask. We will tell you honestly whether we can staff it well or whether you are better served somewhere else.
Frontend
Engineers who have shipped a design system, not just consumed one.
Mobile
Cross-platform or native, with store submission experience behind them.
Backend & APIs
Services and integrations, in whichever of these your codebase already speaks.
Cloud & DevOps
The people you call at 3am, and the pipelines that mean you do not have to.
Data & platform
Schema design, query performance and the event layer underneath both.
AI & LLM
Retrieval, evaluation and orchestration. Production AI, not notebook demos.
Those are the stacks. These are the seats we fill in them - at mid, senior or lead level:
Four stages before anyone touches your codebase
Three per cent get through
Live coding & system design
- Real-world coding challenge
- System design interview
- Code quality and problem solving
Communication & English
- Technical communication
- Client-facing scenario
- Written and spoken English
Agile collaboration & ownership
- Agile mindset and teamwork
- Ownership and accountability
- Adaptability and growth mindset
Final review & reference check
- Technical panel interview
- Reference and background check
- Culture and values alignment
From role brief to first pull request
Two weeks, not two quarters
Requirements brief
One call. What the role has to do, at what seniority, in what stack, alongside whom.
Candidate matching
We shortlist from an already-vetted pool, you interview. Nobody joins without your yes.
Onboarding
Your codebase, your tools, your rituals - with first pull requests inside the fortnight.
Engagement
They run in your cadence. We stay responsible for everything on the employer side.
IT staff augmentation rates by region
Published benchmarks, not our price list
We do not publish a rate card, because the honest number depends on the role, the seniority and how long you need it. What we can give you is the market. These are 2026 hourly ranges compiled from three published rate surveys, so you can sanity-check any quote you receive - including ours.
| Role (senior) | North America | Eastern Europe | Vietnam / SE Asia |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-stack engineer | $120–200 / hr | $45–75 / hr | $30–50 / hr |
| DevOps / cloud engineer | $130–200 / hr | $50–85 / hr | $35–55 / hr |
| AI / ML engineer | $140–220 / hr | $60–95 / hr | $40–65 / hr |
| QA automation engineer | $85–140 / hr | $35–60 / hr | $22–40 / hr |
Estimate a team at benchmark rates
Pick a role and a headcount. The figures are the market bands in the table above, at 160 hours a month.
Around 75% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $230,400 a year at these midpoints.Around 75% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $460,800 a year at these midpoints.Around 75% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $691,200 a year at these midpoints.Around 75% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $921,600 a year at these midpoints.Around 75% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $1,152,000 a year at these midpoints.Around 73% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $230,400 a year at these midpoints.Around 73% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $460,800 a year at these midpoints.Around 73% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $691,200 a year at these midpoints.Around 73% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $921,600 a year at these midpoints.Around 73% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $1,152,000 a year at these midpoints.Around 71% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $244,800 a year at these midpoints.Around 71% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $489,600 a year at these midpoints.Around 71% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $734,400 a year at these midpoints.Around 71% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $979,200 a year at these midpoints.Around 71% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $1,224,000 a year at these midpoints.Around 72% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $156,480 a year at these midpoints.Around 72% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $312,960 a year at these midpoints.Around 72% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $469,440 a year at these midpoints.Around 72% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $625,920 a year at these midpoints.Around 72% below the North American benchmark — a gap of roughly $782,400 a year at these midpoints.
Market benchmark range, not an InApps quote. Figures are third-party 2026 survey data for the region, not our rates, and they exclude anything specific to your engagement. Ask for a written quote and you will get a real number for your actual roles.
Benchmark sources
- Aalpha — Offshore Software Development Rates by Country & Region 2026
- MarsDevs — Global Developer Rates 2026: Costs by Country, Role, Seniority
- FullStack Labs — 2026 Software Development Price Guide & Hourly Rate Comparison
Ranges are a conservative synthesis: where the three sources disagreed we took the wider span rather than the flattering end. Compiled August 2026.
Results, with names attached
not a rounded-up industry average
Results, by engagement model
starting with augmentation
Prudential · ODC Model
Insurance operations platform
Prudential needed engineering scale across multiple markets, but could not absorb the overhead of local recruitment in a regulated environment. We built a compliant, multi-squad offshore engineering center for one of South-East Asia's largest insurance groups - faster product delivery without the cost and risk of direct hiring.
Two Raw Sisters · Dedicated Team
Food & wellness app takeover
TRS needed the broken app fixed. Their previous team had left unresolved critical bugs and an active user base already hitting failures. We took over a critically underperforming food and wellness app from a failed vendor and rebuilt it into a scalable ongoing product.
Citizen Debt Services · Staff Augmentation
AI-integrated fintech platform
CDS needed senior talent fast, with English fluency and AI capability to contribute from week one. We reinforced a Vietnam-based team with AI-native offshore engineers on full timezone overlap, closing skill gaps without slowing an active development roadmap.
Artixo · Fixed-Price Model
AI drawing tutorial app
Artixo needed a vendor who could own the full scope without scope creep or budget surprises. We designed and delivered a custom AI-powered drawing tutorial app for proprietary Android tablets.
Ask the people who stayed
not the ones we picked
Every quote below is from a verified review. None of them were written by us.
“Clear expectations, rules that actually hold, delivered on time. And the people are genuinely easy to work with, not just professionally, but as humans.”
Whose code is it, and who can see it?
Answered before anyone gets a repository invite
Two questions decide most security reviews: what stops your source leaving, and what happens to ownership if the engagement ends badly. Here are both answers, in the order legal will ask them.
IP is yours from the first commit
Everything written for you is assigned to you under the engagement agreement. No milestone and no final payment gates the transfer, the work lives in your repository under your access control throughout, and nothing is retained or reused on another account.
ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified
A certified information security management system audited against the 2022 revision, not a self-attestation. It covers the office, the devices and the network, and carries the access control, logging and incident response the standard requires.
NDA before repository access
A bi-directional NDA is signed before anyone gets an invite, and every placed engineer clears background and reference checks. Confidentiality is carried in their employment contract, and access is provisioned by you and revoked by you.
GDPR for EU and UK work
Personal data is handled to GDPR requirements, with data processing terms agreed before onboarding. Access is limited to what the role actually needs, and residency and retention are agreed per engagement rather than assumed.
Worth having the call
or worth a no, early
Augmentation is the wrong shape for plenty of good projects. Here is where it works and where we will point you somewhere else.
This works well if
- You need one to five engineers for a specific skill gap, not a full team build.
- You already have an engineering manager and a process you want people to slot into.
- You want to cut hiring cost and time without adding management work.
- You need someone contributing in weeks rather than months.
This is not a fit if
- You want three or more engineers running as one unit. A dedicated center gives you better structure for the same headcount, and we will say so.
- You have nobody to direct them. Augmentation adds hands, not management - if you need the management too, ask about the dedicated model.
- You have a fixed scope and want it handed back finished. That is our fixed-price model, not this one.
- You need working hours that sit entirely in US Pacific time. Ho Chi Minh City is GMT+7 and the honest overlap is narrow.
Answered without
the hedging
Still deciding?
Send us the roles you cannot fill locally and we will tell you honestly whether augmentation is the right shape for them - including when it is not.
Book a Discovery CallWhat is IT staff augmentation?
How quickly can an engineer join our team?
Who manages the engineers day to day?
How do you ensure engineers are actually senior-level?
What happens if an engineer is not a good fit?
Who owns the code the engineer writes?
How do you handle IP protection and NDAs?
Can engineers work in our time zone?
What are the contract terms?
How much does IT staff augmentation cost?
Tell us the role and the stack
No pitch, no obligation. We will come back with matched profiles, a start date and a cost range - and tell you plainly if augmentation is the wrong shape for what you are trying to do.