One client, full-time, several people, one lead on each side. You own the what and the why; the team's lead owns the how and the review; everything happens in your repository and your task board under accounts you control. That is the whole model.
It fits a product with a backlog that will not fit one developer and will not stand still long enough for a fixed scope. It does not fit a company with nobody to own the product, or a project that can be written down and handed over.
What a dedicated team is, and what it is not
A dedicated development team is a group from a provider assigned to one client's product and nothing else, full-time, for an open-ended period. It usually has two to eight people: developers across the stack, often a designer or a tester, and a lead on the provider's side who plans the sprint, assigns tasks, reviews code and reports to the client's product owner. The client sets priorities, accepts the work and owns the roadmap. Our dedicated developers page describes the roles: front-end and backend developers, WordPress and Shopify specialists, UI/UX designers, and a lead for a team of several.
It is not an outsourced project, because there is no fixed scope and the client directs the work. It is not a set of individual hourly contractors, because the team has its own lead and works as a unit. And it is not a managed service, because the deliverable is your product rather than a function at a service level; our guide to staff augmentation vs managed services draws that line.
Who is on the team, and who leads it
Two leads, one on each side, and a team sized to the backlog.
- Your product owner. Owns the roadmap, the priorities and acceptance. Decides what gets built and in what order, and answers the team's questions about the business.
- The team lead on the provider's side. Plans the sprint from the product owner's priorities, assigns tasks, reviews every pull request, runs the stand-up, and reports progress and risks. Owns the how.
- Developers. Front-end, backend or full-stack as the product needs, in the stack you run. For a team of several, a mix of seniority; for a team of two, two seniors.
- Designer and tester, as needed. A UI/UX designer when screens are being built, a tester when releases are frequent. They can be part-time members of the team.
- Your own developers, if any. They sit alongside the team in the same repository and review the same code; the model works best when the two groups are one team in practice.
How the work flows across the seam
The model succeeds or fails at the seam between the two leads, so write it down before the first sprint. A working pattern: the product owner keeps the backlog ordered and reachable; the team lead plans each sprint from the top of it and confirms the plan with the product owner; the team works in the client's repository, task board and chat; every change goes through a pull request reviewed by the team lead and, where the client wants it, one of the client's own developers; a daily stand-up at an agreed overlap hour; a demo and review at the end of each sprint, where the product owner accepts or sends back; and a written note of decisions.
Three rules keep the seam clean. Priorities change through the product owner, not by messages to individual developers. Technical decisions are proposed by the team lead and agreed with the client's technical owner, in writing where they are hard to reverse. And the team lead reports risks early, including when the backlog is too thin or too vague to plan from.
How a dedicated team is priced
A dedicated team is priced as a monthly rate per person, set by the role, the seniority, the overlap hours required and the length of the commitment, and including the provider's employment costs, cover and margin. There is no recruiting fee, no equipment cost and no idle time once the engagement ends. For the frame on what the people cost to employ directly, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook puts the median annual wage for software developers at $135,980 in May 2025, and projects employment to grow 10 percent from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all occupations, which is one reason hiring takes time.
We do not publish our rates; you see the rate for each role and the terms in writing before anyone starts. Our guide to software developer hourly rates sets out the public figures and what moves them, and our guide to in-house vs outsourced development compares the full cost of the three routes.
The safeguards
The same six safeguards as any augmentation, which our dedicated developers page lists, matter more when several people are involved:
- Your repository and your tools. The team works in your Git, your task board and your chat, under accounts you control and can switch off.
- Code that belongs to you. In the USA, a copyright transfer needs a signed writing under 17 U.S.C. 204, so the contract assigns the code to you; ask when the assignment takes effect.
- An NDA before access, on your template or the provider's.
- Agreed overlap hours during your working day, for stand-ups, questions and reviews, written into the contract.
- Cover when someone is away. If a developer is on leave or leaves the provider, a colleague who knows the project steps in, so the work does not stop; ask how the hand-over inside the team is done.
- A clear way to end it: notice on both sides, credentials and work in progress handed over, your data deleted from the provider's systems.
When the model fits, and when it does not
It fits when the backlog is too large for one developer and too changeable for a fixed scope; when you have a product owner who can keep the backlog ordered and answer questions; when the work will run for months or years and the team should keep the knowledge; and when you want one point of contact for planning and review rather than managing each developer yourself.
It does not fit when nobody on your side owns the product, because the team lead cannot invent priorities; when the work is a definable one-off, where a fixed-scope build puts the risk on the vendor; when the backlog is thin, where hourly or part-time work costs less; or when regulated data cannot be handled by non-employees or from outside the country. Check the last before you start.
How to start a dedicated team
Four steps, which our dedicated developers page describes from our side:
- Describe the product, the stack, the size of the backlog, the overlap hours you need and who the team reports to.
- Meet the lead and the first developers before signing, and ask the lead how they would run the first sprint from your backlog.
- Agree the terms in writing: roles and rates, overlap, the review process, the code assignment, the NDA, cover and notice.
- Start with two or three people and one sprint, in your tools, with a demo at the end; add people when the first sprint has shown that the seam works.
If you want a dedicated team from us
PromotEdge International is an international strategy, technology, marketing and design company, and our delivery team is in India. Our dedicated developers page covers the roles, the lead for a team of several and the safeguards, and our hire developers page covers the other ways to add people from our team. Agreed overlap hours cover your working day, and the code is assigned to you in writing.
Facts we rely on: see our company facts for what we state about ourselves and where each fact comes from.