Industry: Automotive software
Team size: 28
HQ Location: California, US
Offshore Team Location: Poland
Seniority: Senior / Principal
Support: Recruitment, Onboarding, Operations
“The plan was to build a team of 10 developers and see where to go from there, we are at the point of 28 and still growing.” – Alison Lam, Head of Operations at Sonatus.
Sonatus is accelerating vehicle software innovation and the transition towards software-defined vehicles. Their platforms and products serve as the key building blocks that allow automotive companies and their ecosystem to innovate faster and deliver continuous improvements in costs, capabilities, reliability, and user experience over the vehicle’s lifespan.
Due to the industry’s fast-paced changes and the growing remote work format, Sonatus was looking to build a flexible offshore engineering team that could quickly scale and adjust to the company’s evolving needs. As a leader in automotive innovations, they needed at least 10 senior-level talents with the relevant domain expertise to start with. After over two years of cooperation with Sunvery, the offshore team now unites 28 tech talents and keeps growing, with Sunvery handling all the operational and hiring chores.
Building an Offshore Team: Recruitment and operations challenges
Aiming to meet its rapid growth with human resource potential, Sonatus sought to hire an offshore team in Eastern Europe, as this region is known for qualified tech talents and affordable rates. The company had no recruiting experience in this location and needed operational support with a team buy-out possibility. Besides, as an automotive software provider, Sonatus required tech talents with narrow expertise and a high level of seniority, which made building a team fast even more challenging.
Why Sunvery: Efficient remote team staffing and management
Since Sonatus lacked the expertise and recruitment database in the local market and wanted someone to manage remote team onboarding and operational support, they sought a partner with IT outstaffing services. That’s how they partnered with Sunvery, a global recruitment and staffing agency that offers team extension with a unique 300,000 talent pool, ensuring your team is built and ready at a lightning-fast pace.
The IT outstaffing package by Sunvery is more comprehensive than standard recruitment — the agency takes care of payroll, equipment, contractor agreements, and other legal & tax-related requirements, allowing clients to stay 100% compliant with both local and HQ regulations. Considering the complicated nature of B2B contracts and related ABC tests, this is a risk-free solution that ensures predictability and continuity of engagement.
“Equipment, accounting, and legal support is a great additional layer to recruitment, which was the initial reason why we partnered with Sunvery.” – Scarlet Aid, Head of HR at Sonatus.
With the IT augmentation service, Sonatus was looking to form a senior-level engineering team and gain some other benefits Sunvery offers:
- Quick staffing speed. Sunvery arranged the first interview 2 days after the intake meeting, and the first three engineers were hired during the first month.
- Cost-efficiency. Outstaffing allowed Sonatus to achieve 35% lower salaries than in the US market.
- Access to top talents globally. The offshore team comprises senior engineers with automotive expertise who are truly rare.
- Transparent pricing model. Outstaffing charges are clear, and Sonatus knows exactly how much every developer makes, which also guarantees the company pays for the level of engineering skills it gets.
- Flexibility. Sunvery readily accommodates a multitude of geo-markets and team support services, including office space and hardware needs or screening & hiring candidates at multiple locations at once.
- No administrative and taxing chores. Sunvery provides Employer of Record services, covering accounting, taxes, payroll, and other administrative processes.
- Buy-out possibility. Sonatus can buy out the remote team once ready to handle operational support in the long run.
“Even though we see no reason to execute the buy-out option in the nearest future, it is good to know that we can transfer the ownership of the team that has all the product knowledge and expertise, for now, it is easier to pay one invoice per month and let Sunvery take care of the rest.” – Simon Wu, Head of Finance at Sonatus.
Approach: How Sunvery has gathered an offshore team for Sonatus and grew it to 28 senior-level engineers
At the start of the cooperation, Sunvery carefully analyzed Sonatus request for team extension services to ensure this recruitment model was the best fit for the company. The agency gathered the requirements for tech skills, industry expertise, and seniority of candidates to develop an optimum recruitment approach to get such talents.
Sonatus was first looking to build an offshore team of 10 tech talents, including embedded, AQA, system, cloud, front-end, back-end, and DevOps engineers. Sunvery made the process straightforward for the client with regular weekly updates and a clear recruitment funnel. The recruitment team started with careful talent selection to supply only relevant candidates, which allowed them to arrange the first interview in two days and hire three senior engineers during the first month.
“Great recruitment process – a couple of prevetted candidates lined up at any given point in time.” – Yu Fang, CTO at Sonatus.
The outstaffing service ensures transparent charges while sparing Sonatus from figuring out local labor laws and PTO. Sunvery provides one monthly invoice for the whole team, including each developer’s take-home salary and operational support costs.
Thanks to Sunvery’s substantial human resource experience, the attrition rate is as low as 5%. As a result, the remote team retains the obtained knowledge of the project, which ensures faster development and better quality of work.
So far, the offshore team built and operated by Sunvery for Sonatus has reached 28 engineers. The offshore team keeps growing and welcoming more tech talents to meet the demand.
Outcome
- An offshore team of 28 senior-level engineers and growing
- 2 days to interview the first candidate
- 35% lower salaries compared to the US market
- 5% attrition rate vs 20% industry average for IT outsourcing companies
- 100% risk-free contracting approach with all team operations and national & international regulations handled as a part of the package.