IT staff augmentation in India
Staff augmentation means adding engineers to your own team, under your own management, for as long as you need them. HookStep supplies India-based engineers on that basis, on contract or contract-to-hire, remote or on-site in India.
What staff augmentation is, and is not
With staff augmentation you keep control of the work: the engineer attends your stand-ups, uses your tools and follows your priorities. That is different from outsourcing a project to an agency that delivers a finished product, and different from managed services, where the provider owns an outcome such as keeping a system running.
It suits teams that already have engineering leadership and need more hands with specific skills, faster than a permanent hiring cycle allows.
Skills we supply
- AI and GenAI: LLM applications, RAG, agentic workflows, evals, MLOps.
- Data engineering: Spark, Databricks, Snowflake, Kafka, Airflow, dbt, BigQuery, Azure Data Factory, SQL.
- Full stack, backend and frontend: React, Angular, Next.js, Node.js, Python, Java, .NET, Go.
- Cloud and DevOps: AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, CI/CD, SRE.
- QA: manual and automated testing with Selenium, Playwright, Cypress and Appium, API and performance testing.
- Enterprise platforms: Salesforce and ServiceNow.
What happens after you share a role
- You send the brief: stack, seniority, time zone overlap, budget and engagement type.
- We match it against engineers we already know and source for the gaps, instead of pretending someone is on the bench.
- You receive profiles against that specific requirement, with contact details masked until you shortlist.
- You interview the shortlist yourself. Nobody starts until you have said yes.
How you can engage
- Contract: the engineer works on your team for a fixed term, billed hourly or monthly against the rate agreed for that role.
- Contract-to-hire: start on contract and convert to a permanent hire once both sides are sure.
- Permanent placement in India: we source and shortlist, you employ the engineer directly.
- Remote from India, or on-site at your office in India.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between staff augmentation and outsourcing?
With staff augmentation the engineer works inside your team and you direct the work. With outsourcing, a vendor takes on a defined project and delivers the result. Staff augmentation keeps control and knowledge in-house.
Can I convert an augmented engineer into a permanent employee?
Yes, contract-to-hire is one of our engagement models. Agree it at the start so the terms are clear.
How is pricing set?
Engineer rates are quoted per role, against the seniority, stack and engagement type in your brief. There is no fixed monthly rate card for engineers, so share the role and the budget you have in mind and we will tell you plainly whether we can fill it.
Do I interview the engineers myself?
Yes. You get profiles for your specific requirement, you run your own interviews, and nobody starts until you approve them.
Can the engineer work in my time zone?
Most of our engineers are in India (IST, UTC+5:30). For US or European teams we agree the required overlap hours in the brief and only put forward people who can commit to them.
Related
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