{"id":5704,"date":"2026-10-29T13:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T16:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextage.com.br\/blog\/?p=5704"},"modified":"2026-10-29T13:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T16:47:08","slug":"it-outsourcing-what-it-covers-and-which-roles-you-can-hire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextage.com.br\/blog\/en\/it-outsourcing-what-it-covers-and-which-roles-you-can-hire\/","title":{"rendered":"IT Outsourcing: What It Covers and Which Roles You Can Hire"},"content":{"rendered":"

An open engineering role that stays open for months is more than an HR problem: it is a growing backlog, an overloaded team and a delayed roadmap. The global market for IT outsourcing was worth about US$ 622.8 billion in 2025 and is expected to reach US$ 856.1 billion by 2034, according to IMARC<\/a>. Behind that growth is a simple fact: companies cannot hire tech talent as fast as they need it.<\/p>\n

Staff augmentation models have gained ground in this scenario. NextAge\u2019s Staff Augmentation<\/a>, for example, does not just pass along r\u00e9sum\u00e9s: NextAge vets the professionals and follows the delivery with a dedicated tech lead.<\/p>\n

In this guide, you will see what IT outsourcing covers, which professionals you can bring in for each area, and how to choose the right model and partner.<\/p>\n

\n

Quick answer<\/strong>
\nWhat it is:<\/strong> hiring a specialized company to carry out technology activities, or to provide the professionals who carry them out.
\nWhat it covers:<\/strong> development, staff and squad allocation, sustainment and support, infrastructure and cloud, security, data and AI.
\nWho can be outsourced:<\/strong> developers, QA, Tech Leads, Scrum Masters, analysts, UX\/UI designers, DevOps and, depending on the vendor, security, data and AI specialists.
\nWhen it pays off:<\/strong> variable demand, tight deadlines, a missing skill or an overloaded in-house team.
\nWhat to evaluate:<\/strong> how the vendor vets professionals, who manages the team, contract terms and replacement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

What is IT outsourcing?<\/h2>\n

IT outsourcing is hiring a specialized company to carry out, in whole or in part, technology activities such as software development, support, infrastructure, security and data, or to provide the professionals who carry them out, instead of keeping everything in an in-house team.<\/p>\n

The market uses related terms in different ways. For some vendors, outsourcing means the ongoing management of a technology environment; for others, it means placing people who the client manages. That is why it helps to understand the differences before you compare proposals.<\/p>\n

Outsourcing, subcontracting, body shopping and staff augmentation: what is the difference?<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Term<\/th>\nWho manages the team<\/th>\nWhat the client buys<\/th>\nWhen to use it<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Subcontracting<\/td>\nVendor<\/td>\nActivities in any area (cleaning, logistics, customer service)<\/td>\nActivities that are not core to the business<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
IT outsourcing<\/td>\nVaries: vendor or client, depending on the contract<\/td>\nTechnology activities or teams, with specialized technical knowledge<\/td>\nCapacity or skills missing in-house<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Body shopping<\/td>\nClient<\/td>\nIndividual professionals, with no vendor responsibility for results<\/td>\nShort-term reinforcement, with a strong manager on the client side<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Staff augmentation<\/td>\nClient, with vendor support<\/td>\nAn extension of the in-house team with external professionals<\/td>\nScaling fast while keeping technical direction in-house<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Managed staff augmentation (NextAge)<\/td>\nA NextAge tech lead follows the delivery<\/td>\nVetted professionals or teams, with a flexible contract<\/td>\nTeams that want the speed of staffing with delivery oversight<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Two definitions help fix the distinction. Subcontracting is the broad term for hiring out activities in any area; IT outsourcing is the subcontracting of technology activities, which requires specialized, up-to-date technical knowledge. Body shopping is the model in which the vendor supplies the professional, and management and integration stay with the client.<\/p>\n

NextAge\u2019s model sits between the two common labels. According to the service page<\/a>, professionals join your team, but NextAge trains and vets them before allocation, assigns a dedicated tech lead to the project and offers a flexible contract with a 15-day risk-free period.<\/p>\n

What does IT outsourcing cover?<\/h2>\n

IT outsourcing can cover anything from delivering a software project to running daily infrastructure. The scope can be full, when the vendor takes over an entire area, or partial, when it delivers only a piece of the work (a module, a team, a skill).<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Scope<\/th>\nWhat it includes<\/th>\nTypical roles<\/th>\nCommon contract<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Software development and maintenance<\/td>\nBuilding new systems; evolving and fixing existing ones<\/td>\nDevelopers, architects, QA, UX\/UI<\/td>\nFixed-scope project or dedicated squad<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Staff and squad allocation<\/td>\nReinforcing the in-house team with specific roles<\/td>\nAny technology role<\/td>\nPer-role allocation or squad<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sustainment and support<\/td>\nMonitoring, fixing failures, user support<\/td>\nSustainment analysts, L1, L2 and L3 support<\/td>\nManaged service with service levels<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Infrastructure, cloud and networks<\/td>\nServers, networks, cloud migration and operations<\/td>\nCloud engineers, DevOps, infrastructure analysts<\/td>\nManaged service or allocation<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Security<\/td>\nSecurity in the development lifecycle, vulnerability management, incident response<\/td>\nSecurity analysts, DevSecOps<\/td>\nSpecialized service<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Data and AI<\/td>\nPipelines, analytics, models and AI applications<\/td>\nData engineers, data scientists, AI engineers<\/td>\nProject or allocation<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

In practice, many companies combine scopes: a dedicated development team, for example, with a DevOps engineer to automate releases.<\/p>\n

What are the models of IT outsourcing?<\/h2>\n

Outsourcing models can be classified in two ways: by the vendor\u2019s location and by the type of contract. The first defines distance and time zone; the second defines how much responsibility the vendor takes on.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Classification<\/th>\nModel<\/th>\nHow it works<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
By location<\/td>\nOnshore<\/td>\nVendor in the same country as the client<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
By location<\/td>\nNearshore<\/td>\nVendor in a nearby country, with a similar time zone<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
By location<\/td>\nOffshore<\/td>\nVendor in a distant country, with time zone and language gaps<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
By contract<\/td>\nPer-role allocation<\/td>\nThe client hires individual professionals for its own team<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
By contract<\/td>\nDedicated squad<\/td>\nA full team with defined roles, dedicated to the client<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
By contract<\/td>\nFixed-scope project<\/td>\nThe vendor delivers a result with an agreed deadline and price<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
By contract<\/td>\nManaged service<\/td>\nThe vendor runs an area (support, infrastructure) against service-level targets<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

For North American companies, time zone is often the deciding factor. Brazil sits in a time zone with a large overlap with US business hours, especially the East Coast, which makes daily meetings and quick answers easier than with offshore teams in Asia or Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n

Why Brazil? A quick look at the talent pool<\/h2>\n

Brazil has a large technology market and a talent gap that fuels demand for outsourcing and staff augmentation. In a 2021 study, the industry association Brasscom estimated that the country trains about 53 thousand technology professionals per year, against an average demand of 159 thousand per year<\/a>. It is a projection from the study, not a 2026 measurement, but it shows why local companies also outsource and why vendors in the country keep building large, experienced teams.<\/p>\n

According to the CTO Insights 2025 survey by Impulso, with 110 technology leaders, 79.3% of CTOs struggle to hire or retain talent<\/a>. For global buyers, that translates into a market where experienced vendors have long worked with distributed teams and where time zone alignment is a real advantage.<\/p>\n

Which IT professionals can be outsourced?<\/h2>\n

Almost any technology role can be outsourced, although availability varies by vendor. Below are the most common profiles in seven categories, with what each delivers and when it makes sense to bring one in. The skills listed are general market references.<\/p>\n

1. Development<\/h3>\n

These are the profiles that appear most often in outsourcing contracts. The allocation question is: which part of the stack has no owner?<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Role<\/th>\nWhat they deliver<\/th>\nWhen to bring one in<\/th>\nKey skills<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Back-end developer<\/td>\nAPIs, business rules, integrations, databases<\/td>\nNew product, legacy module, third-party integration<\/td>\nJava, C#\/.NET, Node.js, Python, Go; SQL; API design<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Front-end developer<\/td>\nResponsive, accessible web interfaces<\/td>\nProduct redesign, accumulated UI backlog<\/td>\nReact, Angular, Vue, TypeScript<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Full-stack developer<\/td>\nEnd-to-end delivery with a lean team<\/td>\nMVP, startup, product on a tight budget<\/td>\nCombination of the two above<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Mobile developer<\/td>\niOS, Android or cross-platform apps<\/td>\nApp launch, evolution of an existing app<\/td>\nSwift, Kotlin, Flutter, React Native<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Software architect<\/td>\nArchitecture decisions, standards, scalability<\/td>\nMonolith migration, critical system, technical debt<\/td>\nMicroservices, cloud, security, observability<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Allocation tip:<\/strong> if the team can only have one senior engineer, the best place for that person is usually leading technically, not writing code alone. In the CTO Insights 2025 survey<\/a>, the scarcity weighs most on senior (37.9%) and mid-level (19.5%) profiles.<\/p>\n

2. Quality (QA)<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Role<\/th>\nWhat they deliver<\/th>\nWhen to bring one in<\/th>\nKey skills<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Functional QA<\/td>\nTest plans and execution, defect hunting, requirements validation<\/td>\nSystems with complex business rules<\/td>\nTest cases, Jira, exploratory testing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Test automation engineer (SDET)<\/td>\nAutomated tests, continuous regression in the pipeline<\/td>\nFrequent releases, critical systems<\/td>\nCypress, Playwright, Selenium, Postman, CI\/CD<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Allocation tip:<\/strong> bringing QA in from the first sprint, not just near delivery, tends to reduce rework.<\/p>\n

3. Technical leadership and agile management<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Role<\/th>\nWhat they deliver<\/th>\nWhen to bring one in<\/th>\nKey skills<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Tech Lead<\/td>\nTechnical leadership, code review, standards, mentoring<\/td>\nNew team or one without a senior; outsourced squad<\/td>\nArchitecture, code review, business communication<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Scrum Master<\/td>\nCeremonies, removing blockers, flow metrics<\/td>\nTeam without rhythm or agile routines<\/td>\nScrum, Kanban, facilitation<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Product Owner \/ Product Manager<\/td>\nBacklog, prioritization, product vision<\/td>\nProduct without a clear owner<\/td>\nDiscovery, product metrics, stakeholders<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Project manager \/ Delivery lead<\/td>\nDeadlines, scope, risk, communication<\/td>\nPrograms with several workstreams<\/td>\nPMO, risk management, budgeting<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Allocation tip:<\/strong> the Product Owner usually stays on the client side, because that person decides what to build. This arrangement also reduces the risk of direct subordination, covered in the risks section below.<\/p>\n

4. Analysis and design<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Role<\/th>\nWhat they deliver<\/th>\nWhen to bring one in<\/th>\nKey skills<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Business analyst<\/td>\nClear requirements tied to company goals<\/td>\nFuzzy scope, process to be digitized<\/td>\nProcess modeling, user stories, UML<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Systems analyst<\/td>\nFunctional and technical specifications, integration between areas<\/td>\nSystems with many integrations<\/td>\nData, APIs, documentation<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
UX\/UI designer<\/td>\nFlows, prototypes, design systems, interfaces<\/td>\nNew product or redesign<\/td>\nFigma, user research, accessibility<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

5. Infrastructure, cloud, DevOps and security<\/h3>\n

Security, cloud and networking are among the areas of highest demand and the hardest skills to find. Surveys such as the Robert Half 2026 salary guide<\/a> (in Portuguese) point in the same direction.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Role<\/th>\nWhat they deliver<\/th>\nWhen to bring one in<\/th>\nKey skills<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
DevOps \/ SRE engineer<\/td>\nDelivery pipelines, automation, reliability<\/td>\nManual deploys, frequent incidents<\/td>\nCI\/CD, infrastructure as code, observability<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Cloud engineer<\/td>\nArchitecture and migration to AWS, Azure or Google Cloud<\/td>\nMigration, cloud cost reduction<\/td>\nTerraform, Kubernetes, FinOps<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Security analyst \/ DevSecOps<\/td>\nSecurity in the development lifecycle, incident response<\/td>\nRegulatory requirements, rising attacks<\/td>\nOWASP, SAST\/DAST, vulnerability management, GDPR<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Infrastructure, network and DBA analyst<\/td>\nServers, networks, databases, availability<\/td>\n24×7 operations, hybrid environments<\/td>\nLinux, Windows Server, networking, SQL<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

6. Data and artificial intelligence<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Role<\/th>\nWhat they deliver<\/th>\nWhen to bring one in<\/th>\nKey skills<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Data engineer<\/td>\nPipelines, ETL, data lakes and warehouses<\/td>\nScattered data, foundation for AI<\/td>\nSQL, Python, Spark, cloud<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Data \/ BI analyst<\/td>\nDashboards and analyses that support decisions<\/td>\nManagement without reliable indicators<\/td>\nSQL, Power BI, modeling<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Data scientist<\/td>\nPredictive models and experiments<\/td>\nForecasting, recommendation, fraud detection<\/td>\nStatistics, Python, machine learning<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
AI \/ ML engineer<\/td>\nPuts models and AI applications into production<\/td>\nGenerative AI and automation projects<\/td>\nLLMs, MLOps, APIs, data security<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

7. Support and sustainment<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Role<\/th>\nWhat they deliver<\/th>\nWhen to bring one in<\/th>\nKey skills<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Application sustainment analyst<\/td>\nMonitors, fixes and evolves systems already in production<\/td>\nIn-house team consumed by tickets and fixes<\/td>\nLog analysis, SQL, APIs, ITIL<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
L1, L2 and L3 support analyst<\/td>\nUser support and technical escalation<\/td>\nOverloaded service desk<\/td>\nTriage, ITSM, communication<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
RPA developer<\/td>\nAutomates repetitive tasks<\/td>\nHigh-volume manual processes<\/td>\nUiPath, Power Automate, Python<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

How to build a squad: sample compositions<\/h3>\n

Profiles rarely work alone. These are illustrative compositions by scenario; the real size depends on scope and on the maturity of your team.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Scenario<\/th>\nTypical composition<\/th>\nWhat the client keeps<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
MVP or new product<\/td>\n1 Tech Lead, 2 developers (or full-stack), 1 part-time UX\/UI, 1 QA<\/td>\nProduct Owner and business decisions<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sustainment and evolution of a legacy system<\/td>\n1 Tech Lead, 2 developers, 1 QA, 1 sustainment analyst<\/td>\nBacklog prioritization and environment access<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Modernization and cloud migration<\/td>\n1 architect, 2 to 3 developers, 1 DevOps, 1 QA, 1 Tech Lead<\/td>\nCost, security and deadline targets<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Product with data or AI<\/td>\n1 data engineer, 1 data scientist or AI engineer, 1 back-end developer, 1 QA<\/td>\nData governance and use cases<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

One tip applies to every scenario: ask for a mix of seniority levels (one senior to lead, mid-level engineers to deliver) instead of building the team from junior profiles only.<\/p>\n

NextAge allocates developers, QAs, UX\/UI designers, analysts, Scrum Masters, Tech Leads and DevOps engineers, individually or in managed squads<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Need to build a team and not sure where to start?<\/strong> NextAge designs the right composition with you. Let\u2019s talk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Which IT roles are in demand in 2026?<\/h2>\n

Cloud, data, security and AI concentrate demand in 2026, and scarcity is greatest at senior and mid levels. Some data points help size it up:<\/p>\n