Engineering · · 4 min read
A practical checklist for teams in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the UK and the USA assessing Indian development partners, from time zones to IP ownership.
Hiring a development partner in another country is a decision about trust more than talent. India has a deep pool of capable engineers. The difficulty is telling, from a few calls and a proposal, which team will still be communicating clearly in month six. This checklist is written for product owners and founders in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the UK and the USA who are assessing Indian studios and agencies.
1. Look at shipped work, not portfolios
Screenshots tell you little about engineering. Ask for live products you can use, and ask what the team built specifically: the whole product, the back end or a handful of screens. Ask what happened after launch. A partner who still maintains its work years later is telling you something useful.
- Can you use the product today, on your own phone?
- Which parts did this team design, build and operate?
- Who can you speak to from that engagement?
2. Test communication early
Communication failures sink more outsourced projects than technical ones. Treat the sales process as a sample. Note how quickly questions are answered, whether answers are specific, and whether anyone challenges assumptions in your brief. A team that agrees with everything in the first week will agree with everything in the tenth, including the bad ideas.
Time zone overlap
India Standard Time is UTC+5:30. That gives a comfortable working overlap with the Gulf, a useful overlap with the UK morning, and a narrower window with the US East Coast that usually falls in the Indian evening. Ask the partner to state in writing which hours they will be available for live calls in your time zone, and who will attend.
3. Ask who will do the work
Many agencies sell with senior people and deliver with junior ones. That is not always wrong, but it should be visible. Ask for the names and roles of the team, how much of their time is allocated to you and what happens if someone leaves. If subcontractors or freelancers are involved, you should know before you sign.
4. Read the process, not the promise
Every proposal says agile. Ask what that means in practice.
- How often will you see working software? Weekly demos are a reasonable standard.
- Where does the backlog live, and will you have direct access to it?
- How are estimates revised when scope changes?
- What does a release look like, and who approves it?
- How are bugs reported, prioritised and fixed?
Good partners describe their process in concrete terms. Many can show you a board, a sprint review or a release note from a previous project with client details removed.
5. Check the engineering basics
You do not need to be technical to ask these questions. You do need clear answers.
- Is the code in a repository you own, or can access from day one?
- Are there automated tests and a deployment pipeline?
- Which environments exist: development, staging and production?
- How are secrets, credentials and customer data handled?
- What documentation will you receive at handover?
If you work in a regulated sector or handle personal data under the UK GDPR, Saudi Arabia's Personal Data Protection Law or the UAE's federal data protection law, ask how the team manages access controls and data residency. Vague answers here are a warning.
6. Get ownership and contracts right
Your contract should state that intellectual property in the code transfers to you, typically on payment. It should cover confidentiality, with an NDA signed before you share sensitive detail. It should define acceptance criteria for each milestone, a warranty period for defects and what happens if either side ends the engagement. Third-party and open-source components should be listed with their licences.
7. Choose the right commercial model
Fixed-price milestones suit well-defined scope: a website, an MVP with a clear feature list, a specific integration. A monthly retainer or dedicated team suits evolving products where priorities shift. Open-ended hourly billing without a cap tends to frustrate both sides. Whatever the model, agree on currency, invoicing schedule and how change requests are priced before work starts.
8. Start small
The most reliable test of a partner is a short, paid engagement: a discovery sprint, a design prototype, a technical audit or a single feature. You learn how they think, write, estimate and deliver, at limited risk. If it goes well, the larger project starts with shared context instead of assumptions.
Price tells you what a partner charges. A small first project tells you what they are like to work with.
Red flags
- An estimate given before anyone has asked about your users or constraints.
- Reluctance to give you repository access.
- No named project lead.
- Fixed delivery dates promised on undefined scope.
- Silence on maintenance and what happens after launch.
None of these alone disqualifies a partner, but two or three together usually predict a difficult engagement. Raise them directly. How a team responds to a hard question is part of the assessment.
Foxbeta works with clients in the Gulf, the UK, the USA and Australia from our studio in Imphal, and we are glad to be assessed against this list.
About the author
The engineers and designers at Foxbeta, a product studio in Imphal, Manipur, building software for clients in India, the Gulf, Europe, the USA and Australia. We write about the decisions we see clients face, based on the work we do every week.