Talent Services
Engineers employed and contracted through Sophotech, supplied across six engagement modes. You interview and manage the work; we handle employment.
Sophotech supplies senior engineers to client teams across six engagement modes: staff augmentation, dedicated teams, team extension, embedded delivery, contract-to-hire, and direct recruitment. In every supplied mode the engineer is employed and contracted through Sophotech, a European company, and the deciding interviews are yours.
What differs between the modes is who manages the engineer, who employs them, and how the engagement converts. Each is described below.
Staff Augmentation
Staff augmentation places an individual engineer in your team, under your management. The engineer works your backlog, joins your standups, and goes through your code review, directed by your leads and indistinguishable from the rest of the team in the daily flow of work. Sophotech stays out of the management chain.
You control the development. Sophotech handles the operational routine: the employment contract, payroll, benefits, and compliance paperwork. One agreement with a European company covers the placement, and you add engineering capacity without adding headcount administration.
Deliverables
- Individual engineer working under your management
- One agency contract covering employment, payroll, and compliance
- Client-run technical interviews before the placement starts
- Capacity scaled up or down as your roadmap changes
Tools: Kubernetes · Terraform · Python · Go · AWS · GCP · Azure · Oracle OCI
Dedicated Teams
A dedicated team is a small senior unit sourced to your project and scaled to the seats you actually need. The team follows your roadmap and your sprint cadence. Your product owner sets priorities and your leads review the work. It is your delivery group, and only the employment paperwork sits elsewhere.
Sophotech sources the unit against the skill profile you define, whether platform, backend, data, AI/ML, or a mix, and retains employment, contracts, and administration for every member. Each engineer passes your interviews before joining. The team answers to you, with no agency delivery manager in the line.
Deliverables
- Senior unit sourced to your skill profile, scaled to the seats you need
- Delivery on your roadmap, backlog, and sprint cadence
- Employment, contracts, and administration retained by the agency
- Every member approved through your own interviews
Tools: Python · Go · Kubernetes · Terraform
Team Extension
Team extension adds one or more Sophotech engineers to an existing client team as integrated members. They join your repositories, your ceremonies, and your on-call rotation where it applies. Your engineering leads manage them while Sophotech retains the employment relationship.
Team extension differs from staff augmentation in shape. Augmentation fills an individual seat. Extension grows a team you already run, with engineers sourced as the seats open and kept under one management line. Employment, payroll, and compliance stay with the agency in both.
Deliverables
- Integrated engineers inside your existing team and processes
- Single management line for internal and external members alike
- Employment relationship retained by Sophotech throughout
- Each extension engineer interviewed by your team first
- Headcount adjusted as your delivery plan changes
Tools: Python · Go · Kubernetes · Terraform · AWS
Embedded Delivery
Embedded delivery puts Sophotech engineers inside your environment to ship a defined deliverable, such as a migration, a platform component, or a pipeline. They work in your cloud accounts, your repositories, and your CI/CD, under your access controls, with nothing built outside your boundary.
The deliverable is named up front, and the work runs in your toolchain until it ships. Your engineers review it at every step. Your team can pair with ours throughout, so the result is owned and operable in-house from the start.
Deliverables
- Named deliverable shipped inside your environment and toolchain
- All work kept in your repositories, accounts, and CI/CD
- Code review and handover to your engineers throughout
- Documentation and runbooks left where your team works
Tools: Kubernetes · Terraform · FluxCD · ArgoCD · GitHub Actions
Contract-to-Hire
Contract-to-hire starts as a normal Sophotech placement. The engineer passes your interviews, joins under your management, and is employed and contracted through the agency. There is no separate evaluation program and no proprietary vetting score. Your interviews decided the fit before the work began, and the work itself confirms it.
If you decide to hire, the engineer converts to direct employment with you under terms set in the contract from the outset. If you do not, the placement continues as it is.
Deliverables
- Placement under your management, employed through Sophotech
- Conversion terms written into the contract up front
- Direct employment transfer when you decide to hire
- Continued agency placement if conversion is not taken
Tools: AWS · GCP · Azure · Oracle OCI · Kubernetes
Recruitment
Recruitment is the direct-hire mode. Sophotech runs engineer-led technical vetting of senior candidates, surfaced by you or by us, and you hire the engineer onto your own payroll. Engineers run the vetting and cover code, system design, and operational questions drawn from the practices on our capability pages.
Our engineers screen first, then every shortlisted candidate goes through your interview process before any offer. The hiring decision, the offer, and the employment are yours. Sophotech's role ends at the handover.
Deliverables
- Shortlist of senior candidates vetted in technical interviews
- Interview notes covering code, system design, and operations
- Final interviews and hiring decision run by your team
- Direct employment contract between you and the engineer
Tools: GitHub · Python · Go · Kubernetes · Terraform
Every engagement starts the same way. You describe the role and you interview the engineer. In every supplied mode, contracting runs through Sophotech, a European company. Employment, payroll, and compliance stay with the agency. You keep the direction of the work. Engagements are open-ended, and they scale, convert, or close as your roadmap requires. What the engineers actually do is on the five capability pages, from platform engineering to AI/ML.
Frequently asked questions
Who employs the engineer?
Sophotech does, in every mode except direct recruitment. The employment contract, payroll, benefits, and compliance sit with the agency, a European company working under GDPR. In the recruitment mode you employ the engineer directly from the start.
Who manages the day-to-day work?
Your team does. Engineers report to your leads, work your backlog, and follow your processes in every supplied mode. Sophotech does not place delivery managers between you and the engineer; the agency's role is employment, contracting, and administration.
How are engineers selected?
You interview them. Sophotech proposes engineers whose stack and seniority match the role, and your own technical interviews decide who starts. No engineer joins your team without passing your process first.
What is the practical difference between staff augmentation, team extension, and dedicated teams?
Staff augmentation fills one seat in your team. Team extension adds several integrated engineers to a team you already run. A dedicated team is a separate unit, exclusive to your project, still directed by you. In all three, management stays with the client and employment stays with Sophotech.
Need something not listed here? Send us your spec and we will scope a fit.
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