COMPARE OPTIONS
Compare hiring options for startups
To compare hiring options for startups, start with the help you need: senior judgment, extra hands or a whole outcome handed to someone else. These engagement model comparisons set the options side by side, with sourced cost factors.
3 COMPARISONS
The drawing shows a decision flowchart and, under it, the questions that sort direction from extra hands and lead to each of the five ways to get technical help.
HOW TO CHOOSE
How to compare hiring options for startups
Most hiring decisions at an early-stage company come down to four questions. Answer them before you read any table.
- Do you need judgment or hands? If you are not sure what to build or how, you need advice or leadership first. If the plan is clear and the team is stretched, you need capacity.
- How much of the week does it fill? A role that needs ten hours a week is rarely worth a full-time hire. A role that fills every day usually is.
- Who will direct the work? Extra engineers need a lead on your side. If nobody can direct them, buy an outcome instead.
- What must stay with you when it ends? Code, accounts, decisions and the reasons behind them. Every option should hand them back in writing.
That is the core of consulting vs hiring. Outside help costs more per hour and gives you flexibility. A hire costs more to start and stop, and gives you commitment and continuity. Each comparison below takes one version of that choice:
- Fractional CTO vs full-time CTO, if you need technical leadership.
- Staff augmentation vs outsourcing, if you need engineering capacity and want to know who should run it.
- Staff augmentation vs consulting, if you are not sure whether hands or judgment is the gap.
Engagement model comparisons
Each comparison has a summary, a side-by-side table, where each option fits, sourced cost factors and common questions.
COMPARE · CTO OPTIONS
Fractional CTO vs full-time CTO
Cost, commitment and speed of a fractional or a full-time CTO, side by side, with sourced salary figures.
COMPARE · WHO OWNS THE WORK
Staff augmentation vs outsourcing
Who owns the work, the risk and the code when you add engineers or hand a project to a vendor.
COMPARE · HANDS OR JUDGMENT
Staff augmentation vs consulting
Extra hands or outside judgment: what each model gives you, how it is billed and how to combine them.
NEXT STEP
Still weighing it up?
Tell us your stage, your team and what is stuck. We will tell you which option fits, including when the answer is not us.
