How to Work With a Nearshore Development Team: Best Practices

Setting Your Nearshore Team Up for Success

You've chosen a nearshore development partner. The contract is signed. Now what? The difference between a great nearshore experience and a frustrating one comes down to how you work together, not where your team sits.

Here are the best practices for working with a nearshore team that we've refined over hundreds of projects at Soatech.

Week 1: Onboarding That Actually Works

Share Context, Not Just Requirements

Your nearshore team needs to understand your business, not just your feature list. Before any code is written:

• Product demo — Walk through your product (or competitors) live
• User personas — Who are your customers and what do they care about?
• Business model — How does the product make money?
• Tech landscape — What's already built, what's the existing stack?
• Decision-making — Who approves what? Who has final say on design vs technical decisions?

Set Up Communication Channels

Establish these on day one:

Define Working Hours and Response Times

Be explicit about expectations:

• Core overlap hours (e.g., 10:00-16:00 CET)
• Expected response time for messages (e.g., within 2 hours during overlap)
• Emergency escalation process
• Holiday schedules for both sides

Ongoing Communication: The 80/20 Rule

Eighty percent of your communication should be asynchronous. Twenty percent should be synchronous meetings. Here's why:

Async Communication (80%)

• Written task descriptions with clear acceptance criteria
• Code review comments on pull requests
• Slack threads for questions with context
• Loom videos for demos and walkthroughs
• Status updates in your project management tool

Sync Communication (20%)

• Daily standup (15 min) — What's done, what's next, any blockers
• Sprint planning (1 hour/sprint) — Prioritize and estimate upcoming work
• Sprint review (30 min) — Demo completed features
• Retrospective (30 min/sprint) — What to improve

Giving Effective Feedback

Be Specific, Not Vague

• Bad: "This doesn't feel right"
• Good: "The loading state should show a skeleton UI instead of a spinner, matching the pattern on the dashboard page"

Use Screenshots and Recordings

Visual feedback eliminates ambiguity. Tools like Loom, CleanShot, or even simple screenshots with annotations save hours of back-and-forth.

Separate "Must Fix" from "Nice to Have"

When reviewing a feature, categorize your feedback:

• Blocking — Must be fixed before release
• Important — Should be fixed this sprint
• Nice to have — Add to backlog

This helps your team prioritize without everything feeling urgent.

Building Trust and Team Culture

Visit in Person (If Possible)

One in-person visit builds more trust than months of video calls. A 2-3 day visit to your nearshore team's office is one of the highest-ROI investments you can make. Albania is just 2-3 hours from most European capitals.

Celebrate Wins Together

When a feature ships or a milestone is hit, acknowledge it. A quick message in Slack saying "Great work on the payment integration — it's working perfectly" goes a long way.

Be Transparent About Challenges

If priorities shift, funding gets tight, or the product direction changes — tell your team early. They're invested in your success and can help adapt if they understand the context.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Over-managing — Micromanaging kills morale and productivity. Set clear goals, then trust your team to deliver
• Under-communicating — Silence breeds uncertainty. Regular updates in both directions prevent surprises
• Treating them as "outsiders" — Include your nearshore team in company updates, product discussions, and celebrations
• Changing priorities constantly — Context switching kills velocity. Commit to sprint goals and protect the team's focus
• Skipping retros — Retrospectives are how you continuously improve collaboration

Measuring Success

Track these metrics to ensure your nearshore partnership is working:

• Velocity trend — Are sprints getting more productive over time?
• Bug rate — Is code quality staying high?
• Communication satisfaction — Regular check-ins on how collaboration feels
• Delivery predictability — Are estimates getting more accurate?
• Team retention — Are the same developers staying on your project?

The Bottom Line

Working with a nearshore team isn't fundamentally different from working with any remote team. The keys are clear communication, mutual trust, and well-defined processes. Get these right, and your nearshore team becomes indistinguishable from an in-house team — except for the cost savings.

Looking for a nearshore team that integrates seamlessly into your workflow? Talk to us — we've been doing this for years and know how to make the partnership work from day one.