Five things to take care of before hiring an offshore development team

Today, many businesses are facing a shortage of skilled talent – which comes as a big hurdle to drive business growth.

Offshoring is an alternative model that allows businesses to focus more on the core business strategy, instead of worrying about managing the process of software development.

According to a recent survey, 70% of the companies prefer to hire an offshore software development team than having an in-house development team. The trend of hiring offshore development teams is increasing daily. Some of the reasons why companies favor offshore software development so much are –

• Saves time and increases overall productivity
• Cost-effective
• Access to a large pool of talent
• Strategic partnership
• Continuous innovation
• Flexibility

In short, outsourcing the software development to an offshore team is perceived as a strategic business decision that improves profitability and reduces costs spent on full-time employees.

Things to take care when hiring an offshore development team

With the increasing number of software development companies, it is quite challenging to find the right company or team. Offshoring your development to an experienced team or company will help you reap the benefits you deserve. However, there are certain characteristics to look into – which can lead to the successful development and growth of your business.  Before you start hiring an offshore development team, consider the below factors –

1. Communicative

One of the biggest concerns for companies that hire offshore developers is a lack of communication – either due to cultural barriers or language. The offshore development company you choose should have a clear understanding of your time zones & culture. Also, they should be able to communicate seamlessly in the language of your business – which enables both the parties to understand each other better.

2. Accountable

Lack of ownership and accountability is one of the reasons behind the failure of offshore development projects. The development team must be completely transparent about the work they do – and provide timely insights into their activities. An honest and transparent approach will help the teams stay productive and complete the project within the given timeline and budget.

3. Flexible

The offshore software development team or company must possess a wide range of skillset. They must have the ability to embrace new technologies to build next-generation apps and meet the ever-changing requirements of their clients. In addition, they must offer flexible hiring models that help the client choose a framework depending on their business requirements.

4. Collaborative

The offshore development team needs to be collaborative to work efficiently with your company. They should be able to handle the project independently, and at the same time, their collaborative approach to ideas and deliverables is crucial to make the project complete successfully. A dedicated offshore development team will always work closely with you and will deliver results as per your business requirements.

5. Code Refactoring

The offshore developer or team should be proficient in implementing refactoring. They must have the ability to reuse or fix the old code to rebuild new robust codes. Leveraging the existing codes can save a lot of time and resources. They should be able to reuse the code smartly through proper refactoring and gain complete control of the code. It is also imperative that they have an understanding of confidentiality agreements. It not only ensures code security but guarantees the code is legally protected from disclosure.

Bottom Line

Hiring an offshore development team could be as beneficial as having an in-house development team. Before you shake hands with the offshore development team – define your objectives, required skill set, and budget.

You should choose a company that has – proven track record, experienced professionals, maintain top-quality standards, and responds proactively.

If you are a business owner and are looking to hire an offshore software development company – Qodic Technosoft is the best. With a large pool of skilled talent that can fulfill your offshore development requirement – we ensure timely fulfillment of your goals, 24 X 7 support, seamless communication, and scalability.

Would you like to know more about our offshore development services? Talk to our experts now!

Chrome Extension – Migrating from Manifest V2 to V3

• Service workers replace background pages.
• Network request modification is now handled with the new declarativeNetRequest API.
• Remotely-hosted code is no longer allowed; an extension can only execute JavaScript that is included within its package.
• Promise support has been added to many methods, though callbacks are still supported as an alternative. (We will eventually support promises on all appropriate methods.)
• A number of other, relatively minor feature changes are also introduced in Manifest V3.

If you are an extension owner, then it’s important that you immediately update your source code to meet the requirements of Manifest V3. This is sometimes easier said than done. So, here is a quick checklist for you to go through to ensure that you have truly migrated to Manifest V3.

How to migrate to Manifest v3?

Updating manifest.json file

To use the features of Manifest V3, you need to first update your manifest file. Naturally, you’ll change the manifest version to “3”, but there are a number of other things you need to change in the manifest file: host permissions, content security policy, action declarations, and web-accessible resources.

Manifest version

This change will determine whether you are using the Manifest V2 or Manifest V3 features. Change the value of manifest_version to 3 in the manifest.json file:

API Checklist

There are some changes you may need to make based on changes to the API surface. This section lists these changes.

Do you have host permissions in your manifest?

• Host permissions in Manifest V3 are a separate element; you don’t specify them in permissions or optional_permissions.
• Move host permissions into the host_permissions field in manifest.json.

Are you using background pages?

• Background pages are replaced by service workers in Manifest V3.
• Replace background.page or background.scripts with background.service_worker in manifest.json. Note that the service_worker field takes a string, not an array of strings.
• Remove background.persistent from manifest.json.
• Update background scripts to adapt to the service worker execution context.

Are you using the browser_action or page_action property in manifest.json?

• These properties are unified into a single property in Manifest V3.
• Replace these properties with action.

Are you using the chrome.browserAction or chrome.pageAction JavaScript API?

• These two equivalent APIs are unified into a single API in Manifest V3.
• Migrate to the chrome.action API.

Are you currently using the blocking version of chrome.webRequest?

• This API is replaced by declarativeNetRequest in Manifest V3.
• Migrate request modification logic to chrome.declarativeNetRequest rules.
• Replace the webRequestBlocking permission with declarativeNetRequest.
• Remove the webRequest permission if you no longer need to observe network requests.
• Remove unnecessary host permissions; blocking a request or upgrading a request’s protocol doesn’t require host permissions with declarativeNetRequest.

Are you executing remote code or arbitrary strings?

• You can no longer execute external logic using chrome.scripting.executeScript({code: ‘…’}), eval(), and new Function().
• Move all external code (JS, Wasm, CSS) into your extension bundle.
• Update script and style references to load resources from the extension bundle.
• Use chrome.runtime.getURL() to build resource URLs at runtime.

Are you executing functions that expect an Manifest V2 background context?

• The adoption of service workers in Manifest V3 isn’t compatible with methods like chrome.runtime.getBackgroundPage(), chrome.extension.getBackgroundPage(), chrome.extension.getExtensionTabs(), and chrome.extension.getViews().
• Migrate to a design that passes messages between other contexts and the background service worker.

Security Checklist

There are some changes you may need to make based on changes in security policy.

• Are you making CORS requests in content scripts? Move these requests to the background service worker.
• Are you using a custom content_security_policy in manifest.json? Replace content_security_policy with content_security_policy.extension_pages or content_security_policy.sandbox as appropriate.
• Remove references to external domains in script-src, worker-src, object-src, and style-src directives if present.