Ireland has an engineering shortage that is not really a shortage. The engineers are here; they are just working for companies whose salary bands you cannot match. For a first product, competing in that market is the most expensive possible way to get code written, and it takes months before anyone starts.
Buy the build, decide about hiring afterwards
A fixed-price engagement sidesteps the hiring market for the version that has to exist before anything else can be decided. Two to four weeks to a First Version (MVP) in the store, with a server behind it that holds real users. If it works, you hire onto a running codebase rather than onto a plan. If it does not, you have not paid two salaries to find out.
Where the data is hosted
The hosting region for your project is fixed before the build and written into the contract. For Irish companies with European customers that gives your security questionnaire a documented answer; if one is already on your desk, see the vendor security review. For data hosted in the United Kingdom, the adequacy decision of the European Commission applies.
Same language, written coordination
Everything runs asynchronously: the scope is written before anything is built, progress is readable whenever you look, and a call happens when a call genuinely beats a paragraph.
The deal
- First Version (MVP) from $27,800, operation afterwards from $1,400 a month
- Fixed price and scope in writing before the first line of code
- Data model planned with GDPR in mind and documented for your review, not appended as a policy
- Full handover of code, cloud accounts, store listings and documentation
If you also serve the UK market: app developer for the UK.