Offshore Product Engineering Teams
A dedicated engineering team in India for hardware, firmware and embedded software, run to the same gated plan, written sign-off and defect discipline as our own programmes. Your repositories and your intellectual property stay yours throughout, and the way you leave is written down before the work starts.
What We Deliver
What do you actually get from an offshore product engineering team?
Engineers who are accountable to a plan, not hours on a timesheet. You get a named team with a named programme manager, work booked to named tasks so you can see what a month bought, formal design reviews with your written sign-off at each gate, and every defect logged with an owner and a closure. The engineering is done in India. The accountability looks the same as it would down the corridor.
How the engagement runs
- A named team and a named programme manager for the full duration, not a rotating pool
- A written communication and escalation path agreed before the first sprint, so nothing waits on a guess
- Every hour booked to a named task, so a month of work arrives as a list you can read
- Formal design reviews on a dated schedule, each closing on your written sign-off
- Every defect logged with the observed behaviour, a named owner and a closure before release
- Out-of-scope work raised on its own line, agreed and signed, never absorbed quietly or billed by surprise
What stays yours
- The repository. Code is committed to your version control, under your organisation, from the first commit
- The intellectual property, yours from day one and written into the statement of work before you sign it
- The build environment and toolchain, so anyone can reproduce the product without us
- Design files, test cases, results and the defect log, handed over as work proceeds rather than at the end
- Your cloud and tooling accounts, with our access provisioned per person and revoked per person
- A written exit: what is handed back, in what form, and how access is closed off
Engagement Models
What is an offshore development centre, and which model fits you?
An offshore development centre, usually shortened to ODC, is a dedicated engineering team working only on your products from another country, under your direction, rather than a vendor selling you fixed projects. It sits between hiring your own people and buying a one-off project. Three shapes cover almost every engagement we run, and the right one depends on how settled your roadmap is.
Dedicated engineering team
A fixed team of named engineers working only on your products, taking direction from you. The usual choice when the roadmap is longer than any single project and you want continuity of knowledge rather than a handover every quarter.
- Named engineers, not a pool
- Your backlog, your priorities
- Knowledge stays with the team
Offshore development centre
The same dedicated team plus the structure around it: programme management, quality processes, test infrastructure and the reporting you need to answer to your own board. Effectively your engineering office in India, without setting up an entity.
- Programme management included
- Quality processes and reporting
- No entity to register or run
Project or phase based
A scoped piece of work with acceptance criteria and a fixed end: one board, one firmware release, one verification campaign. The right start when you want to see how we work before committing to a team. Completely customised for you.
- Written acceptance criteria
- A defined end, not a retainer
- Often the first step to a team
Most engagements begin as a scoped project and become a dedicated team once the first gate is signed. You do not have to decide the whole shape on the first call.
Your IP and Exit
What happens to our intellectual property, repositories and cloud access when the contract ends?
It is the right question to ask first, and most offshore proposals leave it to the last page. We sign your NDA before the detailed conversation, not after it, and we answer this before any work starts. Code is committed to your repository under your organisation from the first commit, so there is no transfer at the end because nothing was ever held on our side. Access to your repositories, cloud accounts and tooling is provisioned per named person and revoked per named person, so ending an engagement is an access review, not a negotiation.
The intellectual property terms sit in the statement of work you sign, not in an appendix agreed later. At exit you receive the source, the build environment, the design files, the test evidence and the defect log, in the form you can rebuild from. We would rather you could leave cleanly and choose to stay.
What a clean offshore exit looks like
- Your repository, your organisation, your branch protection rules, from the first commit
- Named-person access to every system, with a documented joiners and leavers process
- Intellectual property assigned to you in the statement of work, before any engineering begins
- No dependency on tooling only we can license, and no build that runs on one engineer's machine
- A documented handover pack: source, build environment, design files, test evidence, defect log
- A written notice period and an exit checklist agreed at the start, not drafted in a difficult month
None of the above is a promise about our intentions. Each one is a mechanism you can check on the first call.
Working Together
How does an India team work day to day for a company in the US or Europe?
On a written communication and escalation path, with formal reviews on a dated schedule rather than status calls that drift. Our leadership works across India, the USA and Europe, so reviews happen in your working hours and there is someone accountable in a timezone close to yours. Every decision is recorded in writing, which matters more across timezones than it does in one office.
The honest version of the cost argument: an India team costs less than the same team hired locally in the US or Europe, and that only helps if the engineering is right. What makes it work is the discipline around it, the gated plan, the written sign-off, the defect log you can open at any time. Cost without that discipline is how offshore engagements earn their bad reputation. More on our medical device software development page.
For medical device companies outsourcing design
- Engineering inside your quality system, with the design controls and records your submission will need
- Risk management and software lifecycle practices applied from the start, not retrofitted for an audit
- Verification evidence produced as the work proceeds, in the form your quality system expects
- Manufacturing in India for products sold into the US and EU, when that is part of the plan
Quality
How do you keep quality up when the team is in another country?
By making the work visible rather than trusting the distance. Distance does not cause quality problems on its own. Invisibility does. Every mechanism below exists so that you can see what is happening without being in the room.
Reviewed before anything is fabricated
Every schematic and layout goes through a documented review with a named reviewer and a named owner for each finding, and every finding is closed before release.
Signed at every gate
Acceptance criteria are written down first, taken from your requirement document. You sign each gate, and that record is part of the deliverable.
Booked to named tasks
A month of work arrives as a list of named tasks with hours against each one. You are auditing a record, not accepting a number.
Defects you can open
Every defect is written down so that anyone can make it happen again on the first try. That is the difference between a fix and a week of guessing.
Why Pinetics
How do you choose an offshore product engineering partner for hardware and firmware?
100,000+ engineering hours delivered and counting.
Ask three things. Where does the code live while the work is happening, and who owns the account. What happens to your access and your intellectual property if you end the engagement next quarter. And can they show you a defect log rather than describe their process. We answer the first two in the statement of work before you sign, and the third you can ask to see on a call.
What we bring
- Hardware, firmware, embedded software, mechanical and test engineering in one accountable team
- Founder-led engineering that stays in the room for the life of the engagement
- Leadership across India, the USA and Europe, so reviews sit in your working hours
- Fixed-price or time-and-materials terms, with materials and laboratory fees at actuals and only with your prior approval
Expertise
Founder-led engineering. Our leadership carries 20+ years in electronics and firmware, and sits in the reviews rather than reading a status report about them.
Technology
Silicon, operating systems and connectivity chosen for your product and its certification path, not for whatever the team used last time.
Transparency
You hold the repository, the accounts and the access list. Distance is only a risk when the work is invisible, and none of ours is.
Common Questions
What should you ask before setting up an offshore engineering team?
Three questions settle most of it. Whose repository does the code live in while the work is happening? What exactly happens to your access and your intellectual property if you stop next quarter? And will they show you the defect log, or only describe the process? Our answers are in the statement of work before you sign it.
An offshore development centre is a dedicated team working only on your products from another country, taking direction from you, with the programme management and quality structure around it. Outsourcing a project buys a defined outcome with an end date. An ODC buys capacity and continuity: the same engineers keep the knowledge, work your backlog and are managed to your priorities. The commercial difference is that a project is scoped and fixed, while a centre is a standing team you can redirect.
Broadly three. A dedicated team, where you direct named engineers. A build, operate and transfer arrangement, where the team is set up to be handed to your own entity later. And a managed centre, where the partner carries the programme management, quality processes and reporting. We run the first and the third, and we will tell you plainly if a build and transfer arrangement suits you better than either.
Nothing has to be recovered, because nothing was ever held on our side. Code is committed to your repository under your organisation from the first commit. Access is provisioned per named person and revoked per named person, so ending an engagement is an access review rather than a negotiation. The intellectual property is assigned to you in the statement of work before any engineering starts, and the exit checklist is agreed at the same time.
By keeping ownership of every account and granting access to named individuals only. In practice: your version control organisation with branch protection you control, your cloud tenant with per-person roles, no shared logins, a documented joiners and leavers process, and access reviewed at every gate. Ask any offshore partner to describe their leavers process. If the answer is vague, that is the answer.
It depends on the roles. Firmware and embedded engineers are the fastest, because that is the deepest part of our bench. A first phase usually starts with a small named team and grows once the first gate is signed, which is deliberate: a team that ramps with the work carries the context, and a team that arrives all at once mostly reads documentation.
On fixed-price or time-and-materials terms, agreed per engagement. Materials, fabrication, third-party laboratory fees and logistics are billed at actuals and only with your prior written approval, and any change of scope is written and signed by both parties. Rates on request.
Yes, and it is a large part of our work. Medical programmes run inside your quality system, with design controls, software lifecycle practices and risk management woven into the same gates, so the evidence your submission needs is produced as the work proceeds rather than reconstructed later. Our medical device software development page sets out exactly how.
That the objection is about control and accountability, not geography, and it deserves a real answer rather than a discount. Our answer is the mechanisms on this page: your repository, per-person access, a written exit, signed gates, and leadership in your timezone. If your regulator, your customer or your investor requires onshore engineering, that is a legitimate constraint and we will say so rather than argue.
Yes. Firmware is the deepest part of our bench, and offshore embedded firmware development is the single most common shape this engagement takes. Our firmware development services page covers the engineering itself, the silicon families, the update paths and how power is measured.
Yes, and most first conversations start that way. Send yours or ask for ours.