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When companies need to grow their tech teams, they often choose to hire Senior engineers. This makes sense because more experience usually leads to better results.
However, not every task requires a Senior’s skills.
For example, paying a top chef to make a sandwich may result in a fantastic sandwich, but it may not be worth the high cost.
Many businesses make this mistake, hiring expensive senior talent when a development team optimization could achieve the same results more efficiently.
At JetRuby, we wanted to change this mindset.
We focused on matching the right skills to the specific tasks. Based on the smart team composition approach, we can deliver high-quality work without charging a high price.
We demonstrated this approach with our project for Backbase, and the results showed the benefits clearly.
Key takeaways:
- Senior ≠ Always Better. Paying for senior talent on mid-level tasks wastes budget without adding value.
- Skills > Titles. A well-trained mid-level engineer can outperform an unmotivated senior.
- Right-sizing roles saved Backbase 15% without sacrificing quality.
- Pre-vetted teams integrate faster (2 weeks vs. 4-6) and reduce risk.
- JetRuby Academy’s <1% acceptance rate ensures high-caliber mid-level hires.
- Internal career paths boost loyalty and cut long-term hiring costs. You need to pay for actual needs, not impressive job titles.
Why Staff Augmentation Was the Perfect Fit
Before diving into the Backbase case, let’s talk about why smart development team optimization via staff augmentation was the right solution.
What Staff Augmentation Really Means?
When clients come to us with hiring needs, they’re usually stuck in one of these frustrating situations:
- “We need more hands, but hiring takes forever.” (And let’s be real, good engineers aren’t just sitting around waiting for job offers.)
- “Our current team is great, but they don’t have the specific skills we need now.”
- “We’ve tried freelancers, but it’s a gamble; some are great, others disappear mid-project.”
That’s where JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation based on the smart team composition technique comes in. We don’t just throw random developers at a problem.
Most importantly, we ensure every engineer we assign is the right fit for the work needed.
How We Build Skilled Professionals
At JetRuby, we recognize that technical excellence transcends job titles.
A highly skilled Middle engineer with the right training and mindset can deliver superior results compared to an underperforming Senior professional.
That’s what we call a smart team composition. This principle is the foundation of JetRuby Academy, our rigorous program designed to cultivate top-tier engineering talent.
Our Approach to Professional Development:
- Highly Selective Admissions: With an acceptance rate of less than 1% out of 200+ applicants per position, we ensure that only the most promising candidates join our program.
- Real-World Project Experience: Academy participants work on active client projects, gaining practical skills that extend far beyond theoretical knowledge.
- Expert Mentorship: Our seasoned engineers provide personalized guidance, helping students navigate complex coding challenges while fostering professional growth.
- Proven Readiness for the Workforce: Graduates must successfully defend their final projects, demonstrating their ability to deliver immediate value in a professional environment.
By combining selective admissions, hands-on experience, and expert mentorship, we prepare developers to excel from their first day at work.
The Backbase Challenge: Growing Quickly Without Going Over Budget
Backbase was growing fast. As a leader in digital banking solutions, its tech team was stretched thin. Development was moving quicker than they could hire, and they needed skilled SDETs to automate testing and speed up releases. The budget was tight, but delays weren’t an option.
Like most companies in their position, their first instinct was to hire senior engineers across the board. It made sense: critical projects demanded top-tier expertise, and they didn’t want to cut corners.
But when we managed to dig deeper, we found a smarter way.
JetRuby’s team ran a skills assessment and spotted an opportunity:
- Yes, they needed senior talent, for example, for complex system design and deep debugging.
- But a lot of the work? Feature implementation, test scripting, and routine reviews could run smoothly with strong mid-level engineers.
The problem?
They were paying premium rates for tasks that didn’t always require that level of experience.
The fix? A smart team composition!
Instead of an all-Senior team, we suggested:
- Seniors for critical leadership & high-complexity tasks.
- Middles for execution-heavy work (where deep experience wasn’t mandatory).
Why this worked:
- Our Middle engineers aren’t “junior Seniors.”
- Thanks to JetRuby’s Personalized Development Plans (PDPs), they’re constantly upskilling.
- Many have Senior-level technical skills, just less “big picture” project experience.
2. ISO-certified grading means no guesswork.
- No inflated titles. If someone’s a Middle, they’ve proven they can deliver at that level.
The Results: 15% Savings Without Compromises
What Changed?
Thanks to a smart team composition, a change in talent deployment led to significant improvements, and the client did not have to sacrifice quality or innovation.
By removing its strict focus on seniority, Backbase saved money, boosted productivity, and improved team interactions.
More than just numbers, this transformation reshaped perspectives:
- Costs dropped by 15%: Simply by not overpaying for seniority where it wasn’t needed.
- Faster onboarding: Our engineers were productive in 2 weeks (vs. 4-6 weeks for external hires).
- Better test automation: Our SDETs improved coverage, reducing manual QA bottlenecks.
Beyond numbers, this shift mattered because:
- Backbase’s PMs stopped worrying about “expensive idle time.” (No more guilt about assigning simple tasks to highly paid Seniors.)
- Our Middle engineers got to prove themselves on a global project — career growth in action.
- The client realized seniority is about right-sizing solutions, not titles
Building a strong engineering team is about having a smart structure.
Create senior-led squads, delegate tasks wisely, and promote from within. This approach helps work continue smoothly when team members leave and builds loyalty, which reduces employee turnover in the long run.
Here’s how to design a team that improves over time rather than weakens.
For a mid- to large-sized team looking for long-term success, it’s best to set up a balanced structure from the start. It also helps to split the team into smaller sub-teams, each led by senior engineers.
This method offers several benefits compared to the original setup.
- First, assign simple and repetitive tasks to junior team members while giving senior members the more interesting and complex tasks.
- Next, create a clear path for career growth within the team.
- Lastly, if a senior member leaves the team (some turnover is normal and even healthy), it will be easier to manage their tasks for the next release because the whole sub-team has been working on them together.
When a senior engineer leaves the team, you promote a standard engineer to take their place and then promote a junior engineer to fill the standard position.
After that, you just need to hire another junior engineer, which is much easier. Plus, it’s great to have the “We promote from within” approach in your company values.
Additionally, engineers who start as juniors and grow through promotions to senior positions tend to be more loyal.
This loyalty means you can optimize costs while maintaining high performance (because new hires often require more resources and money), something especially valuable when considering app development costs in 2025.
This approach gives you benefits all around.
Could This Work for Your Team?
- “We’re burning budget on Senior devs doing work a Mid could handle.”
- “Hiring takes too long, and freelancers are hit-or-miss.”
- “We need flexibility, so scale up now, maybe down later.”
If any of these sound familiar, let’s talk!
JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation is not about filling positions. Here, our mission is to provide you with the right people for the right tasks at the right time.
The Backbase case proved something important: Throwing money at “Senior” labels doesn’t guarantee success.
Smart team composition design does.
Maybe it’s time to ask: “Are we paying for what we actually need — or just what sounds impressive on paper?”
Let’s optimize your team together: contact us!
