Hiring senior Go developers is difficult due to a widening supply-demand gap. Three external talent models exist: staff augmentation (developers join your team, you manage everything), dedicated teams (self-sufficient unit for long-term product work), and project outsourcing (hand off a fixed scope entirely). Each model differs across project duration, scope stability, management burden, speed, cost predictability, and knowledge retention. Staff augmentation suits short-term bandwidth needs with an existing team; dedicated teams suit long-term product development with compounding institutional knowledge; outsourcing suits discrete, well-specified deliverables. A screening checklist for Go developers covers goroutines, channels, context, modules, gRPC, testing, and observability tooling. The post concludes with a call to action from Wawandco, a Go staffing firm.
Table of contents
The Supply Problem Is RealThree Models, Three Very Different BetsWhen Speed and Control Are the PriorityWhen You’re Playing the Long GameWhen the Scope Is the ProductWhat to Actually Evaluate in a Go DeveloperThe Decision You’re Actually MakingReferencesAbout the AuthorSort: