Andela Review - Is Andela Worth It for Hiring?
About Andela
Andela is an engineering-as-a-service business that helps organizations and companies build remote teams very fast and cost-effectively. They currently have over 1,000 software engineers working as a full-time developer, embedded members of development teams in more than 200 leading tech companies.
Andela’s engineers work from Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Egypt, Rwanda, and Ghana. The company has its headquarter located in New York and it has a globally distributed leadership team, which is backed by investors that include Spark Capital, Serena Ventures, Generation Investment Management, Chan Zuckerberg Education, and Omidyar Network.
Highlights of Andela’s Model
The primary perk with Andela is that the company offers jobs and training to many local Africans at their multiple locations. Of course, after a few years in the business, Andela started recruiting higher-level developers.
Taking away out or at least removing their entry-level offerings means Andela is moving toward recruiting more experienced professionals.
Either way, by choosing Andela, you would know that the people come with a high-quality guarantee. If someone underperforms, it is up to Andela to make it right.
For many entrepreneurs, that type of guarantee is enough to choose Andela for all their developer needs. The fact that Andela develops a team to tackle your project without you doing any of the organizing is a nice feature to add.
And, it is vastly different from the experience that you will have while browsing Upwork or other freelance websites.
The Biggest Complaint About Andela? Developer pay
Though Andela does not necessarily publicize their rates, publications confirm that the startup cashes developers out at one-third of the up-front rate that the companies pay for a project.
Redditors comment that the pay at the local Kenya facility is averaged at 60,000 per month. Presumably, that amount in Kenyan shillings is the equivalent of about $559 USD. For reference, the average monthly salary for most Kenyans is around 148,000 KES per month. That amount is roughly estimated to be at $1,380 USD.
Rates are likely to vary based on a developer’s skillset, and Reddit commenters who claim to work there also say that frequent raises are part of the deal. They also noted that the healthcare package is also worth the commitment.
Still, for an organization that came up from a need to set African developers on a path toward opportunity, the discrepancy between what small businesses pay and what workers receive might be concerning. It’s worth noting, though, that your investment would support both up-and-coming developers and the company as a whole. Contracting with Andela correlates to many more opportunities for its local area and for your company, too.
Andela pricing – What’s Andela’s fee structure?
As Quartz Africa explained in their discussion of Andela’s Africa layoffs, most European and North American companies were top-shelf clients for the company.
Smaller and local startups in Africa cannot afford to hire through Andela. That leaves a bit of a sour taste in the mouths of clients that choose Andela because of their philanthropic efforts. But it is worth noting that what makes up a “reasonable” rate in the United States does not necessarily translate to other countries.
So, what’s the bottom line? Unfortunately, Andela does not advertise rates on its website.
Of course, that doesn’t stop Forbes from reporting rates averaging $50,000 to $120,000 per developer.
That is around $4,200 to $12,000 per month if you are hiring someone on a month-to-month freelance basis. Developers usually work full-time hours, by all accounts, which means $25 an hour is the going rate.
For most small businesses and entrepreneurs, a full-time developer for $25 an hour is a steal. That said, transparent rate packages are not available on the website, so it is very tough to estimate the total cost of a project with them.
Whether you have the funds to drop on a long-term contract with an Andela developer or not, think before you leap. You might want to calculate a cost to benefit analysis first before jumping to sign a contract.
Is Andela worth it for hiring?
Deciding whether Andela is worth it for hiring usually depends on a range of factors.
First, you will need to find out if the fee structure is a good fit for your budget. But at the same time, you have to consider what alternative costs would be if you are sourcing for a developer on your own.
With Andela, the relatively painless hiring process seems very appealing. The legal work is done for you to source for highly qualified and talented developers. You can choose a specialty from Andela’s list and know that the freelancers have the experience that you need.
When you tell Andela what you need and define the scope of the project. Then they create a team to manage your needs. Reading through the case studies on the company website, most of Andela’s clients found out the hands-off a delightful experience of working with them.
For many organizations, Andela’s model is a very reliable, and safe option for out-sourcing teams of developers. While it is not a true freelance model, the startup offers reliable and closely coached teams of developers who are well-versed in remote collaboration and in meeting the demands of clients.
