The senior engineers you can't find

Why a senior React developer and a senior AI engineer in the same city differ by more than the same role differs between two countries, and how to budget a mixed team without a blended average.

Staff augmentation is renting a colleague, not buying a result. What it is, when it beats hiring, how ITDS runs it from brief to start, what the rate covers and how many working hours you share with the team.

Who is accountable when a sprint slips, a two-column checklist for split decisions, and the SLA difference that leaves buyers without leverage when they reuse the wrong template.

Four regional rate bands, total project cost by complexity, the six cost lines that arrive after launch, and a calculation that tells you which option is actually cheaper.

Two delivery hubs, one contract, one account manager. Poland for depth of senior talent, Portugal for Western European hours and French speakers, and what changes when your team sits inside the EU.

Eight steps in the order each one constrains the next, including the two most teams skip: defining scope before sourcing, and planning knowledge continuity from week one.

Six cost layers bundled into one monthly fee, where the 20 to 50 percent margin actually goes, and why comparing a vendor rate to a developer’s salary compares the wrong two numbers.

Who manages what across three models, the one internal role the managed team cannot function without, and the scale below which the governance is not worth building.

What the model is, the three conditions that have to be true on your side before it works, four situations where it will not, and where to go deeper on cost, comparison and onboarding.

Three legal structures compared on setup time and risk, what a senior actually costs by city in 2026, and why system design beats LeetCode when you screen for seniority.