Case Study: Rapidly Backfilling a Mission-Critical DevOps Role
Backfilled a sole senior DevOps engineer in 18 days on four submittals, replacing the company's only infrastructure expert across AWS, Terraform, Ansible and CI/CD.
IT Staffing Specialists
Your IT staff augmentation specialists
nexus IT group augments technology teams across the United States and Canada with vetted engineers who work inside your team, on your roadmap, under your direction. We have been recruiting in technology only since day one, which means an augmentation search begins with relationships we already have instead of a job posting and a long wait.
The people worth adding to your team are not applying to anything. They are employed, they are busy and they receive more recruiter outreach in a week than they answer in a month. That is the problem our contract desk was built to solve, and it is the same desk, the same recruiters and the same 51-step process behind every augmentation engagement we run.
The basics
What is IT staff augmentation?
IT staff augmentation is a hiring model where you add vetted technology professionals to your existing team on a contract basis. They work on your projects, under your direction, alongside your own employees, while the staffing firm remains the W2 employer, carrying payroll, benefits, insurance and employment risk.
The distinction that matters is control. With an outsourced or managed arrangement you hand a vendor a deliverable and they decide how it gets built, by whom, to what standard. With staff augmentation you keep the roadmap, the standards and the daily direction. You are adding capacity to your team, not handing work to somebody else’s.
That makes it the right model when you know exactly what needs building and who you need to build it, but you cannot hire fast enough, cannot justify permanent headcount yet or need a specific skill for a defined stretch of work rather than forever.
Clients
Join the many companies that augment their teams with our IT talent
WHY WORK WITH NEXUS
nexus IT group will staff your team quickly with people who stay
81%
of our successful candidates are submitted within one week
92%
of our candidates will accept your offer
96%
of our candidates are employed with your firm after 12 months
The process
How staff augmentation works with us
Five stages from job order to onboarding. Inside them sit the 51 individual touchpoints our recruiters work through on every search, which is the part you never see.
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1
Discovery
A call to understand the work, the team the engineer will join, the stack and what you would want them to have delivered six months in. It produces the cadence we search with.
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2
Targeted search
A multi-touch cadence deployed to hundreds of matched technologists, drawn from relationships we already hold rather than a posting.
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3
Vetting
A series of conversations covering technical fit, motivation and career direction. Bad fits and likely declines surface here, not in your interview loop.
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4
Shortlist
Your top two to three fully vetted candidates, presented with the proposed bill rate, so you are reviewing a shortlist and not sorting a stack of resumes.
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5
Onboard
We keep communication responsive through interviews, then handle onboarding, payroll and the employment relationship for the whole assignment.
OUR ROLES
Roles we augment
OPEN NOW
Open IT staff augmentation roles right now
Pricing
What IT staff augmentation costs
Augmentation is billed as an hourly rate rather than a placement fee. There is no cost to begin a search and nothing is owed until someone is working.
What the bill rate covers
Engineer’s pay rateWhat the technologist actually earns per hour.
Employer taxesPayroll taxes we carry as employer of record.
Benefits and insuranceHealth cover, workers’ compensation, liability.
Payroll administrationTimesheets, payments, compliance, reporting.
RecruitingThe search, the vetting and the 51-step process behind the hire.
Three things move the rate more than anything else: how scarce the skill is, how quickly you need someone in the seat and how long the assignment runs. A niche security or cloud specialist needed inside two weeks prices differently from a mid-level developer on a twelve-month engagement. Because we carry the employment, none of the cost of employing them sits on your books.
Choosing a model
Staff augmentation vs contract-to-hire vs direct placement
| Staff augmentation | Contract-to-hire | Direct placement | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who employs them | nexus IT group, on W2 | nexus IT group, on W2 | You, from day one |
| Who directs the work | You | You | You |
| Best when | You need capacity or a specific skill for a defined stretch of work | The role is permanent but you want to evaluate fit on the job first | The role is permanent and you know it |
| How you pay | Hourly bill rate | Hourly bill rate, then a conversion fee | One-time placement fee |
| Converting to permanent | Available after the agreed period | Expected, since that is the point | Not applicable |
| If you end it early | Obligation stops, no further fees | Obligation stops, no further fees | Covered by the placement guarantee |
| Co-employment risk | Limited, since we are the employer of record | Limited, since we are the employer of record | Not applicable |
Team lead
Testimonials
What our clients have said about working with nexus IT group
The great thing about nexus IT group is that it has a smaller family feel, but they are able to deliver IT candidates better than the largest IT staffing suppliers that we work with. They have delivered high quality cybersecurity professionals for several years to our firm.
Dana BahransVP of Talent AcquisitionDeloitte
I’ve been in Talent Acquisition for 15 years and have used many IT staffing firms over the years. I highly recommend Nick and nexus IT group over any other IT staffing services. nexus’ commitment to quality and delivery is top tier. They take the time to understand your needs, provide thorough screening, and make sure that candidates have a positive on-boarding experience.
Felicia NguyenVP of Talent AcquisitionAmazon
Working with nexus IT group has made my job much easier. Having a recruiting firm who specializes in IT and within my industry, and who understands our specific culture and hiring needs has been instrumental in our talent acquisition talent strategy.
Sai GunduVP of ITMu Sigma
Capital One has used nexus IT group’s recruitment services for a number of IT positions at varying levels, over the past 4 years. We’ve had a high success rate working with nexus IT group which is a testament to the caliber of their work and their internal sourcing and vetting practices.
Ben NolanRecruiting ManagerCapital One
I’ve dealt with a lot of hiring firms in my 18 years in the investment banking profession, and the majority of them have been awful to mediocre at best. Dealing with Nexus IT Group, on the other hand, was a breath of fresh air. After only one one opening, I was blown away by the quality and quantity of resumes I received. Nexus IT Group pays close attention to my demands and requirements. As a result, the individuals who were referred to me were excellent fits for our open positions. I appreciate the personal and professional expertise you offer to the process.
Zak WindresTalent Acquisition ManagerCiti
SAIC provides government services to several federal agencies across the US. We needed to recruit several new cybersecurity talent for our growing practice area. Travis quickly understood our business and the requirements of each cybersecurity need. nexus IT group showed patience, flexibility, and expertise in the search process. If you’re looking for good cybersecurity recruiters then you can’t go wrong with nexus IT group.
Stacey PatersonManager of CybersecuritySAIC
It is hard to put into words what nexus IT group has done for our organization. nexus IT group knows exactly what we look for and they get the right candidates 99% of the time. Anyone looking to hire tech talent would be lucky to have nexus IT group on their side. They have great work ethic, responsive, and a wide array of market knowledge.
Christian ZhengSr Technical Recruiter
We’ve enlisted the help of a number of IT recruiting firms in the past. Nexus IT Group has contributed to the success of many great hires by working professionally, diligently, and efficiently. We contacted Nexus IT Group after being introduced to them, and we were instantly impressed by their promptness and ability to focus on our needs. We received 3 resumes the same day and 3 more the next day, and we were able to hire four people in less than a week. We added an additional individual through Nexus IT Group a few weeks later as a result of vast network, service and professionalism. I highly recommend working with Nexus IT Group.
Sophie KammuffTalent Acquisition ManagerFederal Reserve Bank
Working together
How to manage an augmented team
The engagements that work are the ones where augmented engineers are treated as part of the team rather than an external resource.
Before day one
Onboard them properly
Give them the same environment access, documentation and first-week walkthrough you would give a permanent employee. Time lost to missing credentials is the most common source of wasted contract hours we see.
Week one
Put them in the rituals
Invite them to stand-ups, planning, retros and the team channel from the first week. Context is what makes a senior engineer productive, and most of that context only ever gets spoken aloud in those meetings.
Week one
Give real ownership
A defined service, feature or component works far better than a queue of disconnected tickets. Ownership is what turns capacity into progress.
Ongoing
Name one point of contact
Pick one person on your side who answers their questions and clears their blockers. Ambiguity about who to ask costs more time than any skills gap we have ever had to close.
Ongoing
Keep the employment line clean
You direct the work while we handle pay, benefits and everything else that belongs to an employer. That separation is what limits your co-employment risk, so it is worth keeping it visible.
Throughout
Plan the handover early
Documentation and knowledge transfer should happen as you go, so the end of the assignment is not a scramble.
Successful Searches
Our augmentation work keeps clients coming back
DevOps Engineer
A fast-growing SaaS company needed to build a DevOps practice rather than fill one seat. Our recruiters augmented the team while the in-house capability was established, then supported the transition as permanent staff came on.
Mendix Developer
A wholesale insurance leader had been running on outside consultants. We augmented the team with Mendix talent and moved the capability in-house, converting contractors to core team members.
Cloud Engineer
An HVAC/R distributor needed cloud transformation capacity it could not hire permanently. Augmented engineers delivered the migration alongside the existing IT team.
Blog
Our most recent staff augmentation posts
LOCATIONS
Nexus IT Group staffs IT roles nationwide including these cities
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about IT staff augmentation
IT staff augmentation is a hiring model where you add vetted technology professionals to your existing team on a contract basis. They work on your projects, under your direction, alongside your own employees, while the staffing firm remains the W2 employer and carries payroll, benefits and employment risk. In practice that means you get the capacity without the hiring cycle or the permanent headcount. The engineer is embedded in your team and your process for as long as the work needs them.
The difference comes down to control. With outsourcing you hand a vendor a deliverable and they decide how to build it, who works on it and to what standard. With staff augmentation you keep the roadmap and the day-to-day direction, and the engineers work inside your team and your process. Outsourcing buys an outcome; augmentation buys capacity.
It is billed as an hourly rate rather than a placement fee, so nothing is owed until someone is working. The rate covers the engineer’s pay plus employer taxes, benefits, insurance, payroll administration and the recruiting work behind the hire. Scarcity of the skill, urgency and assignment length move it more than anything else.
A 51-step touchpoint process from job order to onboarding. It starts with a discovery call to understand the role, then a multi-touch recruiting cadence to hundreds of matched technologists, then a series of vetting conversations, then a shortlist of our top two to three candidates with the proposed bill rate. We support the interview process and handle onboarding and employment for the duration.
Treat augmented engineers as team members, not external resources. Onboard them with the same access and documentation you would give an employee, include them in stand-ups and planning, give them ownership of something real rather than scattered tickets, and name one person they can go to when blocked. Keep the employment boundary clean: you direct the work, we handle everything that belongs to the employer.
Mechanically they are nearly the same, and at nexus IT group they run on the same desk and the same process. The difference is intent. Contract staffing usually fills one named seat. Staff augmentation usually adds a block of capability to an existing team, often several people at once, for a defined stretch of work.
The same disciplines we recruit across: software development, cloud, DevOps and SRE, cybersecurity, data science and data engineering, AI and machine learning, digital marketing technology, IT leadership and government IT. Each of those runs as its own practice area with its own recruiters, so the person searching for your Kubernetes specialist is not the same person filling a data science seat. If the discipline you need is not on that list it is still worth a conversation. The short version is that if we place it permanently, we can augment it.
nexus IT group is the W2 employer for the duration of the contract. We handle payroll, benefits, workers’ compensation and unemployment, which limits your co-employment risk. The engineer works under your direction throughout, so day to day it feels no different from managing your own staff. The employment paperwork simply sits with us.
Yes, and it happens often. You can convert at any point after the agreed period is reached. Many engagements start as augmentation precisely because it gives both sides a real working relationship to evaluate before anyone commits permanently.
If you end the assignment, your obligation to nexus IT group stops and there are no additional fees. We remain responsible for unemployment charges. We would also want to understand what we missed, because that is a signal about our own vetting.
A series of conversations rather than a single screen, covering technical fit, what the candidate actually wants and where they want their career to go. Our contract desk maintains a 94.3% quality of hire ratio, which is the number that reflects whether the vetting works. Motivation matters as much as skill on a contract engagement, since someone who takes an assignment reluctantly tends not to see it through. Day to day that means we turn away far more candidates than we submit.
Yes, though the economics change. Short assignments carry more recruiting cost per hour worked, and strong candidates weigh assignment length when deciding. For very short engagements it is worth discussing whether augmentation or Recruitment as a Service fits better.
Yes, and Canada is a real part of our footprint. We recruit across the United States and Canada, with teams covering Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver alongside fourteen US metros. Canadian engagements run on the same desk and the same process as the US ones, and we are the employer of record there too.