The Hiring Gap

When hiring comes up, two factors immediately come to mind: the high cost involved and the difficulty of finding the right person. This combination haunts every leader — and in the Product Design market specifically, these professionals are known to be expensive and hard to find.

Add to that the overwhelming sense of instability that comes with markets fluctuating, international currencies climbing, and businesses forced to adapt to remote-first models. When companies need to review contracts and find cost-reduction opportunities, a real problem surfaces: the way their teams were built may have been both very costly and very inflexible.

In practice, here are the stages every company goes through in a typical hiring process, along with average timeframes from defining the need to having a fully productive team member:

  1. Creating and posting the role — 2 weeks
  2. Search — average of 1 month
  3. Selection — average of 1 month
  4. Hiring — average of 2 weeks
  5. Onboarding — average of 2 weeks
  6. Training and integration — average of 2 months
  7. Effective productivity — approximately 6 months total

We're talking about nearly half a year before a new team member is fully adapted and operating. And from that point on, a period of tension begins: if that professional leaves for any reason — regardless of who initiates it — the entire process starts over. Consider the cumulative cost of each cycle, the stress, the time lost, and the impact on team productivity and product momentum. Since hiring should be a meaningful part of any UX strategy, this isn't a one-time problem — it's a constant challenge for every company with digital products.

Hello, Outsourcing

Since the process described above exists regardless of the hiring format, the goal is to find and analyze alternatives that make each stage shorter, less costly, and lower risk. That's where the outsourcing model becomes highly viable. By definition, outsourcing means purchasing services from a third party.

In the CLT format (Brazil's Consolidation of Labor Laws), the relationship between employer and employee is governed by a set of rights and obligations — the professional is paid monthly and taxes are handled as an individual. In the PJ (legal entity) format, contractors are legally treated as other companies. There's no formal employment relationship; the parties agree on the purchase of services, formalized through a contract that specifies what will be delivered and paid for. This model requires the professional to have a registered company (CNPJ) so they can operate as a business entity, issue invoices, and handle their own taxes. These contracts are time-bound — typically short to medium term — but can obviously be renewed.

In practice: the CLT format is slower to start, can cost up to 2.5x the salary throughout the professional's tenure, and is expensive to terminate; the PJ format starts faster, can cost around 1.7x the salary, and involves significantly lower exit costs.

It's worth noting that this arrangement isn't always company-imposed. Many professionals actively prefer this format and specifically seek roles that work this way. Even so, both parties should be fully aware of their rights and responsibilities before signing, to avoid misunderstandings down the line.

How to Use Outsourcing in Your Favor

In any hiring process, the challenge is using time and money strategically in service of the business. While leadership pushes to reduce headcount, Design leaders know they actually need more people. Here's how outsourcing enables smarter decisions:

Fast Hiring

Since the UX/UI Designer providing services is legally a company, work can begin immediately upon signing the service contract. In remote work contexts, this is even more practical — and the hiring company can choose whether or not to provide the basic infrastructure (such as a computer or connectivity support) for the outsourced professional.

Low or Zero Exit Costs

Since contracts are typically for short to medium terms (3 to 6 months), formal termination is rarely needed. If it does happen due to unforeseen circumstances and no penalties are specified in the contract, it can be done without additional costs — avoiding the typical fees associated with ending an employment relationship.

Flexibility to Renegotiate

In moments of extreme cost pressure, outsourcing contracts can be revised and adapted to avoid rupture entirely. Reducing the number of contracted hours, narrowing the scope of tasks, or creating defined pause periods are all examples of the flexibility this model allows.

Safer Experimentation

If a company is considering a permanent hire, outsourcing can serve as a structured trial period — by project or by timeframe. The professional is compensated normally while being evaluated across multiple dimensions: productivity, team integration, and cultural fit. This gives the company confidence before making a permanent commitment.

Reduced Obligations

Because the professional is an external provider, the company is not required to treat them as a standard employee under labor law. That said, many companies voluntarily offer certain benefits aligned with their culture as a way to retain the professionals they value.

No Direct Contract with the Professional

When working with a specialized recruiter like Deeploy, there's no direct contract with the designer. The hiring company establishes a contract with the consultancy instead, which retains full responsibility for the professional — handling all the bureaucracy around hiring, service delivery, and payments. The client company simply manages the UX/UI Designer's productivity.

Hire More by Spending Less

While a traditional hire might cost 1x to bring on and maintain, outsourcing can cost as little as 0.5x — freeing up budget to bring in an additional person. Design Teams can be built entirely through outsourcing, with varied seniority levels and specializations such as UX Writing and UX Research mixed in strategically.

What About Me — the UX/UI Designer?

If you're wondering whether this model is somehow harmful to your career or professional planning, consider the myth of stability: people tend to assume that CLT means security and PJ means risk. But what we've consistently seen is that companies don't apply much criteria when reducing their teams — and there are plenty of CLT-contracted UX/UI Designers who are let go in under three months, while others on PJ contracts have their agreements renewed continuously. This shows that the primary factor in your stability is the quality of your work and your professional conduct. Here are some of the real benefits of working on shorter contracts as an external provider:

Multiple Projects

With good time and relationship management, it's entirely possible to work on more than one project for different clients simultaneously. This not only increases your income but also positions you as a Design consultant — a career path chosen by many senior-level and specialist professionals.

Exposure Across Sectors

If in a single year you work across three projects (averaging four months per contract), your cross-sector experience grows much faster than it would in a traditional role. An employee who stays at one company for two years or more is limited to understanding only that sector during that entire period — with the exception of UX/UI Designers at large advertising agencies, where they may touch a variety of campaigns.

More Network, More Portfolio

With a broader variety of projects and design teams in a shorter span of time, your professional network grows significantly and almost automatically. Your portfolio gains more projects faster — and with greater variety — as long as you maintain consistency and quality in how you present each case.

Conclusion

In times of extreme uncertainty, outsourcing ensures your products keep moving. With qualified professionals, you save time and money while protecting your company's planning and ability to meet its goals — without letting instability become an obstacle.