Staff augmentation adds engineers who work under your direction; consulting brings experts who diagnose a problem and own advice or a deliverable. Augmentation buys capacity, while consulting buys judgement.
An engagement model is the commercial and working structure under which a company buys technical work from people or providers. Common examples include staff augmentation, dedicated teams, project outsourcing, managed services, fixed price and time and materials.
Staff augmentation is an engagement model where a company adds outside engineers to its own team for a set period, managing their work directly. The provider sources and employs them; the client keeps control of priorities, process and delivery.
Staff augmentation and outsourcing differ in who directs the work and who carries delivery risk. Augmentation adds outside engineers to a team you manage; outsourcing hands a project or function to a provider that runs delivery.
A statement of work (SOW) is a document that defines one engagement: the work, deliverables, timeline, roles, fees and acceptance terms. It usually sits under a broader master services agreement.
Staff augmentation supplies individual engineers who work under your leads; a dedicated team is a complete squad, with its own lead, built around your product. The choice changes your management load and how the work scales.
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