India (IST, UTC+5:30) sits 4.5 hours behind AEST, which means a full Australian business day overlaps with India's afternoon and evening — same-day calls and same-day fixes are the norm here, not the exception, compared with outsourcing to the US or Europe.
Ask to see a staging link for work in progress rather than a status deck, ask who specifically will write the code day to day, and confirm you'll own the repository and infrastructure accounts from the start — not receive a handoff at the end.
A fixed-scope sprint suits a defined MVP or feature; a monthly retainer suits ongoing product work after launch; staff augmentation suits teams that want an engineer inside their own sprint process. The right fit usually comes out of a short scoping call, not a generic rate card.
