Everest Group's 2024 Staff Augmentation report found that 48% of augmented teams experience "high attrition" — defined as annual engineer turnover exceeding 25%. For a 5-person augmented team, that means losing 1-2 engineers per year. Each departure triggers the same costs as internal turnover — knowledge loss, ramp-up time, team disruption — but the client has no control over the staffing decisions because the engineers are employed by the vendor.
I run a staff augmentation business. The 48% number is the industry average, not our number. Our average engagement is 3+ years with the same engineers. The difference is the model, not the market.
Why Augmented Teams Churn
Utilization-driven rotation
Large staffing firms optimize for utilization, not client satisfaction. When a higher-paying engagement opens, the vendor moves the engineer from your project to the new one and assigns a replacement. From the vendor's perspective, this is rational — the same engineer generates more revenue on the new project. From your perspective, you just lost 6 months of domain knowledge and got someone who needs 2-3 months to ramp up.
