If you are looking to hire an AutoCAD drafter, what you mainly want to know is who does the work and how it is organised. At OutsourceCAD, that does not mean a lone freelancer placed in a seat somewhere. We have a large, variable team that scales with each project, from one drafter for a small job to as many drafters as a large project requires.
Because that capacity is already in place, we deploy whatever the project needs at that moment. Sam, our team leader, runs the CAD team, is responsible for the technical side and project supervision, and still works as an engineer himself.
He has more than fifteen years of background in architecture, worked in Iran for seven years and ran his own design firm in the Netherlands. Barry, our project manager, is usually the first point of contact for a new enquiry and stays involved afterwards. Every drafter on our team has more than ten years of CAD experience. We carry out all drafting work remotely, from our own office and on our own licences. We draft and model, and we deliberately leave engineering to others.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
What hiring an AutoCAD drafter delivers on parametric work
AutoCAD is strong at producing drawings quickly, but it is not smart at building up components. That difference is most noticeable in MEP work. In piping systems a valve keeps coming back in different sizes, for example in 90 and also in 110, and without smart components that part is drawn by hand again every time. That is why we build parametric Revit families: components that adapt to a new size or a different situation. Such a component is set up once and can then be placed in a single action. The material schedule updates along with it, so if the component changes, the schedule changes automatically.
On work with a lot of repetition, this approach saves at least seventy per cent of the time. If you are thinking of hiring an AutoCAD drafter, that is a relevant consideration, because the gain lies more often in the set-up than in drawing speed. A drafter who clicks thirty per cent faster will never make up that seventy per cent. We can clean up existing families and templates or rebuild them from scratch.
Depending on the state of the existing set, one approach will be wiser than the other. When a family set is very messy, rebuilding is sometimes faster than repairing. We present that choice in advance, with our reasoning, so your project leader can make the call. We do not force that route on anyone either. If a client deliberately wants to keep working in AutoCAD, we simply do so and follow the drawing method that applies there.
Software, versions and formats our drafters work with
Our core software is Revit, AutoCAD and Rhino. On top of that we work with Inventor and Grasshopper, and to a limited extent with Dynamo and Vault. We always run the latest versions, which prevents a file from failing to open in your environment when it comes back. File formats are rarely an obstacle. We can deliver in DXF, DWG, the Revit formats and STEP, as well as in any other common CAD format you request.
More important than the format itself is how well the work fits your existing set. We work to your CAD standards and drawing conventions, which you supply to us. Layer structure, naming, title blocks and blocks therefore follow your existing convention, not a preference of ours. That saves a clean-up round on your side that would otherwise still have to be done. If you want to hire an AutoCAD drafter without cluttering your own library, this is exactly where your main interest lies.
We work in our own environment with our own licences and do not log into your systems. That keeps the IT side light: no extra accounts, no extra workstations, no licence discussions. For standalone drafting work, files simply go back and forth by email, with no system in between. On larger projects, for example in greenhouse construction, we use software you can log into to follow the project. We decide at the start which route is most practical, depending on the size of the job and the number of people involved on both sides.
No ongoing payroll costs and no idle staff once the peak is over. If one of our people is off sick or on holiday, we replace them and the work simply carries on.
What we deliver when you hire a drafter
Most of the work that comes in is 2D drafting. Where the project calls for it, we also produce 3D models, as-built drawings and revisions to existing sets. In concrete terms, that means floor plans, sections, elevations, detail sheets and part drawings. MEP work adds piping schematics and arrangement drawings, and fabrication work adds part and assembly drawings. The output follows your requirements, in the requested format and to your own sheet layout. A revision round is a category of its own. Often there is a set of DWG files that has passed through many hands over the years and is no longer consistent. We go through that set, bring it back into line and process the changes. Firefly once supplied as-built material in which the existing drawings had been printed incorrectly and partly drawn by hand.
The whole set was hard to read and, in places, downright messy. We sorted it out ourselves instead of calling the client about it constantly, and still delivered it neatly. That is the kind of work where outsourcing drafting capacity pays off most. What we do not deliver is just as clear. We do not do calculations, give structural advice or handle permits. If you want to hire a drafter for hands-on drafting work, you are in the right place; if you are looking for a consultant, you are not. The intellectual property of everything we draw belongs to you, so the files can be used without reservation. An assignment can consist of one clearly defined package or run across several projects.
Three review layers on every drawing package
Hired capacity stands or falls on how much follow-up work it creates. A drafter who works fast but delivers sloppily only moves the problem to your own drawing office. That is why all our work passes through at least three review layers before it leaves the building. A drafter produces the work. A second team member then checks it, looking mainly at structure and consistency.
After that, Sam reviews it as team leader from the technical side. Finally, Barry goes over the whole package before it goes to you. Because of that layering, the number of errors stays minimal in practice.
What these checks prevent is quite concrete: layers that do not match your library, dimensions that differ between two sheets, a title block that has not been updated, or a revision applied to one section but not to another. These are not spectacular mistakes, but they cost the receiving side the most time. Staged delivery reinforces the effect. We deliver in stages, gather feedback, make adjustments and carry on, so a misunderstood starting point surfaces as early as the first package.
The rhythm of check-ins varies by client, from every two days to weekly. We hold no certifications or quality marks, and we make no attempt to suggest otherwise. The quality control lies in the way we work and in the experience of the team, which together has built up around twenty-five years of practice.
Frequently asked questions about hiring an AutoCAD drafter
Hand your AutoCAD drafting over to us
Send us your documents and drawing conventions and we will let you know within one to two working days what we can take on and when.