Some will have a combination of onsite developers, “rural source” developers who are in a cheaper part of the US, contractors and outsourced developers but they manage the entire project.
I was offered such a position - the pay is above market but it required too much travel for me now.
Scenario #1 - you are a founder with a great idea, you hire a good software dev lead who then fills out the department. You work with the Dev lead to hash out your plan They organize it and after certain checkpoints, the dev team demos progress. As the founder, you are at the top of the chain making sure that there is a product market fit, and ensuring things are going as planned from a high level.
Scenario #2. You contract with a consulting company. Your project is led by a dev lead/project manager paid by the consulting company and they fill out the team using thier own staff.
They organize the team and after certain checkpoints, the dev team demos progress. As the founder, you are at the top of the chain making sure that there is a product market fit, and ensuring things are going as planned from a high level.
There is no difference in the delegation chain or the risks involved.
The main difference is that you are writing one check to the consulting company and they are paying the contributors and in the other case, you are paying employees individually.
The usual retort is that employees have more loyalty and ownership in the company. No they don’t. The employees at your company, if they are smart, have one eye toward thier next job just like the consultanting company has one eye toward thier next contract.