How does an up-and-coming Chinese outsourcing company get the attention of U.S. businesses? Augmentum's answer: Don't get painted into the corner of low-end software development and stay close to your customers.

That strategy seems to be working. The company has grown to 1,500 employees in its first four years, and its business plan calls for doubling staff over the next 18 months as it expands operations to more cities in China.

Augmentum is headquartered in Shanghai and has a development center in Beijing. It also has an office in Foster City, Calif., that keeps it in close proximity to its U.S. clients, which include Intel, Microsoft, PalmSource, and Business Objects. Only about 50 employees are in Silicon Valley, as all development is done in China.

Augmentum doesn't concentrate only on big name accounts, nor can it be narrowly cast, as offshore outsourcers sometimes are, as providing development services on the lower end of the skills chain. It offers software architecture and design help, implementation, and support for companies ranging from startups to enterprise customers.

I met Augmentum president and COO Frank Yu recently in InformationWeek's San Francisco office. (Yu and CEO Leonard Liu worked together formerly at Cadence Design Systems.) Joining us was Brock Purpura, CEO of Etology, an online ad marketplace and Augmentum customer.

You can check out the interview here.