Hire backend developers who have run production
Vetted Node.js, Java, Python, .NET and Go contractors — named engineers, a rate quoted against your market and the shape of the work, and a start date inside two weeks. You direct the work; we carry the rest.
The language on the spec is the least useful thing about it.
Domain moves a backend rate ±30%. Operational scope moves it ±25%. Stack moves it at most ±15%. A contractor who has only ever written application code behind someone else's deployment pipeline is a different hire from one who has been paged at 3am for the service they built — and the CVs look identical. We screen for the second kind.
What you can hire
Five stacks, one screening bar — plus the specialisms that carry a premium.
Node.js & TypeScript
REST and GraphQL services, realtime and event-driven work. We separate contractors who have run WebSockets and queues in production from those who have read about backpressure.
Java & Spring Boot
Spring Boot is the baseline, not the premium. We screen for service-boundary judgement, JVM tuning at scale, and Hibernate scars — plus legacy J2EE, EJB and WebLogic estates where the pool is genuinely thin.
Python
Django and FastAPI for web and API work, and a separate bench for data engineering — production Airflow, dbt, Spark, Databricks and Snowflake, which is a different market at a 25–30% premium.
.NET & C#
ASP.NET Core services and long-lived enterprise .NET estates, including Framework-to-Core migration work. Deep bench in Microsoft-shop environments.
Distributed systems
Idempotency, outbox patterns, saga orchestration and distributed tracing. The highest-value backend skill in 2026 and the hardest to fake — we ask the questions that sort it.
Backend + platform
Contractors who own Docker, CI/CD and observability alongside application code. Costs 15–25% more and frequently removes a second headcount on engagements under 12 months.
How we price a backend engagement
We quote per engagement rather than off a fixed rate card, because “senior backend developer” spans a 3× range. These are the four things that move the number.
Workload profile, not job title
A REST API over Postgres and an event-driven system with ordering guarantees are both "backend" and price 30–40% apart. Getting this right on the brief is worth more than any rate negotiation, and it's the first thing we'll pin down.
Domain
Core banking, payments, healthcare and telecom carry a real premium in every stack — regulatory exposure, consequence of error, and a narrow pool with genuine experience. Internal tooling does not.
Operational scope
A contractor who owns the path to production — deployment, observability, on-call — costs more than one who only writes application code, and on engagements under twelve months usually removes a second headcount.
Your market and engagement shape
We price each engagement against the market you're hiring into and the shape of the commitment. A twelve-month engagement prices differently from a six-week one, and a UK inside-IR35 seat differently from a US corp-to-corp contract.
How an engagement runs
Named profiles in days, onboarded into your tooling, flexed as you go.
Scope the outcome and the scope premium
Stack, seniority, timezone overlap, and — critically — whether the work is REST-on-Postgres or genuinely event-driven. Those price 30–40% apart, and paying the distributed premium for CRUD work is the most common budgeting error we see.
Named profiles in days
Pre-screened backend contractors with bill rates, availability and the systems they've actually run in production. Named individuals, with substitution subject to your approval.
You interview, we don't oversell
A judgement call and a session on a real problem from your codebase. If a candidate is strong on application code but has never owned production, we tell you before you find out.
Onboard, operate, flex
Access on day one and a small shippable first ticket. On-call and incident ownership defined before the first deployment, not after the first incident. Extend, scale or convert as the work moves.
What we screen for
Five questions that work across every stack and take about 25 minutes.
A production incident they personally diagnosed — named symptom, named tool, named root cause. Anyone senior has three of these ready.
How they handle a write that spans two systems. Outbox, idempotency keys, or an explicit argument for avoiding the situation. This single question sorts distributed-systems claims faster than anything else.
What's in their test suite and what deliberately isn't. The second half is the signal — seniors have opinions about what not to test.
Where the ORM has hurt them. N+1 queries, migrations on a large table, transaction scope. No war stories means no scale.
What they'd refuse to build the way it was specified. At senior rates you're buying judgement, not hands.
The full scoring sheet is public: the senior engineer interview rubric.
Worth reading before you brief a role
Backend contract rates 2026
Node.js, Java, Python, .NET and Go compared by region, with the premiums that outweigh the language.
Java developer hourly rate 2026
The pay-rate vs bill-rate gap, and why legacy Java commands 20–35% more.
Node.js hourly rate 2026
Regional bands, and what realtime and event-driven scope adds to a quote.
Offshore rates by country
Twelve countries scored on cost, timezone overlap and pool depth.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to hire a backend developer on contract?
It depends on the workload profile more than the job title — a REST API over Postgres and a distributed event-driven system price 30-40% apart. Domain matters too: regulated work like core banking or healthcare carries a real premium. We quote per engagement against the market you're hiring into rather than off a fixed rate card. Tell us the brief and we will give you a number against it.
Which backend language should I hire for?
If the stack is open, decide on what your existing team can maintain after the contractor leaves — that dominates everything else. Then talent-pool depth in your target market, then workload profile: realtime favours Node or Go, data-heavy favours Python, transactional and regulated favours Java or .NET. Rate should be the last input; a 10% stack differential is noise against a 30% domain premium.
How fast can a backend developer start?
Named profiles within days and a start date inside one to two weeks for mainstream stacks. Go, distributed-systems specialists and regulated-domain contractors take three to six weeks in any channel, because those pools are small everywhere.
Are the rates I see online bill rates or pay rates?
Usually pay rates — what the contractor earns — which sit 25-45% below what an agency invoices. This trips up backend budgeting more than any other stack, because published Java and .NET figures are almost always pay rates. When you compare our quote to a number you found online, check which one you're looking at; we'll walk through it with you.
Will the contractor carry on-call?
If they own the service in production, yes — typically a 10–15% uplift or a defined out-of-hours retainer. If they don't, we make sure the escalation path is written down before the first deployment rather than discovered during the first incident.
Can I hire one backend developer, or is there a minimum?
One is fine. No minimum headcount, and no minimum contract length beyond a 30-day notice period in both directions. Most engagements start with a single contractor and grow if the work justifies it.
What if the developer isn't a fit?
Replacement is covered by an SLA with a number of days in it, and we carry the cost of the re-ramp. You approve any substitution — the person you interviewed is the person who delivers.
Tell us the stack and the start date
Send the roles, the seniority and when you need them. We'll come back with named backend profiles and a rate quoted against your market.
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