Where to hire: Upwork for one well-defined feature, Toptal or an agency if you want candidates screened for you, a development subscription for a steady stream of features, or a full-time employee if there are years of full-time work ahead.
What it costs: roughly $25 to $50 an hour for junior freelancers and $95 to $160 for senior ones, more for US-based contractors, and a median $135,980 a year plus benefits for a full-time US developer.
What to test: that they can take one feature from your database to the screen, on your stack. Ask the three questions below, then run a short paid trial.
Hire a Full Stack Developer at a Glance
| Where to hire | What it costs | How fast | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freelance marketplace (Upwork) | Hourly, from about $25 to $160 by seniority | Days | One well-defined feature or fix, if you can review code |
| Vetted network (Toptal and similar) | A higher hourly rate for pre-screened developers | Toptal says about 48 hours to hire | Skipping the first round of vetting |
| Agency or staffing firm | A project quote or monthly team rate | Weeks | A large build that needs several people at once |
| Development subscription | A flat monthly fee | Days | A live product that needs a steady queue of features and fixes |
| Full-time employee | A median $135,980 a year in the US, before benefits | Months | Years of full-time work ahead |
Before you sign, ask every candidate these three questions:
- Question 1, "Walk me through one feature, from the database to the screen." A good answer covers the table or field, the API that reads and writes it, the permission check, and the page that shows it, in your stack's terms.
- Question 2, "Which parts of our stack are you weakest in?" A good candidate names one honestly. Nobody is expert at everything, and someone who claims to be is a warning sign.
- Question 3, "How do you deploy a change, and how do you undo it if it breaks?" Full stack includes getting code live. A good answer mentions preview deploys, a quick rollback, and checking errors afterwards.
Then run a short paid trial on a real task that touches both the front end and the back end, in a code repository your company owns.
Need full stack work shipped without hiring?
A senior developer on subscription: $2,995 a month, as many requests as you like, each shipped within 2 to 3 business days, and your money back if the first 14 days don’t prove it.
In this article
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
This guide covers what is specific to full stack hiring. For the general process (job posts, interviews, contracts, employee versus contractor), see how to hire a software developer.
What a Full Stack Developer Does
A full stack developer builds every layer of a web app: the screens people use, the server code behind them, the database, and the connections between them. The benefit is speed. One person can take a feature from idea to live without waiting on anyone else.
Front end
The part people see: pages, forms and dashboards, usually built with a framework such as React or Next.js. A good full stack developer makes it fast and usable on a phone, not just working on their laptop.
Back end and APIs
The server code that stores data, checks who is allowed to do what, and talks to other services such as payments or email. Often Node.js, Python or a similar language.
Database
Designing tables, writing queries that stay fast as data grows, and changing the structure safely without losing anything. Postgres is a common choice.
Deployment and running it
Getting code live, keeping secrets out of the code, watching for errors, and rolling back when something breaks. On a small team, nobody else will do this.
Hire for your stack, not the title
"Full stack" does not mean every stack. A developer who is excellent with React, Node.js and Postgres may be slow on a Python and Django app. Write down what your product is built with and ask for production work in those tools. If you are on Next.js or Node.js, our guides to hiring a Next.js developer and hiring a Node.js developer cover what to test for each.
When one full stack developer is not enough
One strong full stack developer can build and run an early web product. You will usually need someone else for visual design and branding, native iOS or Android apps, specialist work such as large-scale data or a formal security review, or simply more work than one person can do.
Where to Hire a Full Stack Developer
Freelance marketplaces
Upwork has the most supply and the widest price range. Expect a lot of proposals, and check each one against your stack. Works best when you, or someone you trust, can review code.
Vetted networks
Toptal says fewer than 3 percent of applicants are accepted and that you can typically hire within about 48 hours. You pay more per hour for that screening.
Agencies and staffing firms
Useful when you need design, several developers and project management at once. Check who will actually write the code, and whether one person will own the feature end to end.
Development subscriptions
A flat monthly fee for a queue of requests worked one at a time. A good fit for a live product that needs a steady stream of features across the front end and back end.
Full-time hire
The right choice once there is a full-time job's worth of work for years and someone to direct it. Expect a search of weeks to months.
How Much It Costs to Hire a Full Stack Developer
Rate guides disagree, mostly because of location. The US-focused guide above puts mid-level full stack developers in Western Europe at about $45 to $72 an hour, in Latin America at $44 to $70, and in Southeast Asia at $37 to $59. For a full-time hire, add benefits: they make up 30 percent of private employers' compensation costs, so the BLS median comes to roughly $194,000 a year by our estimate, before recruiting.
A low rate can cost more in the end. A developer who is strong on the front end but weak on the database can ship a feature that works in a demo and slows to a crawl with real customers.
How to Interview a Full Stack Developer
Skip the algorithm puzzles. Ask about the product you actually have.
Questions that show real full stack experience
- Show me something you built where you did the front end, back end and database yourself.
- A page has become slow. How do you find out whether the problem is the browser, the server or the database?
- How do you add a column to a table that already holds customer data, without downtime?
- Where do you check that a user is allowed to see or change something: in the page, the API or both?
- How do you keep API keys and passwords out of the code?
- What would you hand to a specialist rather than do yourself?
Run a short paid trial
Pick a small, real task that crosses every layer, such as adding a new field to a settings page: the database column, the API that saves it with a permission check, and the form that shows it. Pay for it, and run it in a repository your company owns.
Judge three things: does it work, is it tested, and can they explain it in plain English.
Which Option Should You Choose?
The cheapest way to get a single piece built. Budget time for vetting, and write down what done looks like before work starts.
You pay more per hour so someone else does the screening. Ask who will write the code and whether one person owns each feature end to end.
A flat monthly fee for requests worked one at a time, so you get senior full stack work without a hiring process or a salary.
The best long-term option once the workload justifies it. Many founders use one of the options above until then.
How StackTie Fits
StackTie is a development subscription. One senior full stack developer, Michael, works through your requests one at a time, front end, back end, database and deploys, and you get each one back in days as a pull request with a plain-English summary. You own all the code, and there is a money-back guarantee if it is not a fit. It suits founders with a live web product and more to build than they can hire for. It is not the right fit if you need native iOS or Android apps, visual brand design, or a whole team at once. The price and what is included are on the homepage.
If your product is a SaaS app, our guide to hiring a SaaS developer covers billing, permissions and keeping customers' data apart. Once it is built, our guide to software maintenance services covers keeping it healthy.
