For businesses in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and the UAE, Devvista is a software development and growth agency that supplies and manages dedicated backend developers and API engineers. Work is billed hourly, by the team, or as a fixed-price project.
The backend is the part of a product users never see: accounts, data, business rules and the connections to other systems. Below: the kinds of backend work, which language and stack suit which job, the cost, how to check a candidate and how hiring works from your country.
What our Backend developers build
APIs for web and mobile apps
The contract between your screens and your data: endpoints, authentication, validation and documentation a front-end team can build against.
Databases and data models
Tables, relationships and indexes designed for how the business really queries them, with migrations that change live data safely.
Integrations and webhooks
Links to payment, accounting, shipping and CRM tools, with retries and a visible list of failed messages.
Authentication and permissions
Sign-in, roles and rules that keep each user to their own records, written once and enforced in one place.
Performance, monitoring and cloud deployment
Finding slow queries, setting alerts and deploying so an incident is spotted before a customer reports it. See our hire AWS developers page for the cloud side.
Backend work by size: what to hire for a small, medium or large job
Size changes the hire more than the language does. The table sets out three typical jobs, how long they run and who usually does them.
| Job size | Typical work | Who to hire | Engagement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small | One integration, one reporting endpoint or a bug hunt | One backend developer | Fixed price from $500 or a few hours |
| Medium | A full API with accounts, rules and a few integrations | A senior engineer plus a developer | Fixed-price build, then hourly |
| Large | A platform with several services, queues and a team | A lead engineer and a small dedicated team | Dedicated team, billed hourly per person |
| Rescue | A live system that is slow or failing | A senior engineer for a short review | Hourly, with a ranked findings list |
Our guide to hiring dedicated developers explains the engagement models, our staff augmentation guide covers adding one engineer to your team, and the Node.js, Python and .NET pages cover each stack in detail. Our hire offshore developers page covers working with a remote team.
Backend problems and the fix that usually works
Most backend jobs start with a symptom. This table pairs the common ones with the first thing a good engineer checks, so you can brief a hire on the problem as well as the title.
| Symptom you see | Likely cause | First check | Typical fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pages or screens load slowly as data grows | Queries scanning whole tables | The slowest queries and their plans | Add indexes, trim columns, cache read-heavy results |
| Orders or records appear twice | A retried request with no duplicate guard | How the endpoint handles a repeated call | Use idempotency keys and unique constraints |
| An integration silently stops | No handling of failed calls to the other system | The error log and the failure list | Add retries, alerts and a visible dead-letter queue |
| A release breaks something unrelated | No automated tests around shared code | Which tests exist for the shared module | Add tests first, then change the code |
| A single user can see another user data | Permissions checked in some screens only | Where the permission rule lives | Enforce the rule once, in the data layer |
A senior engineer reads this kind of table back to you after a short review of your system, with the first fixes ranked by risk.
What it costs and how you can hire
There are two ways to pay for backend developers: a fixed price between $500 and $100,000 set by complexity, or an hourly rate between $10 and $100. All prices are in US dollars, and the estimate comes before the work.
| Model | Best for | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Dedicated Backend developer by the hour | Looking after a live backend with fixes and features every month | By developer level |
| Small Backend team | A product build needing backend, front-end and testing skills together | Hourly, per person |
| Fixed-price build | One integration, one reporting feature or one service with a written rule list | By complexity |
| Scoping first | You have a product idea but no data model or endpoint list yet | A short engagement that ends in a written spec |
Illustration (an estimate, not a quote): a backend for an order-management product with accounts, orders, invoices and a shipping integration, plus staff-only screens behind it, at an assumed $40 an hour:
| Work | Hours |
|---|---|
| Data model and written spec | 22 |
| Accounts and permissions | 30 |
| Order endpoints and rules | 48 |
| Invoices and exports | 30 |
| Shipping integration with retries | 34 |
| Admin endpoints | 24 |
| Automated tests | 34 |
| Deployment and monitoring | 20 |
| Total | 242 hours, about $9,680 at $40 an hour |
Remove the shipping integration and the total falls; add a second integration and it climbs. Send us the list of actions your product must support and we will price your own.
Which Backend developer profile you need
Backend hires differ by what they have been trusted with, so match the profile to the stage of the product.
| Profile | What they do | Ask to see |
|---|---|---|
| Backend developer | Builds endpoints, data access and rules to a spec | An API they built and its tests |
| Lead backend engineer | Owns the shape of the system and reviews other developers | A review they wrote and a decision they reversed |
| Integration engineer | Connects your system to third-party services reliably | An integration with retries and logging |
| Database and performance engineer | Tunes queries, indexes and storage for growth | A slow query they fixed and the measurement before and after |
Common situations and what to hire
Backend work starts from a few common places.
| Your situation | What to hire | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A product whose first version was built in a rush | A senior engineer for a review, then targeted fixes | Fix the data model before adding features |
| A live backend slowing down as data grows | A database and performance engineer by the hour | Measure first, then fix the worst queries |
| Two systems that must exchange data | An integration engineer on a fixed-price job | Retries and a failure list are part of the scope |
What the first month of a Backend hire looks like
- Week one: read access to the code, database and hosting, plus a list of the five worst problems as users see them.
- Week two: measurements of the slow and failing parts, then fixes starting with the most costly.
- Week three: integrations, background jobs and failure handling, plus logging.
- Week four: a load check, alerts, a review against the spec and the deployment plan.
How to check any Backend developer before you hire
Before you sign, get written answers to the following. Developers who have done the work answer quickly and specifically.
- What would make a second developer afraid to change this code, and how do you prevent it?
- How do you design a data model that must change after launch?
- How do you handle an error from a service you depend on?
- How do you find and fix a slow query?
- What monitoring tells us the backend is unhealthy before a user does?
- Who owns the repository and hosting accounts at handover?
- Ask for a small paid trial task before you commit: a short review of one real endpoint, naming its three biggest risks and fixing one with a test.
A promise of results before the work is scoped is a sales line. Ask what the estimate rests on.
Mistakes to avoid when hiring backend developers
Backend mistakes surface months after launch.
- Choosing a stack by fashion instead of by who will maintain it.
- Leaving the data model until the screens are built.
- Skipping logs and alerts, so failures are found by customers.
- Hard-coding rules that change often, such as prices or limits.
Hiring from the US, UK, Australia, Canada and the UAE
We serve backend developers clients across five markets, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the UAE, remotely. Calls, written specs and a shared project board replace site visits.
Who this is for, and who it is not
| A good fit | Not a fit |
|---|---|
| A business with an API, data or integration need and a clear owner for decisions | A request to pick a stack before the problem is written down |
| A team adding a backend engineer by the hour | A project needing developers on site |
| Owners who approve a written spec and staged releases | A plan with no monitoring or testing budget |