01Owns
Vertical slices
Delivers a feature as one unit: migration, model, endpoint, interface and tests, merged together so nothing waits on another team.
Hire · Full stack
Hire Full-Stack Developers
Senior full-stack developers who join your team and carry a feature from database migration through API to the screen a customer uses. Every candidate has finished a paid task that crosses all three layers, so you see how they reason about data, contracts and interface together.
Vetted across database, API and UI
Senior and lead engineers only
Owns features without hand-offs
On your team
What a full-stack developer owns on your team.
02Owns
Schema and migrations
Designs tables and constraints for the feature, writes migrations that run without locking busy tables, and backfills data safely.
03Owns
API contracts
Defines request and response shapes once and shares the types with the front end, so changes on one side break the build rather than production.
04Owns
Interface and forms
Builds the screens, validation and error states that match what the API returns, including empty and permission-denied cases.
05Owns
Production follow-through
Deploys the slice, watches logs and metrics after release, and fixes issues wherever in the stack they appear.
What full stack should mean in a hire
The title gets used loosely. For this role it means one person can take a feature from an empty table to a released screen without waiting on anyone. Test that directly: ask a candidate to describe the last feature they shipped, layer by layer, including the migration and how they handled existing data.
Depth matters more than breadth. A developer with real experience in one server framework and one UI framework is more useful than someone who has touched ten of each. Ask them where their weaker layer is; honest answers are a good sign.
Vetting
Skills we test before a full-stack developer joins.
01Tested
Relational data modelling
Normalises sensibly, chooses indexes from real queries, and knows when a JSON column is convenient and when it will hurt.
02Tested
One back end, done well
Production depth in at least one server stack, such as Node.js, Django, Rails or Laravel, including auth, background jobs and testing.
03Tested
One front end, done well
Production depth in a modern UI framework, with state, data fetching and accessible forms handled properly.
04Tested
End-to-end type safety
Shares types or generated clients between layers, using tools such as OpenAPI generators, tRPC or GraphQL codegen.
05Tested
Authentication across layers
Implements sessions or tokens on the server and the matching guarded routes and refresh handling in the client.
06Tested
Testing the slice
Balances database-backed integration tests, a few UI tests and one end-to-end journey for each important feature.
Work sample
How the full-stack developer work sample runs.
- 01Step 1
Ship a feature across the stack
The candidate adds a small feature, such as team invitations, with a migration, an endpoint with authorisation, a UI with error states and tests. Paid, and bounded to a few hours.
- 02Step 2
Trace a bug through layers
Given a report that a total shows wrongly on screen, they work out whether the cause is in the query, the serialiser or the component, and fix it at the source.
- 03Step 3
Review a risky migration
They review a migration that adds a non-null column to a large table and propose a safer sequence.
- 04Step 4
Present the slice
A short walkthrough for a product owner covering what changed in each layer and how it was tested.
Levels
Full-Stack Developers: what changes at each level.
01Level 1
Senior
Delivers complete features across your existing stack with little hand-holding and reviews changes on both sides of the API.
02Level 2
Lead
Sets conventions for data access, contracts, front-end structure and testing, and keeps the stack coherent as the team grows.
03Level 3
Founding engineer
Chooses the stack and hosting for a new product, sets up CI and environments, and builds the first version with a small team.
Choosing senior, lead or founding engineer
If your stack and conventions exist, a senior developer will deliver features steadily. If the codebase has grown unevenly and each layer follows different habits, a lead restores consistency. A founding engineer is the right hire when there is no product yet and someone has to choose the stack, the hosting and the first data model.
Other options
When to hire someone other than a full-stack developer.
01Consider
Services and integrations only
If the work is APIs, queues and partner integrations with no interface, a Node.js specialist goes deeper.
Open register02Consider
A complex interactive front end
If the challenge is rich UI state and rendering performance, a dedicated React developer is the stronger choice.
Open register03Consider
Marketing sites and CMS pages
If you need sites built and maintained across various platforms rather than product features, hire web developers.
Open registerWhere the value of one owner comes from
Most delays in small teams happen at hand-offs: the API is ready but the UI is not, or the UI expects a field the API never returns. A full-stack developer removes those waits and catches contract mismatches while writing the code. That benefit fades once a codebase is large enough that each layer needs a specialist, so revisit the mix as you grow.
What to hand a new full-stack hire first
Pick a small feature that needs a schema change, an endpoint and a screen. It tests access to every environment and shows you how they sequence the work. Ask them to write a brief note on anything in the data model that surprised them, because those notes tend to reveal future bugs.
FAQ
Questions to resolve before the build.
01Which stacks do your full-stack developers know?
Each candidate has production depth in one server stack and one UI framework, and we shortlist people whose pair matches yours. Common pairs include Node.js with React, Django with React and Laravel with Vue.
02Is one full-stack developer enough for an early product?
Often, for the first version. As usage grows, you will usually add specialists for the area under most pressure, whether that is infrastructure, the interface or data.
03Do they handle the database too?
Yes. Owning schema design, migrations and query performance for their features is what separates this role from a front-end or API-only hire.
Works alongside
Roles a full-stack developer works best alongside.
01Pair with
UI/UX designers
A full-stack developer moves fastest with designs that already cover edge cases and states.
Open register02Pair with
DevOps engineers
Once there are several environments, on-call needs and compliance requirements, infrastructure deserves its own owner.
Open register03Pair with
QA engineers
To take over regression testing when one developer can no longer test every path before release.
Open registerProduct delivery
Need the whole product built instead?
Primary sources
References behind this page
Dated official documentation, standards, and research that support the factual claims on this page.
- 01MDN: HTTP overview
Reference on how clients and servers communicate on the web.
- 02OpenAPI Specification
The standard for describing HTTP APIs shared between front end and back end.
How to read this page
Scope, cost and timeline figures are planning guidance until confirmed in a written proposal. Diagrams and screens are illustrations, not client deliverables, and source-code rights and handover follow the signed agreement. See the delivery process and the full disclaimer.
Next decision
Turn the brief into an accepted product scope.
Define outcomes, constraints, evidence, rights and handover before delivery begins.
Commercial rights, repositories, environments, documentation, acceptance and handover remain contract-defined.