Tech hiring Software engineering
Hire software developers, assessed before you meet them.
A software developer turns a requirement into working, tested, deployed code and then keeps it running. If you know the problem but not yet the exact stack, start here: tell us what the software has to do and we will shortlist developers who have built that kind of thing before.
01 The role
What you get, when you hire a software developer.
A software developer takes a problem described in plain language and turns it into software people can use: they clarify what is being asked, design the data and the interfaces, write and test the code, release it, and fix it when it breaks in production.
The job is wider than typing code. A good developer spends a large share of the week reading existing code, reviewing other people’s changes, writing down decisions, and saying early when a requirement is unclear or a deadline is at risk. That is what separates someone you can hand a feature to from someone who needs every step specified.
Most developers lean one way: backend (APIs, data, integrations), frontend (what runs in the browser), mobile, or full-stack across the first two. This page covers the general role. If you already know the stack, the specialist pages linked below go deeper on each one.
What they ship
- Web applications and customer portals, from sign-up to billing
- REST and GraphQL APIs that other systems and apps depend on
- Internal tools that replace spreadsheets and manual steps
- Integrations with payment providers, CRMs, ERPs and third-party APIs
- Database schemas, migrations and the queries that sit on top of them
- Automated tests and the pipeline that runs them on every change
- Fixes, upgrades and performance work on software that already exists
02 Skills and stack
What a good generalist knows, whatever the language.
Read the columns left to right: what the role cannot be done without, what changes from team to team, and what is useful to have nearby.
Core
The role cannot be done without these.
- One language in depth (JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, PHP, Java, C# or Go)
- Data structures and algorithms, at a working level
- SQL and relational data modelling
- HTTP, REST and API design
- Git and code review
- Automated testing
- Debugging and reading unfamiliar code
Tooling
Varies from team to team.
- A framework for their language (Laravel, Django, Spring, .NET, Express, Rails)
- PostgreSQL or MySQL
- Docker
- CI/CD (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins)
- A cloud platform (AWS, Azure or Google Cloud)
- Issue tracking (Jira, Linear)
- AI coding assistants, used with review
Adjacent
Useful, not required.
- Frontend basics: HTML, CSS, a component framework
- Caching and queues (Redis, RabbitMQ)
- Logging and monitoring
- Application security basics (OWASP Top 10)
- Writing technical documentation
03 When to hire one
When a generalist is the right hire, and when a specialist is.
A capable generalist covers most of what a growing product needs. These are the situations where one fits, and the ones where a narrower role does the job better.
Hire a software developer when
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You have a backlog and nobody to work through it
Features are specified, customers are waiting, and the people who could build them are busy keeping the current system alive.
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An agency or freelancer built version one, and now it needs an owner
The product works, but every change means a new quote. A developer on your own team learns the codebase once and keeps the knowledge in the company.
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A manual process has outgrown its spreadsheet
When the same data is retyped into three systems, a developer can connect them or replace the spreadsheet with a small internal tool.
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Your stack is ordinary and the work is varied
A typical web stack with a bit of everything (API, database, some interface work) suits a capable generalist better than a narrow specialist.
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You need a second or third engineer, not a first
Someone technical is already setting direction and reviewing code. You need another pair of hands that can be trusted with whole features.
Look elsewhere when
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The work is mostly user interface in one framework
A React specialist will be faster and will make better decisions about state, performance and accessibility.
Hire React developers -
You want one person to carry a product from database to browser
That is a full-stack brief, and it is worth assessing for explicitly rather than hoping a generalist stretches.
Hire full-stack developers -
Releases are slow or production keeps falling over
The constraint is the pipeline and the infrastructure, not the number of developers.
Hire DevOps engineers -
Nobody has decided what to build yet
More developers will not fix an unclear product. Start with someone who owns the what and the why.
Hire product managers -
You have no technical lead at all
A lone developer with no one to review their work is a risk. A team with its own lead is the safer route.
See dedicated teams
04 How we assess
Four checks, before a name reaches you.
Every name on your shortlist has been through the same four stages. The notes and scores come with it.
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Stage 1
Profile review
We read past projects and public repositories for evidence that the candidate has shipped software, not only completed courses: what they built, in which language, with how many others, and what part was theirs.
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Stage 2
Technical test
A timed test in the candidate’s primary language: multiple-choice questions on language and web fundamentals, coding exercises, and a problem-solving task that shows how they break a requirement down.
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Stage 3
Conversation with our team
Our engineers ask the candidate to walk through something they built: how the data was modelled, how it was tested, what went wrong in production and what they would now do differently. We also listen for how clearly they explain it.
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Stage 4
Review and levelling
Reviewers score accuracy, speed, problem-solving, communication and teamwork, then assign a level from our engineering framework. The level and the notes behind it come with the shortlist.
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Then
Your shortlist
Assessed candidates, with notes and scores.
The engine
Evalia
Assessments run on Evalia, the assessment platform we built ourselves. Across the ProDevs network, more than 100,000 assessments have been completed.
The levels we assign are public. Read the engineering framework, or see how a hire runs from brief to offer.
05 Seniority
Same title, different scope. What each level can own.
Years of experience are a weak guide. Ask what the person has owned, and who was checking their work.
Junior
Owns a well-defined task
- Builds a feature or fixes a bug when the approach is already agreed
- Writes tests for their own code and responds well to review
- Needs a senior colleague for design decisions and for unblocking
- Good value when you have someone with time to mentor
Mid-level
Owns a feature, end to end
- Takes a requirement from ticket to production without step-by-step direction
- Chooses sensible data models and API shapes inside an existing architecture
- Reviews other people’s code and catches real problems
- Flags risk and unclear scope before the deadline, not after it
Senior
Owns a system, and the people around it
- Designs services and decides the trade-offs: build or buy, simple now or flexible later
- Breaks a project into pieces other developers can pick up
- Handles production incidents and leaves the system better afterwards
- Raises the standard of the team through review, pairing and written decisions
Indicative salary
Software developers, all stacks. Annual, in US dollars, for remote roles with US, UK and EU companies.
- Junior
- $15–30k
- Mid-level
- $28–55k
- Senior
- $45–85k
Indicative market ranges as of August 2026, based on ProDevs placement experience and published market data. The exact figure depends on stack, seniority and time-zone requirements. See the full cost breakdown.
06 Interview questions
Seven questions, worth asking a software developer.
For your own interviews, after ours. Each question comes with what a strong answer tends to show.
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Tell me about a piece of software you built that is still in use. What was your part?
A good answer shows: Specifics: who uses it, what the candidate personally designed and wrote, and what has changed since launch. Vague answers in the plural (“we built”) with no personal detail are a warning sign.
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Walk me through how a request travels through that system, from the user’s click to the database and back.
A good answer shows: A clear mental model of the whole path: routing, validation, business logic, queries, the response. Strong candidates mention where it is slow or fragile without being asked.
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Describe a bug that took you more than a day to find. How did you find it?
A good answer shows: A method, not luck: reproducing it, narrowing the cause, reading logs, forming and testing a hypothesis. Listen for what they changed afterwards so the same class of bug would be caught sooner.
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How do you decide what to test, and what not to?
A good answer shows: Judgement about risk. They test the logic that would cost money or trust if it broke, and can explain why chasing a coverage percentage is not the same thing.
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You are given a ticket that is one line long and the product owner is away. What do you do?
A good answer shows: They state their assumptions in writing, pick the smallest reversible version, and ask the questions that matter. Neither waiting in silence nor guessing and building for a week is a good answer.
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Tell me about a time you disagreed with a code review comment.
A good answer shows: They can argue from evidence, change their mind when the reviewer is right, and stay on good terms either way. This tells you most of what you need to know about working with them.
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Which parts of your work do you now use an AI assistant for, and where do you not trust it?
A good answer shows: An honest, specific answer. Good developers use these tools for boilerplate and exploration, read everything they generate, and can name cases where the output was wrong.
07 Ways to engage
Permanent, team, payroll or project. Four routes to a software developer.
Most companies come to us for a permanent hire. If the work is temporary, or you cannot employ in the country, another model may fit better.
- Placement fee, of first-year salary. One-time.
- 10–15%
- Replacement guarantee on direct hires.
- 2 weeks
- To a first shortlist, for most roles.
- 48h
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Direct hire
A permanent employee on your contract and your payroll. One-time placement fee of 10–15% of first-year salary.
Tech hiring -
Dedicated team
A software developer inside a team we assemble and run for you: product, design and engineering on your roadmap, for a monthly retainer.
Dedicated teams -
Outsourcing & payroll
A full-time person in a country where you have no legal entity. ProDevs employs and pays them: 20% of salary if we find the person for you, or 5% of salary, capped at $500 a month, for payroll and compliance on someone you have already chosen.
Outsourcing -
Freelance project
A defined piece of work with a clear end. You pay the agreed price per milestone through escrow, plus a 5% client fee. Free to post.
Freelancers
08 Around the role
Around the role: who a software developer works with.
A developer rarely works alone. In a small company they sit between the person who decides what gets built and the people who use it; in a larger one they are part of a squad with its own design, quality and infrastructure support.
- Product manager
- Agrees what a feature must do, what can wait, and what “done” means before work starts.
- Product designer
- Turns designs into working screens and pushes back early when something is expensive to build.
- QA tester
- Receives test plans and bug reports, and makes the software easier to test in the first place.
- DevOps engineer
- Shares responsibility for the pipeline, the environments and what happens when a release goes wrong.
- Other developers
- Reviews their changes, has their own reviewed, and keeps shared code consistent.
09 Client testimonials
Hear it first-hand, from companies that hired.
Founders, operators and executives describe working with ProDevs, in their own words.
Play video: Client testimonial: Olufemi Seyi, COO, Casafina development company
Play video: Client testimonial: Aproko Doctor, Building AwaDoc
Play video: Client testimonial: JT Liddell, Promenade CEO
10 Questions
Before you hire a software developer: the usual questions.
Something else? Book a call (opens in a new tab) and ask us directly.
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What kinds of software developers can I hire through ProDevs?
Backend, frontend, full-stack and mobile developers, across the common languages and frameworks: JavaScript and TypeScript, Python, PHP, Ruby, Java, .NET and others. If you are not sure which you need, describe the product on a call and we will suggest the profile that fits.
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How quickly can I hire a software developer?
For most roles you see a first shortlist within 48 hours of agreeing the brief, and most companies find their hire within two to three weeks. The rest depends on your interview process and the notice period of the person you choose.
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How do you check that a developer can actually code?
Every candidate goes through four stages: a review of their profile and past projects, a timed technical test, a conversation with our engineering team, and a final review that assigns an engineering level. The assessments run on Evalia, the platform we built for the purpose, and the results come with your shortlist.
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Should I hire a generalist developer or a specialist?
Hire a generalist when the work is varied and the stack is conventional. Hire a specialist when most of the work sits in one area, such as a complex React interface, a mobile app or data pipelines. Many teams start with generalists and add specialists as the product grows.
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What does it cost to hire a software developer in Africa?
For remote roles with US, UK and EU companies, typical annual salary ranges are $15,000–$30,000 for junior developers, $28,000–$55,000 for mid-level and $45,000–$85,000 for senior engineers. These are indicative market ranges. A direct hire through ProDevs also carries a one-time placement fee of 10–15% of first-year salary.
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Can I hire a developer for a short project instead of a permanent role?
Yes. For a defined piece of work you can post a project, receive proposals from vetted freelance developers and pay per milestone through escrow. For ongoing work, a permanent hire or a dedicated team is usually the better fit.
Talk to ProDevs
Tell us about the role.
Tell us the level and the stack. We will tell you how quickly we can put assessed software developers in front of you.
Project work
Need it for a project instead?
Not every job needs a full-time hire. Describe the work, get proposals from vetted freelance software developers, and pay per milestone through escrow. Free to post.