Hire Backend Developer · Seattle

Hire a Backend Developer
in Seattle

APIs and data models that don't fall over at your next funding round.

Hiring a backend developer in Seattle? Senior backend engineers here run $250K+ base, and the search takes 60-90 days for someone who can actually own a data model, not just wire up CRUD endpoints. We ship the backend instead — API design, data modeling, and the boring reliability work — on a flat-price engagement.

Start a project See the SaaS Development page

Seattle · Backend Developer

Hire local, year 1

~$423K

Base + benefits + payroll tax. 60–90 day search.

Engage us

$6,000+

4–8 weeks to first deploy.

Start vs 60d hire

Equity, signing, severance risk

The local read

Why hiring a Backend Developer in Seattle is hard

Seattle founders have access to deep technical talent that's mostly busy. The candidates who do interview want AWS comp, or are leaving to start their own thing. Either way, your 90-day hiring cycle becomes 180.

Different math: one named senior engineer plus AI agents, Pacific Time, ships in two weeks. Flat-price quote after a 30-minute call. AWS-native by default — Bedrock, Lambda, DynamoDB, S3 — same stack your team already runs. Code in your GitHub from commit one. Walk away clean at the end.

A senior backend developer here is a ~$423K year-one outlay after benefits, payroll tax, and the 60–90 day search. We're a $6,000+ flat engagement that starts inside seven days.

Did you know · Seattle

Amazon employs more people in Seattle than the next nine largest local employers combined.

Time zone

--:--:--

Pacific Time, same window as your team, your customers in Bellevue, and the Big-Tech mafia your investors keep mentioning.

Sectors in Seattle

AI and ML infrastructureCloud toolsB2B SaaSEnterprise techDeveloper tools

Why this beats a hire

One AI-native engineer.
The output of a team.

One senior backend developer plus AI agents now ships what four engineers used to. Same code quality, half the cost, three-week timelines instead of three months. Built for pre-seed to Series A founders in Seattle who need to ship before the next round closes.

Two paths in Seattle

Hire a backend developer,
or engage us

Same outcome, different routes. The local hire path takes 60–90 days and locks $250K+ for year one. We're a flat-price engagement that starts inside seven days.

Path A · Hire local

~$423Kyear one

One senior backend developer in Seattle, fully loaded

·60–90 day search through recruiters and inbound
·Equity, signing bonus, potential relocation
·Full-time only — no flexibility on capacity
·90-day probation of unknown output
·Bad fit means severance and a fresh recruiting cycle

Path B · Engage Start Matter

$6,000+flat

Quoted after a 30-minute call · 4–8 weeks

Senior engineer starts inside seven days
No equity, no signing bonus, no recruiting fee
Flexible capacity — scope up or down between phases
First deploy in two weeks — shippable output, not a slide deck
Hand off cleanly when you hire your team — your code, your repo

Skip path A · Start path BDiscovery call free · quote in 24 hours

The work, concretely

What we'd own day to day

The same scope you'd hand to a salaried backend developer, owned end to end on a flat-price engagement. No coordination overhead, no junior-on-the-bench, no estimation theatre.

API design that survives a v2 without breaking every client
Data modeling that holds up as the schema grows past the MVP
Background jobs, queues, and the retry logic nobody wants to write
Database performance — indexes, query plans, connection pooling — measured, not guessed
Auth, rate limiting, and the security basics a junior skips

Stack we use

Node.js / PythonPostgreSQLTypeScriptRedisDocker

Defaults — we deviate when the project demands it, not because something is fashionable.

Backend Developer work we've shipped

Real founders, real shipped product

Instead of hiring one backend developer who needs to ramp, you get senior work like this — from founders in Seattle we've actually shipped with.

SaaS Platform · 2024

Campaign Refinery

Campaign Refinery is an advanced email marketing and automation platform that focuses on helping businesses send better emails, improve deliverability, and drive real engagement. It combines powerful automation, smart list management, and deep analytics to make email campaigns more effective and easier to manage.

Visit the product

FAQ

About hiring vs engaging in Seattle

How fast can you start?

Most engagements begin within seven days of the first call. There's no recruiter pipeline, no notice period, no relocation timeline.

Node.js or Python?

Node/TypeScript by default so frontend and backend share types end to end. Python when the work is data/ML-adjacent or you already have a Python stack.

Is this a full-time replacement?

No — we're a senior engineer on a flat-price engagement. For most pre-seed and seed-stage products, that ships more than a salaried hire would in the same window. When you outgrow it, we hand off cleanly to the team you hire.

Can you work with our existing database and infra?

Yes — we adapt to Postgres, MySQL, Mongo, whatever you're running. We'll flag it if the existing schema is actively working against you, but we don't force a rewrite to match our preferences.

Who owns the code?

You do, from commit one. Repo in your GitHub, infra in your cloud account. When you do hire someone, they onboard onto your code, not ours.

Got a question about working with us from Seattle?

Ask me anything.
Right now.

Real chat. Real answers from our FAQ. If I don't have a clean match, I'll email you back within a day.

Time zone

--:--:--

Pacific Time, same window as your team, your customers in Bellevue, and the Big-Tech mafia your investors keep mentioning.

Valery Satsura

CEO · Start Matter · usually replies in minutes

Hey, I'm Valery. Ask me anything about working with us from Seattle.

Other roles in Seattle

We also embed as

Backend Developer elsewhere

Same role, other cities

Ready when you are

Ship instead of hire.

30-minute call → flat-price quote in 24 hours → first deploy inside two weeks. No equity ask, no notice period, no recruiting fee.

Start the call See Seattle overview