Full stack developers available now Full-time roles only — no freelancers

Hire a Full Stack Developer
who's already been vetted.

Stop sorting through unqualified applicants. Underdog.io delivers a curated batch of pre-screened, full-time full stack developers directly to your inbox every Monday. Every candidate has been hand-reviewed. None of them are on Upwork.

Start hiring full stack developers → See how it works →
No upfront retainer Pay only when you hire Hand-reviewed candidates only No staffing agencies
Top 5%
of applicants accepted — only the best reach you
300K+
engineers in our candidate network
11.5%
per hire — half the cost of traditional agencies
50%+
of companies turned away — your brand stays protected

The problem with hiring full stack developers

You don't have a sourcing problem.
You have a signal problem.

Post a full stack developer job on LinkedIn or Indeed and you'll get 400 applications. Maybe 20 are worth reading. Maybe 5 are actually interested in your company. The problem isn't finding full stack developers — it's finding the ones who are genuinely good, genuinely interested, and genuinely available.

📋
Resume overload

The average software engineering role receives 250+ applications. Sorting through them manually costs your team weeks before a single interview happens.

🏢
Agency markup

Traditional recruiting firms charge 20–25% of first-year salary — $30K–$50K for a senior full stack developer hire. And they're often sending you the same candidates as three other companies.

🎯
Wrong candidate intent

Freelance platforms like Upwork and Toptal are built for contractors. The best full-time full stack developers aren't there — they're already employed and not applying to job boards.

Underdog solves all three. We pre-screen every candidate so only the top 5% reach you, we charge half what agencies charge, and every developer in our network is seeking a full-time permanent role — not a freelance gig.

How it works

Full stack developers in your inbox.
Every Monday.

No sourcing sprints. No recruiter phone calls. No job posting management. Just a curated batch of pre-vetted full stack developers delivered directly to you each week.

01
Tell us what you need

Share your stack, seniority requirements, team size, and what you're building. Takes 15 minutes. We set up your company profile and start matching immediately.

02
Receive vetted candidates

Every Monday, we introduce you to a curated batch of full stack developers who match your criteria. They've been hand-reviewed, they're actively looking, and they already know about your company.

03
Interview and hire

Request interviews directly through the platform. We handle the introduction — you handle the conversation. No agency sitting in the middle taking a cut of everything.

Start hiring full stack developers →

Hiring guide

What to look for when you
hire a full stack developer.

The best full stack developers for startups aren't always the ones with the longest resume. Here's what actually matters when you're making this hire.

Technical skills
Frontend depth
React or equivalent, TypeScript, responsive design, performance optimization. Look for component architecture knowledge, not just "I know React."
Backend ownership
Node.js, Python, Go, or Ruby. API design, database schema decisions, auth, and basic security practices. They should be able to own a service from scratch.
Database literacy
PostgreSQL or MySQL at minimum. Bonus: experience with migrations, query optimization, and knowing when to reach for NoSQL.
Deployment basics
AWS, GCP, or Vercel. CI/CD, Docker, environment management. At a startup, your full stack developer will touch deployment — they need to be comfortable there.
What matters more at startups
Speed of shipping
Have they shipped features end-to-end before? At a startup, "I built the backend" isn't enough. Look for developers who've owned features from spec to production.
Comfort with ambiguity
Early-stage startups don't have perfect specs. Your full stack developer needs to make good decisions without complete information — and own those decisions.
Startup experience
Not required, but it signals that they understand the pace. Someone who's only worked at large companies may struggle with the scrappiness a startup demands.
Communication
At a startup, engineers talk to customers, PMs, and founders directly. A full stack developer who can only communicate in code is a bottleneck waiting to happen.

Salary expectations

What does it cost to hire a full stack developer in 2026?

Level
NYC
SF
Remote
Mid-level Full Stack
$120–145K
$130–155K
$110–140K
Senior Full Stack
$150–185K
$160–200K
$140–175K
Staff / Tech Lead
$185–225K
$195–240K
$170–215K
Founding Engineer
$130–175K
$140–185K
$120–165K

Base salary only. Equity is additive — particularly significant at seed and Series A. Traditional recruiting agencies charge 20–25% of first-year salary to fill these roles. Underdog charges 11.5%, pay-per-hire only.

How we compare

Not Upwork. Not a recruiter.
Not a job board.

Every option for hiring a full stack developer has a trade-off. Here's an honest look at how they compare for a startup making a full-time hire.

LinkedIn / Indeed
Upwork / Toptal
Recruiter / Agency
Underdog.io
Full-time candidates
Pre-vetted candidates
~
No upfront cost
Placement fee under 15%
No resume sorting required
Built for startups
~
~

What hiring teams say

Companies that use Underdog
keep coming back.

"

Talentpluto quickly helped us fill the pipeline with high quality candidates. We were able to fill the opening with someone we were really excited about in just a few weeks. We'll definitely work with their team again.

Hiring Manager — Early-stage startup
"

In our first week we interviewed 6 candidates and less than 2 weeks later we signed an absolute killer as our founding AE. Underdog instantly opened up a much larger pool of top candidates than we had access to before.

Founder — Series A startup, NYC

Companies hiring through Underdog

Gemini
Eight Sleep
MoneyLion
Teamshares
Parachute Health
Capital RX
Hippocratic AI
Prismatic
Roo
Mira

Pricing

Straightforward pricing.
No surprises.

A traditional agency charges 20–25% of first-year salary. For a $160K senior full stack developer, that's $32–40K — before you even know if the hire works out. Underdog is different.

Pay Per Placement
11.5%
of first-year salary, per hire
Free access to the platform. Pay only when you make a hire. No contract, no retainer, no risk.
Most popular
Premium
$850/mo
+ $6,500 per hire
Annual contract. Significant savings per hire vs. pay-per-placement for teams hiring multiple engineers.
Unlimited Hiring
Custom
annual subscription
Hire as many engineers as you need for one flat annual price. Best for teams scaling aggressively.
View full pricing details →

Common questions

What hiring teams ask us
before getting started.

How quickly can I hire a full stack developer through Underdog.io? +
How is this different from Upwork or Toptal? +
Can I specify the tech stack I need? +
Do I pay if I don't hire anyone? +
Are your full stack developers US-based? +
What if the hire doesn't work out? +

Ready to hire

Your next full stack
developer is already
in our network.

Pre-vetted. Actively looking. Introduced directly to you — no middleman, no markup, no wasted interviews. The first batch lands in your inbox within a week.

Start hiring full stack developers →
No retainer required Pay only when you hire First batch within one week