How is this different from hiring through Arc or Toptal?

Arc and Toptal are marketplaces: they match you with vetted freelancers, then you interview, negotiate a rate, sign, and manage the engagement. We're not a marketplace and we don't have a bench. You get one senior, founder-led engineer on a flat monthly subscription, with the scoping and the priority board built into the model. Marketplaces win when you want to interview several candidates or staff a whole team; we'll tell you when that's your situation.

What does "dedicated" mean here — is it full-time or exclusive?

It means the same senior engineer is reserved for your build and works one priority at a time, top of your board down, for the whole month-plus engagement. It isn't a claim of exclusive round-the-clock availability, and it isn't parallel capacity. If a build genuinely needs several engineers at once, that's an agency or a team, and we'll say so.

A dedicated developer on subscription — like Designjoy, but for code?

Same shape, yes. A flat monthly rate, a queue you control, work handled one item at a time, pause when you don't need it. The difference is what lands: production code as pull requests in your repository, matched to your conventions, with the schema, tests, and deploy config that go with it.

Is this staff augmentation or a contractor placement?

Neither. Nobody is placed inside your org chart and there's no employment or agency-of-record relationship. It's a service subscription: you set priorities, we ship merged code. Compare it against staff augmentation and a full-time hire on our comparison pages if you're weighing those.

What does it cost and how long do I have to commit?

There are several monthly plans, matched to the capacity and scope your build needs, and we walk through them before anything starts. There's no minimum term: it's month to month, and you can pause or cancel between phases.

Who owns the code if we stop?

You do, all of it. Work ships as pull requests into your repository and your cloud accounts as it's built — no proprietary wrapper, nothing held back. When the subscription ends or pauses, the handoff has already happened.

Services - A dedicated software developer for your month-plus build.

You're trying to hire a remote developer for a build that runs months, not an afternoon. Marketplaces like Arc and Toptal hand you a shortlist and leave the vetting, the contract, and the day-to-day management on your desk. Subscription studios solved that shape of problem for design; this is the same idea for software. One dedicated senior, founder-led engineer works your priority board top to bottom on a flat monthly subscription until the build ships. We're not a staffing marketplace and we don't resell a bench of contractors — you get the same engineer, week after week.

Start a build How the subscription works

Plans tailored to the build

One senior engineer, one priority at a time

One senior, founder-led engineer takes this build week by week and ships production-ready code as pull requests you review and merge. Time and cost vary by plan and scope, and we’ll cover both before you start.

Discuss the plans How it works

What's included

One dedicated senior engineer on your build each month — the same person from week one to launch, so nobody re-learns your codebase on your budget.
A priority board you own: you rank the work, the top item is the active task, and you reorder it the moment a customer, a deal, or a demo changes what matters.
A reviewable increment every week — auth, then data, then the surface — merged as you go instead of one big drop at the end of the quarter.
Production-ready code shipped as pull requests into your repository, matched to your conventions and your review process. Revisions are unlimited.
Full-stack coverage of a real month-plus build: Next.js/React front ends, Node APIs, Postgres schema and migrations, Stripe billing, auth, and the deploy pipeline.
Direct access to the engineer writing the code. No account manager relaying requirements, no vetting calls, no bench rotation between phases.

How we build it, week by week

One priority at a time, shipped in reviewable increments you merge as they land — not one big drop at the end.

Week 1 — scope the outcome, set the board

We start from the outcome you're buying, not a ticket list, and break it into a priority order you control. You end week one knowing the active task, what's queued behind it, and how the build moves through it.

Weeks 2+ — one priority at a time

Your dedicated developer works the top of the board and opens pull requests in your repo. You review and merge, so nothing lands unseen, and a revision is just the next item rather than a change order.

Every week — something you can click

Each cycle ends with merged, demoable work rather than a status report. On a month-plus build that's what keeps direction changes cheap while there's still time to make them.

Between phases — reprioritize, pause, or hand off

A hot task jumps the queue the day priorities move. When a phase wraps or things go quiet, pause and stop the clock — the repo, the cloud accounts, and the docs have been yours since day one.

Stack

Next.js / React
Node / Express
PostgreSQL
Stripe
Auth.js
Vercel or self-hosted VPS

Is this the right build for you?

A good fit when

You have a month-plus build ahead — a SaaS MVP, a client portal, an AI product, billing, a marketplace, or a legacy rebuild — and want one senior engineer owning it.
You'd rather skip marketplace vetting, rate negotiation, and contractor churn, and just start next week with a known engineer.
You want continuity across phases: the same developer keeping the context that makes month three faster than month one.
You want the code landing in your own repo as it ships, so a future hire or in-house team can take it over without a rewrite.

Not a fit when

You need a shortlist of candidates to interview and contract yourself — that's a marketplace like Arc or Toptal, and we'll say so.
You need several developers working in parallel to hit a hard date; this is one senior engineer at a sequential, sustainable pace.
You want a developer embedded in your standups and sprint ceremonies full-time — this is async, code-only work off a priority board.
You need someone carrying a 24/7 production pager, or you want product decisions taken off your plate.

Builds like this

Real month-plus builds you can read end to end, delivered on the same subscription.

Why on a subscription

Dedicated capacity only pays for itself when the work is continuous, and product work isn't — it's a hard build phase, a quiet stretch, then the next phase. Billing a dedicated software developer as a monthly subscription you can pause gives you the continuity of a reserved senior engineer without a salary to carry through the slow months or a marketplace contract to renegotiate every time the scope moves.

Frequently asked questions

How is this different from hiring through Arc or Toptal?: Arc and Toptal are marketplaces: they match you with vetted freelancers, then you interview, negotiate a rate, sign, and manage the engagement. We're not a marketplace and we don't have a bench. You get one senior, founder-led engineer on a flat monthly subscription, with the scoping and the priority board built into the model. Marketplaces win when you want to interview several candidates or staff a whole team; we'll tell you when that's your situation.
What does "dedicated" mean here — is it full-time or exclusive?: It means the same senior engineer is reserved for your build and works one priority at a time, top of your board down, for the whole month-plus engagement. It isn't a claim of exclusive round-the-clock availability, and it isn't parallel capacity. If a build genuinely needs several engineers at once, that's an agency or a team, and we'll say so.
A dedicated developer on subscription — like Designjoy, but for code?: Same shape, yes. A flat monthly rate, a queue you control, work handled one item at a time, pause when you don't need it. The difference is what lands: production code as pull requests in your repository, matched to your conventions, with the schema, tests, and deploy config that go with it.
Is this staff augmentation or a contractor placement?: Neither. Nobody is placed inside your org chart and there's no employment or agency-of-record relationship. It's a service subscription: you set priorities, we ship merged code. Compare it against staff augmentation and a full-time hire on our comparison pages if you're weighing those.
What does it cost and how long do I have to commit?: There are several monthly plans, matched to the capacity and scope your build needs, and we walk through them before anything starts. There's no minimum term: it's month to month, and you can pause or cancel between phases.
Who owns the code if we stop?: You do, all of it. Work ships as pull requests into your repository and your cloud accounts as it's built — no proprietary wrapper, nothing held back. When the subscription ends or pauses, the handoff has already happened.

Got a project? Let's ship it.

3 spots open. Tell us what you need shipped. We’ll match the plan and timeline to the work on a short sales call, then deliver it in reviewable increments.

Start next week