Solfreaks DevSquad lets you hire our developers by the month and treat them as part of your own team. You choose the role, whether that's Android, iOS, Kotlin Multiplatform, backend, web or QA, and they work in your repositories, your task tracker and your stand-ups.
You direct the work. We deal with the employment side: contracts, payroll, equipment, leave, and the question of who steps in when someone is unwell in the middle of a release.
Dedicated developer, freelancer or fixed-price project
These are three different purchases, and the right one depends on how clear your work is. A freelancer is flexible until they take another contract, fall ill or go quiet, and then the problem is yours. A fixed-price project suits work you can describe completely in advance, which is rarer than people hope. Dedicated developers sit between the two. You get continuity and control, and in return you take on the job of deciding what they work on each week. If you can't give someone a week of clear tasks, a scoped SaaS MVP build will serve you better than extra headcount.
What comes with a developer
- Named developers. You meet them before you commit, and it stays the same person on your work unless you ask otherwise.
- Your tools and process. Jira, Linear, GitHub, Slack or Teams, whichever you use. They join stand-ups, planning and code reviews like anyone else.
- Time-zone overlap. Pakistan is UTC+5, which gives several shared hours with the UK and Europe and nearly the full working day with the Gulf.
- NDA and code ownership. Everything written belongs to you and lives in your repositories from the first commit.
- A short trial. The first weeks are a trial, written into the agreement. If the fit is wrong, you say so and we replace the person.
- Swaps and cover. If a developer isn't working out or goes on leave, we put someone else in and handle the handover on our side.
- Extra hands when needed. A QA engineer from our app testing side or a backend colleague can join later without a new hiring round.
How an engagement starts and runs
- Define the role. A call about the stack, the codebase, the seniority and the hours you need. This is usually settled within a day or two.
- Meet the candidate. We propose one or two developers. You interview them and can set a small task. Matching and onboarding typically take one to two weeks, depending on who is free.
- Trial period. They start on real work with a clear first ticket, and at the end of the trial you review the output and the communication.
- Run it. You set priorities and daily tasks. Each month we check in separately with you and with the developer, so problems surface early.
- Scale or stop. Add a second developer, change the role, or end the engagement with the notice period set out in the contract.
How we vet people, and how the management works
Before we offer someone to a client we read code they have actually written, give them a practical task close to real work, and talk to them about how they behave in a team, how they handle review comments and how they ask for help. A CV tells us much less than that. The roles include people who work on Kotlin Multiplatform and native mobile projects, not only web stacks.
Day to day you manage the work and we manage the person. HR, equipment, leave and continuity are our responsibility. If you have a security policy, such as VPN access, your own cloud accounts or a monitored laptop, tell us at the start and we'll work inside it.
Where it fits and where it doesn't
It fits product teams in the UK, the Gulf and Europe whose backlog is bigger than their team, agencies that need extra hands on delivery, and startups past the first prototype that need steady capacity without a local hiring process.
Look elsewhere if you need someone to work out what to build, or if the job will be over in a few weeks, since a fixed-scope project is the better shape for that. It's probably not for you either if nobody on your side can review code or set priorities, because a developer on their own will drift. A fractional CTO to steer, or a managed project, is a better start.
What a developer costs and when they start
You pay a monthly rate per developer. It moves with the role, the seniority, whether the person is full-time or part-time, the length of the commitment and any special tools or hardware you need. We don't publish rates because the same job title covers very different people. A longer commitment usually brings the monthly rate down. The quote follows a short discovery call, and from there a start in one to two weeks is typical.
Why hire through Solfreaks
You will talk to people who write code, not a sales layer in front of them. We're a small team based in Rawalpindi, and our developers have shipped apps on Google Play, so they understand the release side as well as the code. The code, the repositories and the accounts are always yours. Tell us what you need to build, and we'll suggest who on the team fits.
Open-source tools and references
A few public projects that come up a lot in this kind of work. They belong to other people and teams. We link to them because they are worth a look, not because anyone pays us to.
- nilbuild/developer-roadmapRole-based roadmaps for developers.
- donnemartin/system-design-primerLearn how to design large-scale systems.
Frequently asked questions
Can I hire one developer for part of the week?
Yes, part-time engagements work, and they suit steady background work such as maintenance or QA. The cost is context-switching: someone splitting their week between clients is slower on hard problems than someone full-time. If your tasks are small and scattered, a maintenance plan may cost less than a part-time developer.
Who owns the code, and who pays for tools?
You own all of the code from the first commit, and it lives in repositories on your accounts. Licences for your own tools, such as Jira, GitHub or Figma seats, are yours to provide. We supply the developer's hardware, internet and standard development software, and our rate covers those.
What if the developer isn't a good fit?
Say so during the trial or afterwards. We'll talk through what isn't working, because it's sometimes a briefing problem and not a skills problem. If it really is the person, we put someone else in and manage the handover so you don't pay twice for the learning curve.
How does the time difference work in practice?
Pakistan is on UTC+5 all year, with no clock changes. That leaves several hours of overlap with UK and European working hours, usually in your morning, and almost the whole working day with the Gulf. We agree the overlap window in advance, and stand-ups and reviews sit inside it.
How do you protect our confidential information?
We sign an NDA before we see your code or data. Access runs through accounts you create and can revoke at any time, with permissions set to the minimum the role needs. If you have a stricter policy, such as VPN-only access or a company-managed laptop, we'll agree it at the start and follow it.
Talk it through with us
Tell us what you are building and where it hurts. You get a straight answer, a plan and a price, and if we are not the right people we will say so.
