Hire eCommerce developers
who pick the platform before they build on it.
A dedicated developer, or a pod, for when the platform question is still open, or when your commerce logic genuinely needs to work the same way regardless of what it's built on. Vetted across real storefronts on more than one platform before they ever touch yours, working inside your repo and stand-ups, and scaling up or down monthly without a hiring cycle. You interview the actual developer and hear their platform read before anything is signed.
Interview before signing · Scale monthly
Try before you commit
Start Your 14-Day Risk-Free Trial
Work together on a real brief for up to 14 days, then decide whether to scale.
Hiring an eCommerce developer through PixelCrayons gets you a vetted, platform-agnostic commerce engineer inside your team. They work across Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento and headless commerce, and, when the platform isn't decided yet, give you a written read on which one actually fits your catalogue, checkout and integration needs before any code is written. Once the platform is confirmed, they either build directly or hand off cleanly to our platform-specialist pages. In your tools, with a named coordinator and an escalation contact behind them. You interview the actual developer first, scale the engagement monthly, and skip a full recruiting cycle a platform decision usually gets stuck waiting on. Commerce-engineering delivery since 2004 stands behind the bench.
Judge the record,
not the adjectives.
Outcomes tied to real engagements, not averages.
Rates for brands and companies buying for themselves.
Commerce skills,
not platform loyalty.
Not a developer who only knows one platform and reaches for it regardless of fit. An engineer whose job is the commerce logic itself, with the platform chosen to serve it rather than the other way round.
Cross-platform commerce
- Working across Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento, matched to whichever your store already runs
- Headless commerce architecture: a decoupled frontend against any of the above as the commerce backend
- Platform selection guidance based on catalogue complexity, checkout needs and integration count, not habit
- Catalogue and product-data modelling that survives a platform migration if one ever happens
- Checkout and payment-flow design principles that hold regardless of the platform underneath
The commerce logic layer
- Payment gateway integration and PCI-aware configuration, platform by platform
- Tax and shipping logic for multi-region, multi-currency stores
- Inventory and order-management integration with ERP and fulfilment systems
- Search, merchandising and personalisation wiring across storefront types
- Subscription and recurring-revenue logic where the platform doesn't handle it natively
The commercial layer
- Migration between platforms, with catalogue and order history preserved and verified
- Pre-peak load and checkout readiness review, regardless of platform
- Handover to a platform specialist once the decision is made, documented rather than informal
- Client-ready release notes and change documentation
- Estimation and scope conversations without invented precision
What an eCommerce developer
works on once the store is live.
Commerce work rarely ends at launch. This is what the role looks like after it.
Launch is the start, not the end
Once a store is live, the work shifts from building pages to protecting the order flow. A typical week might cover a payment gateway update that needs testing before customers see it, a shipping rule charging the wrong rate for one region, a product import from the ERP that dropped some variants, and a merchandising change marketing wants before a campaign. The developer should read order and error logs as a habit, not wait for a customer email. Checkout changes go through a staging store first, every time, however small they look.
What a strong candidate talks about
Ask them to walk through an order from basket to fulfilment on a store they built, naming each system it touches. Strong candidates talk about tax calculation, stock reservation, failed payment webhooks and what happens to an order when the ERP is down. Then ask which platform they would not recommend for your catalogue, and why. A developer with real cross-platform experience has opinions about where each platform struggles. Be cautious of anyone whose answer to every requirement is another app or plugin: each one adds cost, load time and something else to keep updated.
Decisions to make before they start
Several choices shape the whole build and are hard to reverse later. Decide which system owns product data (the platform, a PIM or the ERP), which regions and currencies you sell in at launch, and how tax is calculated. Agree your payment providers and who holds the merchant accounts. Share your peak trading dates so no big change lands the week before one. Give access to the current store, analytics and your fulfilment partner's documentation. If any of these are still open, say so in the brief. Working them out is part of the job, but only if it is planned.
Handing over to a platform specialist
Once the platform is settled and the build is large, a Shopify, WooCommerce or Magento specialist often takes over the day-to-day work. That handover goes well when the eCommerce developer leaves written decisions behind: why the platform was chosen, how the catalogue is modelled, which integrations exist and what each one does. It goes badly when that knowledge lives in one person's head. Ask for the handover document before the specialist starts, and keep the generalist involved in anything that crosses systems, such as payments, tax or the ERP connection. A walkthrough call on top of the document helps, but it is no substitute for it.
Brief to embedded,
interview before signing.
Brief & shortlist
You describe the catalogue, the platform question (open or decided) and the gap; we propose the developer, or pod, whose actual delivery history fits it. No generic CVs.
Interview them
You meet the real person who'd build the store, not an account manager relaying a platform recommendation secondhand. Ask anything, including which platform they'd genuinely recommend and why. If the fit isn't right, we propose again.
Diagnose or build
If the platform is open, a written recommendation lands with the reasoning behind it. If it's decided, repo and store access are granted and the first working session happens.
Scale either way
Add a specialist once the platform and scope are locked; step down once the build settles. Monthly resizing means commerce build capacity tracks the store roadmap, and nobody has to make a headcount call.
Requests, approvals and the weekly review for this engagement live in your Prism workspace. Each decision is recorded against the outcome it expected. See how Prism runs an engagement →
Meet the actual people before anything is signed
The person,
plus the system.
Hiring a developer gets you their code. Hiring through a delivery organisation gets you a platform recommendation nobody has a staffing incentive to bias.
Vetted on real stores, across platforms
Every developer on the bench has shipped live commerce builds on more than one platform. Those storefronts shipped under our own delivery standards, with weekly code review and the same release bar your store will get. An interview doesn't show you whether a platform recommendation is unbiased; a track record across more than one platform does.
A recommendation, not a default
The bench isn't tied to selling one platform. A recommendation here is made on catalogue complexity and integration needs, not on which platform is easiest for us to staff. If Shopify or WooCommerce is genuinely the better fit, that's what you'll hear.
Team integration, not a portal
They commit to your repo and work in your Slack, stand-ups and project board. Being dedicated means working to your release cycle, not store tickets tossed into an outside agency's queue. A named second developer is briefed on your store from day one, so leave or a departure means they step in without a ramp-up.
Quality governance you can audit
A weekly review in Prism, written up and tied to what shipped, platform-selection reasoning documented before commitment, and pre-peak load checks logged on the record. If you want to know what the monthly fee is buying, the release notes and review log will tell you before we do.
How you typically hire,
versus through us.
An in-house hire is still right when the storefront is permanently full-time and central to your organisation, and we'll say so when it is. This is for every other case.
| Hiring it yourself | Through PixelCrayons | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to a working developer | A full recruiting cycle: sourcing, interviews, notice periods, onboarding | Eligible engagements can typically start within two to three business days after scope, payment and required access are confirmed |
| Platform choice | Decided by whichever agency or freelancer you happen to ask, biased toward what they already know | A cross-platform engineer recommends based on your catalogue and integrations, not their own preference |
| Management overhead | Yours entirely: objectives, review, development, coverage | A named PM and escalation path included; you decide the catalogue priorities, not the admin |
| Scaling for peak (Black Friday and beyond) | A new hiring cycle each direction: months up, severance down, often too late for peak | Resize monthly: add a developer ahead of peak, step down once it's over |
| Risk when it doesn't work | A platform chosen for the wrong reasons costs a migration eighteen months later | Propose-again is built in; leaving takes a handover call, not a negotiation |
A replatform that didn't lose an order record.
When a D2C fragrance retailer moved onto a new commerce platform, the migration was treated as its own project first: catalogue, orders and URL history inventoried and mapped before a single record moved, with zero data loss as the contract rather than the aspiration. eCommerce SEO and paid media then ran on the rebuilt storefront as one roadmap instead of two competing ones. Read the full write-up for the migration numbers and the cutover timeline.
Read the case study →Our commitments
Each one says where it applies and links to its full terms.
14-Day Risk-Free Trial
For eligible managed specialists. Up to 14 calendar days or 80 logged working hours, whichever comes first. End within the trial and pay nothing for eligible trial hours. Continue beyond it and those hours are billed at the agreed rate. Unpaid trial work remains ours if you stop.
Eligible managed-specialist roles only, one trial per customer. Not offered for AI, chatbot, prompt, automation, API-integration or QA work. Brand and graphic designers, brand strategists, video editors, content writers, copywriters and content marketers start with a paid pilot.
Full termsTime-zone overlap
At least four hours a day inside your core working hours. Two hours plus a daily written handover for the US West Coast.
Managed specialists only; not a staffing promise for project teams.
Full termsClear IP & Ownership Terms
Your materials remain yours. Bespoke deliverable rights, licences and handover are agreed before work starts.
All engagements.
Full termsClear Delivery & Escalation Ownership
Know who coordinates your engagement, who owns the work and how to escalate an issue.
All engagements. Roles may be combined and vary with your engagement.
Full termsQuestions buyers ask before they commit
Why not just hire a freelancer?
A freelancer can be the right choice for a single, well-defined task. We are set up for work that needs an accountable team: a named coordinator, delivery reviewed by QA and a senior lead before release, and continuity arrangements written into the engagement. Confidentiality, ownership and escalation terms are agreed in writing before work starts.
How does time-zone overlap work?
Your engineers work at least four hours a day inside your core working hours. We set the window with you before the engagement starts and hold it for as long as the engagement runs. For the US West Coast the live overlap is two hours each morning, with a written handover at the end of every Indian day. We do not run night shifts: engineers who work nights leave quickly, and keeping the same people on your team matters more to us than a longer overlap.
Can we try you before we commit?
For eligible managed specialists, yes: up to 14 calendar days or 80 logged working hours, whichever comes first. End within the trial and pay nothing for eligible trial hours; continue beyond it and those hours are billed at the agreed rate, and unpaid trial work remains ours if you stop. For project work, and for roles outside the trial, we offer a paid pilot with its scope, acceptance criteria, duration and fee agreed before it starts.
What if we want to stop?
Cancellation, notice and any renewal terms are written into your proposal or statement of work before you accept it. If an engagement ends early, we hand over completed, paid-for work and list any unfinished work separately. For an eligible specialist trial, you can stop within the trial window and pay nothing for eligible trial hours.
How we handle claims, credentials and your data: group credentials, dated ratings, how case figures are signed off, client permissions and data handling.
Frequently
asked.
Once we have a complete brief, we confirm the date you will receive your proposal. The shortlist follows within days; you interview the developer the same week, with real store builds they've shipped available to walk through under NDA on request. Eligible engagements can typically start within two to three business days after scope, payment and required access are confirmed.
That's the normal starting point for this role. We review your catalogue size, checkout and integration needs and give you a written recommendation, including when the answer is a platform we don't build on ourselves. Once it's decided, the same engineer can build directly or hand off to the matching platform-specialist page, whichever gets you moving faster.
Short and sequenced: NDA first, then store or planning access, a review of the current setup (or the requirements, if nothing's built yet) with a written summary of what they found, and agreement on the first priorities before anything changes. From week one they're in your stand-ups, so learning your store happens inside your process rather than beside it.
One is the normal starting point: a single eCommerce developer covers most stores and platform decisions comfortably. A platform specialist joins once the choice is confirmed and scope justifies it, and the monthly resize works in both directions. Staffing a full pod before the platform is even chosen is money spent on a decision that isn't made yet.
Raise it early and we propose a different commerce developer, no awkward negotiation required. The replacement inherits the documentation the first developer kept (platform analysis, architecture notes, decisions), so a switch costs days, not a restart. And if the conclusion is that you need a different shape of help entirely (a fixed-scope migration, not an ongoing developer), we'll route you there instead. Your proposal names the second commerce developer who already knows the store and makes clear whether their cover is part of the monthly rate.
Use criteria you can check, not claims. Interview the actual developer, not an account manager. Ask to walk through live store builds they have shipped, ideally on more than one platform, so their platform advice is not biased. Confirm there is a named project manager and a clear exit if the fit is wrong. Through us you interview the developer before signing, see real builds under NDA on request, and get a named PM with propose-again built in.
Interview the person,
not the pitch deck.
Brief us on the catalogue and the platform question, get a shortlist within days, and meet the actual developer before anything is signed. If what you really need turns out to be a fixed-scope migration rather than a person, we'll say so on the first call.
Interview before signing · Scale monthly
Last updated