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Are you looking to hire mobile app developers or a mobile app development team to build and scale an innovative mobile application?
If yes, read on as I’m about to cover a lot of valuable information on how to hire mobile app developers in 2024, including associated costs, the top 5 companies where to hire application developers, mobile app examples, and much more. 
Google Play and Apple App Store are the largest marketplaces for mobile apps in the world, hosting over 5 million applications.
Google Play users downloaded 27 billion apps in Q1 2023, while Apple’s App Store users downloaded 8.1 billion. However, only the best apps succeed. If you get the best mobile app developers, yours could be one of them. Read on as I will show you how to do it.
In this article:
- How Much Does it Cost to Hire a Mobile App Developer?
- How Much Does it Cost to Develop a Mobile App in 2024?
- What Kind of Mobile App Developers Do You Need?
- 5 Steps to Hiring a Mobile App Developer
- Top 5 Companies to Hire Mobile App Developers in 2024
Latest Mobile App Development Trends
AI is going to completely shake up the development of mobile apps. Gartner recently reported that “by 2026, generative AI will significantly alter 70% of the design and development effort for new web applications and mobile apps.”
How Much Does it Cost to Hire a Mobile App Developer?
Let’s start by covering the basics: the associated rates of hiring mobile app developers in different regions around the world. This way you will know which you can afford. 
United States: Mid-level and Senior App Developers: $55 – $300 per hour, or $10,400 to $48,000 per month full-time, depending on whether you hire expert app developers from a software development platform, in-house employees, freelance app developers, or a space-rocket expensive San Francisсo based agency (yep, $300/h or $48K/mo per one developer on a full-time basis).
Western Europe: Mid-level and Senior App Developer: $45 – $200 per hour, or from $8,000 to $32,000 per month full-time, depending on your hiring source.
Eastern Europe: Mid-level and Senior App Developer: $35 – $150 per hour, or from $5,600 to $24,000 per month full-time, depending on your hiring source.
India: Mid-level and Senior App Developer: $10 – $65 per hour, or from $1,600 to $10,400 per month full-time, depending on your hiring source. If you live in the United States, make sure you hire from a US-based company, otherwise, it will be extremely difficult for you to ensure you can exercise your legal rights as per your contract should anything go wrong. Added to this, working with people from the same culture goes a long way when you work on innovative, complex apps.
How Much Does it Cost to Develop a Mobile App in 2024?
The cost of your mobile app and the number of app developers you need will be determined by the complexity of your mobile application.
To start with, are you looking to build a cheap mobile app prototype to test the technology or users’ interest, an MVP(a Minimum Viable Product) to release publicly, or an enterprise-grade software solution to modernize a complex business process?
Let’s clarify the difference between various project scopes with a few mobile app examples, i.e. a prototype, an MVP, and an enterprise software product. Below, I will include the number of mobile developers required, as well as general costs and timelines, to help you better understand where your project may fit. 
1. A simple mobile app prototype to test the technology or users’ interest in such an app.
This kind of hybrid or native mobile app prototype can cost anywhere from $5K to $50K, depending on the app’s features and the tech complexity. It can take 1 to 3 expert app developers between 1 to 8 weeks to build it.
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If you plan for a bare-bone mobile app prototype, no QA (Quality Assurance Engineer) or designers may be required. A good example of this kind of project is a mobile app that generates GIFs from any picture. A professional mobile app designer can design all the app’s screens and a landing page in a few days.
After that, one expert mobile app developer can create the complex GIF generation technology that powers the app in 3 to 4 weeks. This technology will allow the application to create GIFs from any uploaded picture in seconds. The goal of this prototype iOS application could be to test the social media market to see if creators and consumers are interested in such a product.
2. A mobile app MVP for a startup or enterprise.
An MVP-stage mobile application can cost anywhere from $50K to $250K and take between 1.5 to 6 months to complete, depending on features. The development team required can consist of 2 or more mobile and backend developers, depending on the complexity of the features and whether AI, blockchain, or other technologies are needed.
Don’t forget about QA and DevOps (DevOps engineers help with server setup and other code management tasks) engineers. This product type can be released in stages, allowing you to test new features with early-stage customers as you go. A professional mobile app designer is advised at this stage.
This is an example of a successful mobile app MVP that has over 100,000 paying users. Here are the details of the project: The founder of a sports supplement business decided to create a new kind of app that would enable users to follow a pre-planned fitness program.
The app needed to include a custom calendar, daily progress pictures, and dietary plans, including required water intake levels, etc. A team of 6 expert app developers produced a custom native mobile app MVP for both the iOS and Android platforms within 6 months.
This involved the mobile app backend developers creating an AWS-based server environment (read about AWS for mobile apps later in this article), backend, and admin panel too. The mobile app launch was such a success that it gained over 100,000 paying users within the first two weeks, which led to further app development and the continuous release of new features via app updates.
3. A complex enterprise-grade mobile app, or a HIPAA-compliant medical mobile platform.
A cutting-edge food allergy treatment care and research center from South California needed to design and develop a HIPAA-compliant mobile application for remotely treating patients.
The application needed to be integrated with an existing database to provide two-way communication on an individual’s progress through their food allergy treatment program. I highly encourage you to read the entire mobile app case study here.
This type of enterprise-grade solution will cost anywhere from $250K and up, and take 6 months or more to launch. The expected design and mobile development team will likely consist of 6 mobile app engineers or more.
The examples above should give you a general idea of the overall cost of your mobile app development using United States developers. To define the complexity of the app for your project requirements document, you need to list all the features you want your app to have.
In the first example, the entire app was built around one core feature. In the third example, the app contained several complex features that had to be seamlessly integrated, and all of them had to be custom-built too.
Defining Your Mobile App Features
Your list of mobile app features can include anything from the ability of users to sign up, navigate a map, purchase something from an online store, social media integration, etc. 
If you are unsure about the features, feel free to download a mobile app features template and use it as a guide. Once you decide on your app’s features, it’s important to understand your budget.
How much money do you have to hire top-of-the-line mobile developers to build your app? Is your project self-funded, or are you looking to raise funds? Are you working for a large company or a startup founder?
If you’re looking to raise funds, the best approach is to undertake the design phase. Having a conceptual blueprint of your app will 10x your chances of raising funds on better terms.
What Kind of Mobile App Developers Do You Need?
There are 3 types of mobile app developers – Android – iOS – and Cross Platform (Hybrid). 
Let’s start with Android.
1. Native Android App Developers
The Android operating system was released in 2008. It was developed by Google and is available in 100+ languages. You can download Android mobile applications via the Google Play Store.
Native Android app development involves hiring Android developers who are skilled in one of the many languages that can be used to create apps for this Google operating system. However, most Android apps are written in just two languages: Java and Kotlin.
Around 65% of the world’s Android developers use Java. This is because it is an Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) that allows developers to write modular and reusable code. It has a vast set of libraries and frameworks that can be used to help speed up the development process.
There is a huge number of Java mobile developers out there, something which might seem like a big plus at first. However, hiring expert Java developers from such a large pool of good and bad software engineers can be challenging if you don’t know where to start.
To help start you out on the right foot, we have listed the top 5 development companies where you can outsource the best software professionals later in this article.
Kotlin was released in 2017. It is a modern programming language that offers concise syntax, coroutines, a rich set of development tools, and interoperability with Java. It is already extremely popular and may one day overtake Java to become the number-one Android development language.
Finding a developer proficient in Kotlin is not as easy as finding a Java engineer, however, there are still plenty of experienced Kotlin developers out there if you know where to look.
If you still haven’t decided on whether to use Kotlin or Java, then you can read more about Kotlin VS Java developers here.
2. Native iOS App Developers
iOS was developed by Apple Inc., and released in 2007. It is available in 41 languages and powers all Apple company devices, including iPhones, iMacs, etc. Developing apps for Apple’s iOS requires hiring iOS developers, as Apple has created a unique set of programming languages and frameworks to create iOS apps.
The two main programming languages are Objective-C and Swift. Objective-C dates from the 1980s. It was used as the primary language with which to develop Apple applications up until the release of Swift. Many Objective-C developers have learned Swift now.
However, while the Objective-C programming language is not usually used to develop new iOS apps, it is still widely used by iOS developers to maintain and enhance existing apps due to its complex legacy codebases and when apps must allow integration with Objective-C libraries, etc.
Swift is the latest Apple programming language. Introduced in 2014, it is powerful, modern, and expressive. Skilled Swift developers can create almost any iOS app you can think of.
Swift is a powerful mobile app development programming language that allows iOS developers to write clean, precise, and easily readable code. This makes Swift-based apps easy to support and maintain. Its best features include type inference, automatic memory management, and optional. You can learn more about the differences between Objective-C and Swift developers here.
3. Cross-platform (Hybrid) App Developers
The cross-platform (or Hybrid) app development approach enables you to create mobile apps that run on multiple operating systems, i.e. Android and iOS, using only one codebase.
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It has pros and cons when compared to the native programming languages I covered above. The main advantage is the time and money savings that you get from building the app with just a single codebase.
The main disadvantage is that you may hit certain platform-specific limitations. For example, certain Android or iOS features may not be available, or the app’s speed won’t be as fast as a native version.
Whether or not this will impact your choice of app development approach must be carefully weighed on a case-by-case basis with a focus on your mobile app’s features and user expectations, etc.
Several hybrid frameworks allow cross-platform developers to create highly performant mobile applications. The most popular example is React Native. Created by Facebook in 2015, this open-source framework allows developers to build apps using JavaScript and React.
It has numerous advantages, including the ability to create high-performance apps and reuse components. Another highly popular cross-platform framework is Flutter.
It was released by Google back in 2017 and also enables developers to create reliable and performant cross-platform applications. Flutter has many advantages over other frameworks, including React Native.
One is that it allows Flutter developers to use Dart, an object-orientated programming language, which many developers are already familiar with due to its similar syntax to the C programming language.
You can read more on the differences between Flutter vs. React Native developers here.
Overall, Flutter and React Native are considered leading solutions and are both excellent frameworks for saving time and money when launching both iOS and Android mobile apps simultaneously.
Just make sure to partner with expert cross-platform app developers to guarantee your app’s quality. This mobile developer job description template can help you find the best cross-platform app developers.
Backend Mobile App Developers
Your mobile app will work with a specific backend and server. That means you will also need expert backend developers skilled and experienced in setting up server environments and coding the mobile app backend. 
The top backend server providers are:
1. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offers a wide range of great mobile app development tools, including some of the most cutting-edge AI tools in the marketplace, i.e. Google Gemini. Google Compute Engine allows developers to run their code in Google’s cloud infrastructure. Backed up with Google’s Cloud Source Repositories tool, which allows developers to save and easily access different versions of their code, Google Cloud Platform is a top choice for mobile app developers.
2. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is another top backend service provider. Not only does it allow developers to store and run their latest mobile apps safely, but it also offers a powerful set of development tools via the highly customizable AWS Amplify. This great tool helps to speed up both your mobile application development process and the performance and reliability of the final app.
3. Microsoft Azure’s cloud platform offers a range of excellent backend services for mobile app developers. It supports a range of programming languages and frameworks, including Java, Python, C#, JavaScript, and Node.JS, to name but a few. Azure has great tools that help with creating all kinds of functionalities, including push notifications, implementing payment gateways, AI chatbots, etc.
Additional Mobile App Developer Skills:
Your mobile app developers will need other critical technical skills relevant to Android and iOS app development. 
These include:
- Application Programming Interfaces (APIs): App developers should be adept at working with APIs to communicate with the backend, and access and integrate various services like location-based services, payment gateways, social media platforms, etc.
- Database Management: Knowledge of database systems like SQLite, MySQL, MongoDB, or PostgreSQL is essential to ensure your app stores and retrieves app data efficiently. Mobile User Interface (UI) Design (Not essential but a huge benefit): Understanding user experience (UX) principles and having an eye for good mobile UI designs will all help to ensure that you get a visually appealing and user-friendly end product.
- Version Control: Familiarity with version control systems like Git enables mobile app engineers to collaborate efficiently by easily managing changes in the codebase, etc. Debugging and Testing: Proficiency in debugging tools and techniques helps app developers identify and fix bugs quickly. Knowledge of automated testing frameworks is also valuable for efficiently testing a mobile app’s most important parts, such as sign-up and sign-in pages.
- Performance Optimization: Mobile devices have limited resources, so developers should know how to optimize app performance to ensure a smooth user experience and battery efficiency.
- Platform Guidelines: Understanding the specific guidelines and app store policies of both the iOS and Android platforms is essential for successful app submission and approval. Your developers must ensure your app conforms to the relevant guidelines.
- Security: Knowledge of secure coding practices and encryption techniques is crucial to safeguarding user data and protecting the app from potential vulnerabilities. Developers must know how to secure your mobile app.
- Problem-solving: Mobile app development often involves overcoming various difficult challenges, so strong problem-solving skills are highly beneficial.
- Communication and Teamwork: Collaboration with designers, product managers, and other team members is a common part of any software development, so effective communication and teamwork skills are essential.
- Continuous Learning: The mobile app development landscape is constantly evolving so professional developers should desire to learn new technologies and stay updated with the latest trends.
5 Steps to Hiring a Mobile App Developer
Now that you know the kind of developers you need for your project, do you want the best app developers who you can rely on without risk? I’m guessing the answer is a resounding yes! So read on for an outline of the crucial steps you need to follow when finding expert mobile app developers. 
Step 1 is the most important: Nail your app developers’ and project requirements.
As I stated earlier in the article, the most important project requirement document is a list of your mobile app’s features.
You can split it into the MVP stage and the Post-MVP stage, and into different user roles. Let’s consider an example. You have a rental app and so have end users who rent vacation homes.
They must be able to do certain things on their mobile app, i.e. browse available places, book them, and pay. Additionally, you will have a user or administration function for the homeowner who lists the property. They will need features for listing homes, setting the price, approving the booking, refunding users if needed, etc.
This list of features, which will be implemented and refined during both the MVP and post-MVP stages, will be the foundation of your development project. If you need a template features for your MVP, you can download it here.
Once you have a list of features, you then can clarify how many developers you may need and what skills they should possess. For example, you may want to build a simple MVP-stage app using a hybrid solution. In this case, you will likely want to hire Flutter or React Native app developers.
Step 2 is vital: Choose the right hiring platform.
You have two main choices if you are not planning to hire someone in person but rather outsource a remote developer or development team.
These are: Hire Expert App Developers from a Software Development Company or Freelance Platform?
Hiring senior app engineers from a reputable software development company is the safest approach as they pretty much guarantee project success. Let me explain why.
Advantages of outsourcing professional mobile app developers from reputable software development companies:
- A large community of expert mobile developers who have worked for the app development platform for many years and possess experience in building similar apps to your development project.
- Developers are fully vetted, so you don’t need to do this yourself.
- Cohesive development teams.
- Complimentary support via your dedicated technical account manager.
- Complimentary quality assurance on feature delivery and pre-release products.
- Access to powerful project management tools.
- Properly structured legal agreements that protect your interest and intellectual property (IP).
- Risk-free one-week trial. So even if you don’t like the developers you get, say for personal reasons, you get the entire 1st invoice credited towards a new candidate.
The other option is the freelance platform. They have become increasingly popular in recent years. They offer access to a wide range of cheap freelance developers from around the world.
Hiring app developers from them is a viable option, but it comes with a number of major drawbacks. So, perhaps the best thing is to offer you a few words of warning when hiring freelance mobile app developers.
The risks of hiring a freelance mobile app developer include:
- Not dedicated to your development project as they need to juggle multiple projects at once to ensure a steady income stream.
- You must shortlist, interview and reference check each and every candidate, including checking for scammers. This can take forever, and if you miss anything, guess what? You are the one who will end up picking up the pieces.
- If your freelance developer gets a better offer, you will have to rush to find a replacement on your own.
- If your freelancer decides to take your idea or code, you may well find yourself gazing at your freelancer on the cover of Time magazine and seeing all your family and friends using your stolen app idea. Believe it or not, some billion-dollar companies have been built this way.
Step 3: Review, shortlist, and undertake a 3-step (primary, skills, final) interview of all suitable candidates.
If you are hiring from a freelance site, you should post a detailed Android or iOS job description to help you get the right candidates.
If you hire from a software company, your process will be much smoother due to them having already vetted any candidates from their company. However, I highly suggest you follow the following steps. You can’t be cautious enough when hiring software developers.
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Initial Screening The initial screening interview is the fastest way to access each of your shortlisted candidates so that you can eliminate all but the best ones. This interview lets you get a good idea of each candidate’s personality and work attitude, as well as giving you the chance to go through their qualifications, depending on their experience level. There are three levels of developers’ expertise:
- Junior app developer
- Middle app developer
- Senior app developer
To help you with your interviews, check out our 37 Android interview questions and answers, and 30 iOS interview questions and answers split by app developers’ levels. They will be a big help. Once you’re satisfied with your candidates’ basic knowledge, make sure to discuss pricing and work terms during this interview.
Technical Assessment The technical assessment interview will allow you to evaluate your candidates’ programming proficiency (i.e. their ability to write clean and performant code), their ability to devise good solutions to problems such as how to ensure a clean architecture, and how they work with various frameworks tools, etc.
I strongly recommend that you get someone who knows what they are doing to prepare the coding tasks and to review the candidate’s submissions together with you. Here are some mobile app interview questions to help you with this.
Final Interview: The final interview will cover the candidate’s technical skills, problem-solving approach, and how they fit within the team and organization in more depth.
You will need to dive deeper into your potential developer’s technical skills, i.e. their ability to code specific functionalities such as payment gateways, etc., that specifically relate to your Android or iOS app project. I also recommend preparing several hypothetical examples based on your project requirements to really test your candidate’s suitability.
Pro Tip: When interviewing app developers, ask for a live Zoom call, or Zoom recording with a shared screen, so they can open their past apps and design tools and show you the product design materials and app code they recently worked on. If they can’t do it, they are most likely not entirely honest with you.
Step 4: Thoroughly check references.
This is a no-brainer, but surprisingly, many companies and startup founders don’t undertake it thoroughly enough. Remember to comprehensively check the verified reviews and references of your chosen mobile app developers.
Step 5: Onboard your software engineering professional
Now you have hired the right application developers, it is time to get them up and running. Be sure to carefully cover your expected working practices plus the following questions:
- Do they use the Agile methodology, Waterfall, or something else?
- What kind of task tracker do they use, or are they happy onboarding onto your own task tracker?
- Do they use Slack, Discord, or something else for daily chats and reports?
- Will they share their code with you via their GitHub account or your respiratory?
That’s it! You have now found your mobile app developer. Onboard them and get started.
Top 5 Companies to Hire Mobile App Developers in 2024
As you now have lots of valuable information about app developers, let’s go over the top 5 companies where you can hire mobile app developers in 2024: 
1. DevTeam.Space
DevTeam.Space is a United States-based software company with a well-managed community of over 60 expert app development teams and 1200 developers from the United States, Europe, and Canada. All developers are supported by an AI-powered Agile process. Since 2016, DevTeam.Space’s mobile app developers have achieved a 99% project success rate thanks to the company’s proven development approach, methodology, and innovative tools.
DevTeam.Space has allowed companies like Airbus, Disney, NEC, and startups of all sizes to access its community of expert developers to help them build their next-generation mobile apps.
However, if your project is small, say below $5K, and you’re ready to spend more time interviewing, and to risk the quality of your app or money, then trying to find a brilliant freelancer among millions of profiles on the freelancer platforms could be an option. Here are some of the companies where you can do it:
2. Freelancer
Freelancer is an Australia-based general skills freelancer platform. The platform allows client companies to hire a freelance mobile app developer from 247 countries worldwide to help them fill their human resources gaps.
They have developers with the skills to build most kinds of mobile applications. If you wish to onboard and manage mobile developers entirely by yourself, Freelancer is a good option.
3. Fiverr
Fiverr is a self-described “online marketplace for freelancers” that is based in Israel. They offer a range of freelancer services, software developers being one of them. Essentially they operate the same model as Freelancer above, where you register, post a job description, and then must interview and hire freelance mobile developers yourself.
4. UpWork
UpWork is the largest general skill freelance platform. You can hire a freelancer for literally anything via UpWork. The platform has a very large pool of talent where you can hire a freelance mobile developer who might be willing to work at rock-bottom prices.
5. Toptal
Toptal is a software-focused freelance platform. It claims to vet all its application developers and only to hire the top 3%. The company offers Toptal mobile app developers for hire for all currently used technologies as well as designers, financial specialists, and other professionals.
Conclusion
So now you know how to find the right app developer for your project.
If you are looking to hire the very best mobile app developers or a development team from a reliable app development partner, then DevTeam.Space should be your first choice. We can assign an individual expert app developer or an entire development team and have them ready to go within 72 hours of your request.
This allows you to easily scale up your development team as and when you need to. DevTeam.Space offers fair and transparent pricing and a risk-free trial when hiring a mobile app development team, individual app developers, or mobile app designers. If you are not 100% happy, we will reassign them at no additional charge. However, this is extremely unlikely given that we have completed over 300 projects and have a 99% project completion success rate.
Whether you hire a development team or individual developers, we assign a complimentary account manager to help you manage your project. All of our technical account managers have past expertise in managing a project of your general type and within your industry segment.
Finally, we offer all our clients a complimentary QA who will test your application before any new release to identify any potential bugs or issues. Once our QA is done, you can sleep soundly knowing that your application is all that you dreamed it would be.
If you would like to learn more about our community of expert app developers and development teams, then simply fill out a DevTeam.Space mobile app hiring form. Once you have done so, one of our dedicated account managers will arrange a complimentary discovery call to answer any questions you have.
