Hire the best Backend Rest API professionals

Every app has a front end and a back end. In order for these two halves to communicate with one another, there needs to be a standardized API (application programming interface) for sending and receiving data. REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style for creating these standardized APIs. APIs can be used to link a client to its back end or the server side of a third-party app. 

The first step to determining the cost to hire a back-end REST API developer will be to define your needs. Rates can vary due to many factors, including expertise and experience, location, and market conditions.

Cost factor #1: project scope

The first variable to consider when determining scope is the nature of the work that needs to be completed. Not all back-end REST API projects are created equally. Pulling data from your social media accounts through a publicly available API will take less time than building your own custom analytics API. 

Tip: The more accurately your job description describes the scope of your project, the easier it will be for talent to give you accurate cost estimates and proposals.

Cost factor #2: back-end REST API developer experience

Choosing the right level of expertise for the job is closely tied to how well you determined the scope of your project. You wouldn’t need an advanced developer to write basic APIs to link your single-page app (SPA) with its back end. On the other hand, creating a public API for your SaaS (software as a service) app from which your customers will be able to programmatically extract data for their own services will require a seasoned developer who can ensure the security of your application.

Beyond experience level, you need to consider the type of experience the talent possesses. The following table breaks down the rates of the typical types of back-end API developers you can find on Upwork.

Rates charged by back-end REST API developers on Upwork

Cost factor #3: location

Location is another variable that can impact a back-end REST API developer’s cost. It’s no secret that you can leverage differences in purchasing power between countries to gain savings on talent. But it’s also important to factor in hidden costs such as language barriers, time zones, and the logistics of managing a remote team. The real advantage to sourcing talent remotely on Upwork is the ability to scan a global talent pool for the best possible person for the job. Location is no longer an obstacle. 

Cost factor #4: independent contractor vs. agency

The final variable regarding talent cost is hiring an independent contractor vs. an agency. An agency is often a “one size fits all” model, so you’ll often have access to a designer, a project manager, an engineer, and more. When hiring individuals you have total autonomy regarding who is responsible for which part of the project, but you’ll need to source each of those skills separately.

The trade-off between hiring individuals vs. hiring an agency is the level of administrative overhead you incur personally in coordinating tasks among all members of the team. Project scope and personal preference will determine which style is a better fit for your needs.

Unencrypted APIs: You should always use some form of encryption for your APIs. At a minimum, SSL or TLS should be used to encrypt any data flowing through your APIs. Insecure APIs are a common access point for data breaches. People often liken APIs to gateways, but they are more like tunnels that ensure information can travel only between two points. Failing to use encryption would be like leaving the maintenance access door to your tunnel unlocked, allowing a malicious third party access to your traffic or to go somewhere the public is not supposed to be able to reach. 

Nondescript error codes: It can be tempting when writing lots of APIs to return the generic 400 Bad Request error code. But as is often the case in life, taking shortcuts and cutting corners can lead to headaches further down the line. Poorly scripted API error messages are a recipe for increased support tickets and rising blood pressure for the poor developer who has to address them. And for customer-facing APIs, it can lead to bad press and poor user reviews. 

Oftentimes, simply taking the extra step to use the appropriate standard HTTP status code is enough to direct most developers to the source of the issue. 401 means the failure was caused by an authentication error, while 403 means the request was understood but the user didn’t have the right permissions. For cases where the standard error codes aren’t enough, however, it can be helpful to include a simple message or a link to a help page for more information on your site.

Not versioning REST APIs: The digital world is constantly changing. You need to make sure that your APIs remain up to date with the latest security and performance best practices, and sometimes that means making app-breaking changes on the back end. That’s why it’s important to practice versioning early on, especially if this is for a customer-facing API. This will allow you to take advantage of new data technologies and improving services while still providing service to slow adopters within your customer base. You can implement versioning in the request header or the endpoint URI. 

Use nouns instead of verbs when naming API endpoints

REST takes a resource-based approach to API development. The actions you can perform are strictly defined by HTTP methods such as GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE. Since actions on resources in HTTP are verbs, it makes more semantic sense to name your endpoints as nouns. So instead of calling GET /addUser123, calling GET /users/123 is preferred. The latter naming is better because anyone looking at your code can immediately tell that 123 is likely an ID for a single user from a collection of users. 

Save resources by filtering your queries

Speaking of resource collections, they can get pretty huge. Sites can have thousands of users, so how can we make our API calls more efficient? The answer is to make more-specific queries. You don’t need to pull the entire list every time the front end of your app needs a certain resource. You can use filtering, sorting, and paging to narrow down the number of results being pulled in an API request. 

• Filtering lets you narrow query results by named parameters such as price or country. 
• Sorting lets you pull results in ascending or descending order by a selected parameter such as date. 
• Paging lets you place a limit on the number of results being pulled per view. 

Document your APIs

At the end of the day, whether your API is for internal use or in a customer-facing product, it’s important for others to be able to read and understand how to use it. API documentation is a skill in and of itself. Documentation should be well written and easy to navigate. It should clearly tell developers what they can and cannot do with your API, what specific commands they are able to make, and the preferred data format they should use.