Handing Someone Access to Your Codebase Is a Big Ask
That is what a match involves, whoever runs it. On this platform it also means letting someone see how your team prompts and reviews AI-assisted work. This page sets out who a developer actually works for, who ends up owning what they write, what happens to their access the day they leave, and what the direct-hire clause really commits you to.
The Four Questions Everyone Actually Asks
Read this row first. Everything below explains why each answer is what it is.
Who's their employer?
Neither of us, technically. A matched developer is an independent contractor — not on our payroll, not on yours.
Who owns the code?
You. Ownership of what gets built for you is settled through the developer's platform agreement before they are ever put forward for a match.
Will you sign an NDA?
Yes — yours, ours, or a mutual one, before any detail gets shared. The developer is bound by it too, not just the platform.
Can I poach them?
You can hire them permanently by agreement. There is a buyout clause, it is a conversation rather than a wall, and we would rather negotiate one than lose the relationship over it.
There Are Two Agreements Here, Not One
One sits between you and us: the platform terms that cover matching, billing, the replacement guarantee and non-solicitation. The other sits between you and the matched developer, who is contracting with you directly rather than through us — since nobody here employs them, that working relationship is between the two of you.
What makes the second relationship trustworthy despite that directness is that its confidentiality and IP terms are not left to whatever paperwork a contractor happens to bring. Every developer signs onto platform-level obligations — keeping things confidential, assigning IP in what they build, not going around the platform — before a single match is offered to them. Those commitments already exist on day one of any engagement; nobody is negotiating them from a standing start after you have already opened up your codebase.
That structure is different from an agency that employs its developers and simply bills you for time. It is also the reason the underlying terms cannot afford to be vague — a loose contractor agreement is the one part of this model that would actually put you at risk.
What's Yours, and the Three Things That Never Were
The main rule is simple. The exceptions are the standard ones any honest marketplace should spell out rather than hope you never ask about.
Everything Built for You
Code, config, infrastructure-as-code, schemas, tests, docs and design work produced during the engagement — including anything drafted with AI assistance and then reviewed and accepted by a human. It becomes yours as it is created, not on some later date.
Open-Source Dependencies
Every real application pulls in libraries somebody else wrote, and those keep whatever licence they already had. Nobody can sign away rights they never held. What we control is choosing dependencies sensibly — permissive, actively maintained — rather than something that becomes a problem for your legal team a year later.
General Skill and Technique
A developer who learns your domain, or gets sharper with a particular AI tool while working on your project, does not owe you amnesia afterwards. Know-how travels with the person. What stays behind is your code, your data, and anything built specifically for your business.
Everything You Brought to the Table
Your existing codebase, your designs, your content, your data and your brand were yours before the match and stay yours through it. Working on them — AI-assisted or not — earns a developer no rights over them.
Your Repository, Your Credentials, and How Your Team Actually Prompts
Confidentiality on this platform reaches further than source code. If your team has built its own prompt library, internal AI tooling, or a review process it treats as a competitive edge, that counts too.
Ask Before You Say Much
Mention it in your first message, or just write "NDA first". Treat that first message as not yet covered — a project type and a rough stack is plenty to start with.
Whichever Paper You Prefer
Have a standard mutual NDA already? Send it over and we will review it rather than push our own. If not, ask and we will send a mutual document.
The Developer Is Bound Too
An agreement that does not reach the person actually reading your code is not worth much. Confidentiality is a condition of being on the platform at all, so the obligation travels with the access.
It Outlasts the Engagement
Confidentiality does not switch off when the work ends. It keeps applying to whatever a developer saw as well as what they wrote — your internal prompts and AI-review habits included.
What It Actually Covers
Your codebase and architecture, your credentials and infrastructure, customer and pricing data, unreleased plans, and any proprietary prompts or in-house AI tooling — for some teams, the working method is as sensitive as the code it produces. Misuse or disclosure of any of it gives you a contractual claim.
Where People Expect Too Much
An NDA does not stop someone else independently having a similar idea, does not turn a general concept into your property, and does not cover anything already public. It is not a substitute for access control either — the tightest confidentiality clause is weaker than simply never issuing a credential the role did not need.
The Clause Everybody Worries About — Read It Before You Need To
On a marketplace, this is the one that actually matters, and usually the one buried where nobody reads it until there is a dispute. Here it is upfront instead.
What It Actually Restricts
While an engagement runs, and for a period after it ends, you agree not to engage a developer we introduced you to — directly, or through some other route — without first sorting terms with us. It cuts both ways: we will not go after your own staff either.
The purpose is narrow. It stops a match being used to route around the platform that made it possible, which would turn vetting and matching into unpaid work nobody could keep doing. It is not a claim on where that developer's career goes.
If You Do Want to Hire Them
Tell us, and we work it out. That is genuinely the entire process. A permanent hire coming out of a good match is a success story, not a violation, and we would rather agree a fair number and keep the relationship than block it and lose both sides.
The usual shape is a buyout tied to what matching and vetting that person cost, typically smaller the longer the engagement has already run — time already worked has already paid some of that cost back through the rate. It is something to discuss, not a fixed penalty printed in advance.
Talking to the Developer First Is Fine
Nothing stops you asking them how they feel about it before you come to us. The awkwardness people imagine only shows up when it is done quietly instead.
Already Knew Them?
Say so. A developer who reached out to you independently, or who you already knew through an unrelated route, is a different situation, and we look at the facts rather than assume the worst.
What We Won't Do
We will not tell a developer they cannot take a job they want, and we will not price this clause as anything more than what it actually reflects.
Who They Really Are, and What They Can Touch
Identity and system access are the two practical risks in a model like this. Both get handled before a single pull request opens.
Who They Are
Identity checks and reference calls sit alongside the coding evaluation and the AI-assisted work review during vetting — so the person interviewed is the person doing the work, and the person on the profile is the person interviewed.
If your own compliance rules call for something specific — a particular background check, a signed declaration, proof of eligibility for a certain kind of arrangement — raise it while we are contracting. Sorting that out before a candidate is shortlisted is far simpler than after you have already picked one.
What They Can Reach
A matched developer works inside your own accounts, your own repository, your own infrastructure, under credentials you create and control. That keeps one audit trail in one place, and it means access ends the moment you cut it, with nobody else in the loop.
Grant what the role genuinely needs rather than blanket admin rights, and remember that includes any AI tooling with write access to your systems. Whatever access model you decide on, we work inside it.
If They'll Touch Your Users' Data
Where a matched developer ends up handling data belonging to your own customers, deciding how it is processed stays your job, and that obligation belongs in the engagement paperwork rather than an assumption nobody wrote down. Tell us during contracting which rules apply to you, including whether you need a formal processing agreement signed. If your policy means development should run against anonymised or synthetic data rather than production — including whatever gets fed into an AI tool along the way — say so early, because it shapes how onboarding is set up.
What this website itself collects from you, separately from any engagement, is covered in the privacy policy, which also explains how developer vetting data is kept apart from client enquiries.
What Happens to Access and Knowledge When Someone Leaves
Most engagements end for entirely ordinary reasons. It is worth planning the exit before it happens, because the last day is the worst possible time to work out what only one person knew.
You Cut Access, We Confirm It
Since the developer worked under accounts you created, ending their access — repository, ticket tracker, chat, CI, cloud console, any connected AI tooling — is something you do, not something you wait for us to arrange. Do it on the last day, not the next time it crosses your mind.
Rotate Secrets, Don't Just Remove a User
Anything the developer could have seen deserves rotating, not just revoking: shared API keys, service tokens, database credentials, anything pasted into a chat or an AI assistant's context during a late-night incident. Deleting an account does not un-expose a secret that was already read.
Get the Handover in Writing
Work still in flight, branches not yet merged, the reasoning behind a decision that is not obvious from the diff, and any AI-generated scaffolding that still needs a human pass — ask for that as a document, not a farewell call. A document is still there next month.
Our Own Copies Get Deleted
Whatever of yours we held in connection with the engagement — documents, exports, anything shared with us rather than directly with the developer — is deleted. Confidentiality and the IP assignment do not expire alongside the engagement; both keep applying afterwards.
The Rest Is Written Down Elsewhere
Terms of Service
Rates and invoicing in USD, notice periods, the replacement guarantee's conditions, liability and governing law.
Read the termsPrivacy Policy
What the two forms on this site collect, how developer vetting data is kept separate, and your rights over any of it.
Read the policyHow We Vet
The two-axis evaluation behind every match — engineering fundamentals, AI-assisted work review, and reference checks.
See the processSort the NDA First, Then Tell Us Everything
Ask for a mutual NDA in your first message and the detailed conversation starts already covered. After that: the project, the stack, and matched profiles follow within days.