Vetting · Standard
There is no official base44 developer certification. Anyone can claim expertise on Fiverr, Upwork, or LinkedIn, and many do. Base44Devs runs a five-gate internal vetting framework — reps, pattern coverage, code review, written communication, bylined accountability — and we publish it so you can apply it to any candidate, including ours.
Five gates
Gate 01
Minimum 10 base44 apps shipped to production. We ask for a named portfolio with workspace screenshots and live URLs where the client permits.
Gate 02
Documented playbook for every error type in the base44 feedback portal — function routing, credit burn, SSO bypass, Stripe webhook breakage, AI-agent regressions, etc.
Gate 03
Every fix is peer-reviewed by a second senior engineer before ship. Sprint output is never single-authored on critical paths (auth, payments, data).
Gate 04
Every engagement closes with a written summary: what changed, why, what to monitor. Engineers who cannot write a clean three-paragraph summary do not pass this gate.
Gate 05
Named engineer on every engagement letter. LinkedIn or equivalent professional profile. The engineer who scopes the work is the engineer who ships the work.
Red flags
If they cannot show shipped work in their own name, they probably did not ship it.
Open-ended hourly is a license to drift. Insist on a fixed scope or a cap.
If the work has no written summary at the end, it is not maintainable. Insist on documentation.
Engineer-A scopes, engineer-B (offshore, undisclosed) ships. Common at large agencies.
Common on Upwork and Fiverr. Ask explicitly: "Will any other engineer touch this work?"
Fiverr reviews are often coordinated. Look for specific project detail, not generic five-star copy-paste.
Screening questions
A real specialist answers each in under a minute with specific platform terminology. A generalist hedges, asks for documentation, or talks about no-code platforms in general. These are excerpts from the full screening protocol on our vetting guide.
Score each 0-2: 0 = no answer, 1 = generic, 2 = platform-specific with concrete example. Below 6/10, reject. 6-8, run a paid trial task before committing.
What you get
TIER
$497
USD · Fixed-price · One engagement
One business day production-readiness audit. Architecture, security, performance, SEO.
Scope
TIER · RECOMMENDED
$1,500
USD · Fixed-price · One engagement
48-72 hour bug-fix sprint with peer-reviewed code and a written summary.
Scope
TIER
$4,500
USD · Fixed-price · One engagement
Two-week MVP build by a vetted senior engineer with a peer code reviewer on every PR.
Scope
Trial task
For any base44 engagement over $2,000 with any vendor — including us — a paid two-hour trial task separates pattern-matchers from generalists more reliably than any conversation. Here is the brief we recommend buyers use.
Pick a documented base44 issue from the feedback portal — function routing 404, credit-burn loop, SSO bypass — and ask the candidate to: (a) describe the root cause in one paragraph, (b) outline a remediation plan in three to five steps, (c) write a regression test plan. No code shipped — diagnostic and communication quality only.
Specificity (do they name platform behaviours?). Causal clarity (do they trace symptom to root cause?). Written quality (would you hand this to a board member?). Time discipline (delivered inside two hours?). Cost: pay $200-$500 for a senior's two hours.
Free-trial requests are an industry red flag and the best engineers refuse. A paid trial signals that you are a serious buyer and respects their time. The cost is a small fraction of the engagement at risk.
Our $497 audit doubles as the paid trial task — written diagnostic in one business day. If the audit quality does not meet your bar, you do not commit to the sprint. The audit fee is refundable against any subsequent fix engagement, so the trial pays for itself when you proceed.
QUERIES
No. Base44 has a partner program but it is invisible to most buyers and does not publish a skills assessment. Anyone can list themselves as a base44 expert on Fiverr, Upwork, or LinkedIn. That is exactly why a published vetting standard matters when you hire.
Five gates. Reps (10+ shipped base44 apps in production). Pattern coverage (documented playbook for every error type in the base44 feedback portal). Code review (every fix is peer-reviewed before ship). Written communication (every engagement closes with a written summary). Bylined accountability (named engineer, named LinkedIn, named portfolio).
Six common ones. Unwilling to share named portfolio. Hourly billing with no scope cap. No written deliverable. Bench-and-rotate model where the engineer who scopes is different from the engineer who ships. Subcontracting offshore without disclosure. Reviews that all sound the same on Fiverr (often coordinated). Avoid all six.
Ask them to walk through how they would diagnose three documented issues: function routing returning 404 in production, credit-burn loops on trivial edits, and SSO bypass via header manipulation. A real specialist names the platform behaviour and the fix in under a minute. A generalist hedges or asks for the docs.
Engagement letters name the engineer assigned. Public profiles with portfolio detail are on the about page. We deliberately do not run an open marketplace — we are a small specialist team, not a directory.
On our base44 developer vetting guide. It includes the technical questions to ask, red flags to watch for, rate benchmarks, and a portfolio review checklist. Free, no email gate.
Reference checks
Reference checks are usually shallow because the questions are shallow. The two questions below cut through polite recommendations faster than any other.
Question 01
Every engagement has a wobble. The honest reference describes how the candidate handled it: did they own the regression, surface the issue early, deliver a fix without re-billing? Or did they go silent, blame the platform, or ask for more hours? "Nothing ever went wrong" is a tell — that reference is rehearsed.
Question 02
Not "were you happy with the work." Not "would you recommend them." The willingness-to-rehire test eliminates polite recommendations. A hesitation in the answer is informative — listen for it. A candidate who cannot produce two references with verifiable LinkedIn profiles answering this question affirmatively is not a candidate.
Apply both questions to us if you are evaluating Base44Devs. We are happy to provide named references on request — typically two clients with permission to share, matched to the type of engagement you are scoping.
NEXT STEP
Order a $497 audit or read the full vetting guide before you hire. We publish the standard so you can apply it to any candidate.