MVP development in Miami
The temptation for a Miami founder is to launch in three countries at once, because the market story is about the whole region. Our advice is almost always one country first, one payment method, one language done properly, and a design that makes the second country a configuration change rather than a rewrite.
We build MVPs as fixed-scope work, often starting with the two-week starter, and we say early what is being left out and why. The parts that touch money or identity are built properly from the first commit, because retrofitting a ledger is expensive. Everything else stays as simple as it can be until real users tell you what matters. The code is yours from the first commit, so an investor's technical diligence finds a repository, not a vendor dependency.
Miami's software buyers tend to face south. Many of the companies that set up here in the last few years came for the same reason: it is where a US-incorporated business can sit next to its Latin American customers, investors and staff. Cross-border payments, remittances, neobanks, crypto infrastructure and the US arms of Latin American companies make up a large part of the local technology market, alongside real estate, hospitality and trade. The systems they need are rarely built for one country.
That shapes the work. Money movement is the core of the product rather than a feature bolted onto it: idempotent payment calls, a double-entry ledger, reconciliation jobs that compare your records against a partner's settlement file every night and flag the difference. The product has to handle Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese properly, validate local ID numbers and address formats, and settle through rails such as Pix in Brazil and SPEI in Mexico as well as cards. Crypto products add wallets, chain indexers and custody integrations, and the same principle applies: your database has to agree with the chain, and when it drifts, somebody needs a report saying where. Real estate, hospitality and trade bring their own version of the problem, usually a workbook that runs the business and quietly disagrees with its copies.
The hiring market has moved with the migration of finance and technology firms from New York and California. Built In puts the average base salary for a software engineer in Miami at around $145,000, and engineers who are bilingual and have shipped payments work are the hardest seat to fill. That is the seat we fill for a defined build: a payments integration, a reconciliation system, a second-country launch, or the months while a permanent hire is found. Work starts with a fixed-price two-week piece, and the code belongs to you from the first commit.
We move our working day for Florida. Four hours of every working day overlap with your morning in Eastern time, stand-up included, so calls, code review and decisions happen live with the engineer who writes the code. Everything else is written down where you already work, and runbooks and architecture notes are written as we go, so the next engineer who joins can read how the money moves.
We are the right fit for a defined build: a payments integration, a reconciliation system, a second-country launch. Senior capacity starts within days, the first piece is a fixed-price two-week engagement, and we can cover the months while a permanent hire is found. Agencies serving Miami's fintech, hospitality and retail brands can put the work under their own name.
Four ways this arrives.
Every feature is marked essential. We work with you to find the one journey a user must complete for the idea to be proven or disproven, build that properly, and write the rest down as a list for after launch.
It was built with a no-code tool or over a weekend, and real users are now finding its limits. We keep what works, move the data somewhere you own, and rebuild the parts that break without taking the product offline.
A demo that works in the meeting and then has to become the product. We build it on a real database with real sign-in from the start, so the version you demo is the version you keep, not a mock-up you throw away.
You need someone to make the technical decisions and explain them in plain language. We write down every choice that is expensive to reverse, why we made it and what changing it would cost, so whoever you hire next can pick it up.
Began in 2024 as a script that turned monthly exports into charts, and grew step by step into a web app, a mobile app, a technician phone page and the one backend under all three.
Read the write-up →Asked by Miami teams.
How do you work with teams in Miami?+
We are in Bengaluru and move our working day for Florida, so four hours of every working day overlap with your morning in Eastern time, stand-up included. Calls, code review and decisions happen in that window. Everything else is written down in your own tools, whether that is Slack, GitHub or Linear, and the person on every call is the engineer who writes the code.
Can you build for Latin American markets as well as the US?+
Yes, and it is more than translation. Mexican and Argentinian Spanish differ, Brazilian Portuguese is its own language, and ID numbers, address formats, currencies and instalment payments all change by country. We design localisation into the first component, format money through the platform's own internationalisation tools, and integrate the payments provider you have chosen, with room for a second provider and local rails such as Pix and SPEI.
How does your rate compare to hiring in Miami?+
Built In puts the average base salary for a software engineer in Miami at about $145,000, before equity and benefits. Our published rate is $35/hour, or $5,400 a month for an embedded engineer, with a $5,000 minimum. There is no recruiting time and no employment overhead, and work starts within days of the call. The first piece is a fixed-price two-week engagement at $2,800, so you judge us on working code.
Can you work white-label for a Miami agency?+
Yes. Miami agencies regularly win fintech, hospitality and ecommerce projects that need more engineering than the in-house team can take on at once. We work under your name as part of your team, so your client deals with you and the work arrives as yours. The NDA comes before any specifics, the code belongs to the client from the first commit, and runbooks and architecture notes are written as we go.
What does the fixed-price two-week starter cover?+
A defined slice of the product, agreed in writing before we start. For an MVP it is usually the core flow, working end to end against a real database. It costs $2,800. You get something running at the end and you keep the code either way, so you can judge us on output before committing to the rest of the build.
How long does an MVP take?+
It depends on what the smallest honest version is, which is why we scope before we quote. The two-week starter usually answers the question: by the end of it one flow works, and you have a written estimate for the rest with its assumptions listed. We would rather cut scope with you than promise a date we would miss.
Why Next.js and PostgreSQL?+
Because they are boring in the right way. Both are widely known, so you can hire for them later. Postgres will carry you a long way past your first paying customers, and Next.js gives you a web app and an API in one codebase. If the product is mobile-first, we build the app in React Native on the same backend.
Will we have to rewrite it later?+
Not if we do our job. The shortcuts we take are in scope, not in structure: fewer features, plainer screens, manual steps behind the scenes. The data model, sign-in, permissions and deploys are built properly from the first week, because those are the parts that force a rewrite when they are wrong.
Who owns the code and the accounts?+
You do, from the first commit. Repositories, hosting, domains and payment accounts are created in your name, not ours. If we set something up ourselves to save time, we transfer it to you before the first invoice. An MVP you cannot take to another team is a liability, not an asset.