Hiring a Developer: Assessing Skill Without Being Technical
Hiring technical help without technical knowledge feels like a disadvantage, and the useful signals are largely non-technical. Most failed engagements fail on communication and process rather than coding ability.
Ask for work you can actually verify
Request links to live sites or applications they built, and what specifically they did on each. On team projects, ask which parts were theirs.
Contact a previous client. Ask whether the project finished on time and budget, how changes were handled, whether the developer explained things clearly, and whether they would hire them again.
That last question, and the pause before the answer, is genuinely informative.
Test explanation, not knowledge
Ask them to explain a technical decision in plain language — why they would choose one approach over another for your project.
A good developer can do this. Someone who cannot or will not explain their reasoning without jargon will be difficult to work with when something goes wrong, and something will.
Ask what they think the risks in your project are. A thoughtful answer indicates they have understood the brief; an assurance that it is all straightforward usually indicates they have not.
Process questions that reveal a lot
How do you handle changes to scope? Anyone experienced has a defined answer, because it is the most common source of dispute.
How do you test? What happens if something breaks after launch? How will I see progress during the build?
Do you use version control? The answer should be an obvious yes, and it matters because it means work is recoverable and transferable.
Structure the engagement to reduce risk
Start with a small paid piece of work before committing to the whole project. A discovery phase producing a specification, or one contained feature, tells you more than any interview.
Break payment into milestones tied to deliverables you can see working, not to time elapsed.
Agree from the outset that you own the code and all accounts, and that everything will be delivered in a repository you control.
Warning signs
Reluctance to provide references or show previous work. Quotes given without questions — anyone estimating your project without asking about scope is guessing.
Substantially undercutting other quotes, which usually means a misunderstanding of scope that will surface later as change requests.
Vagueness about who owns the result, or a proposal to host it on infrastructure only they control.
The handover
Before final payment, confirm you have the code, the accounts, documentation of how to deploy changes, and a list of any third-party services and their credentials.
Having another developer review the work before you release the final payment is money well spent on anything substantial.
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