Choosing a Dev Partner: 7 Questions That Save You Money

Hiring a developer or agency is weirdly hard. The language is unfamiliar, the price range is enormous, and by the time you figure out you made the wrong choice, you’re six months in and it costs more to switch than to keep going. The seven questions below won’t guarantee a good hire, but they’ll filter out most of the bad ones.

1. “Can you show me a project you built that’s a lot like what I need?”

Not “do you have a portfolio?” Everyone has a portfolio. Ask for one project that genuinely resembles yours in scope, industry, or complexity. If they can’t name one, either they’ve never done it before (which is fine if they’re honest about it) or they can’t tell which of their past work matches yours (which is a small red flag — it means they haven’t thought about your project yet).

2. “What would you do in the first two weeks if we hired you?”

A good partner doesn’t start with “build the homepage.” They start with discovery — understanding your goals, your users, your content, and your constraints. If someone jumps straight to design or code without asking what success looks like, they’re going to give you a site that matches their habits instead of your needs.

The best answers sound boring: “understand your current traffic and where leads come from, audit your existing content, interview two or three of your customers if possible, then scope the work in detail before any design happens.” That’s the answer you want.

3. “What do you do when a project goes over scope?”

Every project eventually hits scope creep. The question is what happens next. Good partners have a conversation, explain the tradeoff, and let you decide. Bad partners either silently absorb the work (and resent it), silently add it to the bill (and surprise you), or throw their hands up and say “that wasn’t in the contract.”

Listen for a thoughtful process, not a defensive answer.

4. “Who actually does the work?”

The person who sold you the project may not be the person building it. That’s fine — it’s common — but you deserve to know. Ask to meet the developer who’ll write the code. If the answer is “you won’t have direct contact with them,” ask why. Communication gaps cause a shocking number of project failures, and an extra layer between you and the person actually writing the code is usually where problems start.

5. “What happens after launch?”

A developer who builds your site and disappears is worse than no developer at all. Ask what ongoing support looks like. Is there a maintenance plan? What’s the hourly rate for small changes? How fast do they respond when something breaks? If the answer is “you can always email me,” that’s not a plan, it’s a hope.

6. “Can I talk to one of your clients?”

Case studies are curated. References are honest. A good partner has clients who’ll take a ten-minute call and tell you what it was really like to work with them. If they resist this request, ask yourself why.

When you do talk to a reference, don’t ask “are they good?” Ask specifics: “What surprised you?” “What went wrong, and how was it handled?” “Would you hire them again for the same project, or something different?” The texture of the answer matters more than the conclusion.

7. “What would make you tell me not to hire you?”

This one catches people off guard, and the answer reveals a lot. Someone who says “nothing, we can do anything” is either lying or hasn’t thought about it. Someone who says “if you want a $50,000 site for $5,000” or “if you need someone on-site in your office every day” is being honest about their fit, and that honesty is worth a lot.

Good partners turn down projects that aren’t a match. Bad partners take every project that has a budget and make it work regardless. The former is better for you.

The meta-question

The thread running through all of this: is this person trying to understand your business, or are they trying to sell you what they already know how to build? You can usually tell within 20 minutes of the first conversation.

If a partner feels like a good fit across all seven of these, your odds are good. If they fail three or more, save yourself the headache and keep looking. The right match makes everything easier — the wrong one makes everything harder, and you end up paying twice either way.

Photo by Bia Limova on Pexels.