8 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Freelance Software Developer

The gig economy has revolutionized the way businesses develop software. In the past, developing an app meant leasing office space and employing a huge and costly engineering team in-house. Now, businesses are leveraging the power of a global talent pool in order to build fast, pivot quickly and scale efficiently.

Having such an unprecedented access to global talent brings its own set of challenges – how do you find the best developers in the ocean of professionals? Hiring a Software Developer just by looking at someone’s impressive resume, attractive portfolio and amazingly cheap hourly rate could turn out to be a costly mistake. The price of such a decision is unbelievably high and includes missed product release, over-budget development, technical debt, and even security risks.

What makes an outsourcing relationship with a Software Developer work? Not being on the lookout for the least expensive labor. The key to your success is a carefully considered process of interviewing a Software Developer. Specifically, the success of your outsourcing endeavor depends on how well you can interview freelancers. You need to learn how to interview freelance developers to identify their real skills of problem solving and communication as a Software Developer.

This guide provides you with eight critical questions you have to ask during interviews with freelance software engineers to ensure that you hire the best talent for your Software Developer position. The following sections reveal why you need to ask those questions, what to expect from candidates' responses, the red flags to avoid, and how platforms like Gigmint.AI change the face of hiring AI developers and software engineers.

Preparing for the Hiring Process: The Crucial Groundwork for Your Software Developer

But before even booking that Zoom meeting or sending any direct messages to potential freelance programmers, you will have some homework to do first. And if you enter that interview for a Software Developer with no idea about your project needs, no amount of good questions is going to help you.

Laying the foundation makes you a professional client—exactly what those top-notch developers want to see in someone hiring a Software Developer.

Define Your Project Scope and MVP

The most common cause of failure for freelance software development projects is that of undefined scope. "I would like to make an app similar to Uber, but for dog walking" is not a scope—it is an elevator pitch to a Software Developer.

And before interviewing those candidates, you should have a Product Requirements Document (PRD) ready for your Software Developer. It doesn't have to be 50 pages long, but at least there should be a clear description of your MVP. How many features must the product have at least? What are user flows? What will determine the success of the project?

Determine Your Tech Stack (or Ask a Software Developer for Guidance)

Do you need specialists or a generalist Software Developer? When creating a complicated recommendation engine based on machine learning algorithms, you should hire AI developers specializing in such technologies as Python, TensorFlow, or PyTorch.

And when you just create an ordinary e-commerce marketplace, then a full-stack developer, who knows all the ins and outs of the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js), may be exactly what you need.

And if you are a non-technical founder and have no idea which technology stack is right for your project, do not worry at all. Just keep in mind that one of your primary goals during the interview process will be to get architectural recommendations from the developer and estimate his reasoning as a competent Software Developer.

Set Up a Realistic Budget and Timeline for Your Software Developer

There is a great difference between "cheap code" and "efficient solutions". It is much cheaper to hire a developer for $15 an hour and pay him 200 hours to create a buggy product than to hire a developer for $75 an hour and spend only 30 hours on creating a flawless and scalable application. Define a realistic budget and a realistic but rather strict timeline when evaluating a Software Developer.

The 8 Crucial Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Freelance Developer

With your preparatory work done, it's time for the interviews. Here are eight questions that will allow you to probe deeply into a candidate’s experience, approach, and character as a Software Developer.

1. "Tell me about a similar project you have worked on from start to finish as a Software Developer."

Why ask this: The past is the best indication of the future. In addition to evaluating the candidate's relevant experience, you want to get an idea of how much ownership they have taken over the project. Have they written some basic CSS, or have they built the database and the back end and deployed the application?

Key aspects to look for: Look for detailed responses from the Software Developer. An excellent candidate is going to give you answers based on the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) technique. They will mention the problem they had to solve using their coding. Be careful about measurement statistics: "I improved the database queries efficiency, thus decreasing the load time by 40% and increasing the user retention rate."

Red flags: High-level and vague responses are one big red flag for a Software Developer. They claim to have done 100% of the work for a large enterprise application, but cannot give you any insight about the specific architecture that they have created. The continued use of "we" rather than "I" in relation to the use of the technology could mean that they were not the lead person behind this Software Developer project.

2. "What is your preferred tech stack for this specific project, and why?"

Why should I ask this: It assesses their technical knowledge and architectural skills. There is an idea in software engineering called the "Law of the Instrument" (or the Golden Hammer): If you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. You would like to make sure that a developer picks the appropriate instrument according to the needs of your business, rather than using what they know how to do.

What to expect from a good answer: You should hear reasonable and objective argumentation. An experienced developer should weigh several aspects when making such recommendations: application performance, scalability, time to market, and maintenance costs.

An answer may be similar to the following: "I think that you should pick React Native for your mobile application since you need to release it for both platforms in three months, and it will cost you 40 percent less compared to native application development."

Red flags: Beware of those developers who try to push a very trendy and obscure framework without any business-related reasoning. Another sign of an inexperienced developer may be the inability to state the disadvantages of the selected stack. There is no perfect framework.

3. "How do you handle communication, updates, and potential time zone differences?"

The reason: In terms of software development outsourcing, ineffective communication destroys projects much faster than bad code. The freelancer can be an outstanding programmer, but if he or she will be gone for 2 weeks at once, your project will be stopped. It is important that the freelancer and you would agree upon communication frequency, especially when you work in different continents.

Signals to look for: You should see proactive communication practices from your freelancer. The best freelancers consider themselves businesses.This is what they will be saying: "I make asynchronous updates daily in Slack and love a 30 minute sync in Zoom on Fridays to discuss our sprint".

It is clear that the freelancer understands the use of popular project management applications like Jira, Trello, Asana, or GitHub Projects. In case of a big time zone difference, the freelancer will tell you how many hours per day you will overlap.

Warning signs: "I will just mail you when the feature will be available" and "Just Skype me whenever you want" indicate that there is no system of approach for the professional workflow. Not being able to synchronize the working schedule and effective communication is sure to lead to disaster.

4. "What is your approach to testing, debugging, and Quality Assurance (QA)?"

Why should you ask this question? You are paying for working software and not for coding. Bugs are likely to creep up while coding., but what differentiates a pro from an amateur developer is the way they prepare and deal with bugs. You want to make sure you don't pay for code that won't work after you scale it.

What should you look out for? This should be something you hear in terms of testing strategies. Phrases like Unit Testing, Integration Testing, Test-Driven Development (TDD), and CI/CD pipelines should be on your radar.

A good developer would tell you that he writes tests along with his code in order to find bugs before deployment. He shouldn't see QA as an afterthought; on the contrary, he must consider it as an integral part of the development process.

Red Flags: Consider QA being the client's responsibility as a huge red flag. If your developer tells you "I write the code and you check whether it works" – leave immediately. Moreover, even in case he cannot mention any testing framework (for example Jest for JavaScript and PyTest for Python), it will be quite obvious that he faces failures with his code.

5. "How do you manage scope creep or unexpected technical challenges?"

Why to ask this: Scope creep, the ongoing and uncontrollable enlargement of the project's scope, is an antonym of budgets and schedules. During the development process, you will definitely wish to add some more features. Unexpected technical problems will arise. You need to be aware whether this person can handle boundaries well.

What to pay attention to: Look for a professional way of Change Requests management. A professional software developer should say something like "Sure, I would love to add this new feature, it will take us about 15 hours more and postpone our schedule. Which feature would you prefer to prioritize – this one or feature number X?" It means that this person is both a collaborative and responsible partner.

Warning signs: When the developer just says "Yes, no problem!" to all the requests not specifying any changes in the schedule or budget, he/she definitely brings your project to failure and burnout. On the other hand, if he/she gets angry immediately while hearing any change proposal, he/she definitely lacks the flexibility needed in the current environment of software development.

6. "Can you explain a complex technical concept to a non-technical stakeholder?"

Why is this question worth asking: Perhaps this is the most critical question for founders, project managers, and business owners who don’t know how to code. You need a partner, not a machine. If you can’t comprehend what your developer says, you can’t make any business decisions regarding your own product.

Red flags: Excessive usage of technical terms, acronyms, and buzzwords without explaining them. An attitude of being condescending or visibly frustrated by simplifying the terminology is a sure sign that this developer doesn’t possess necessary soft skills.

7. "What are your standard practices for data security and privacy?"

Why ask this: In the age of digital revolution, securing data is imperative. The introduction of stringent data laws such as the GDPR in Europe and CCPA in California means that even one data breach could lead to astronomical fines and ruin your organization's image. This is all the more important if you are recruiting AI developers who would be using sensitive data to develop their machine learning algorithms.

What to look for: The developer should have a good understanding of secure coding concepts. They should know how to use encryption techniques for both static and dynamic data (encryption in transit through HTTPs/SSL), proper user authentication (OAuth/JWT etc.), sanitization of user inputs to avoid SQL injection attacks.

They must also be aware of the OWASP Top 10 (standard document for awareness among developers on web application security). Lastly, they should be completely comfortable signing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before they start.

Red Flags: Thinking that security is “a server-side thing” or that “can be handled later.” If they do not have any understanding of the basics of vulnerabilities or ridicule the concept of the NDA, they are a big threat to your business.

8. "How do you structure your code handover, documentation, and post-launch support?"

Why do you need to ask this: One of the most dangerous aspects of outsourcing software development is "vendor lock-in." The issue arises because the freelancer creates such a disordered and undocumented codebase that you cannot use without his help anymore. You have to make sure of the smooth handover process so that you can further manage the project yourself or entrust it to other freelancers.

What to pay attention to: Promises of a neat and organized structure of GitHub or GitLab repositories. These freelancers should stress the significance of the presence of a neat and descriptive README file.

Freelancers must follow the best practice of creating inline comments for complicated blocks of logic. In addition, you should ask about the warranty period they provide since top freelancers typically provide 14 to 30 days after launching a product for free bug fixing.

Warning signs: The refusal to transfer Intellectual Property (IP) or source code under any condition. Saying that "clean code is self-documenting" in order to justify the absence of documentation.

Evaluating the Candidate

The Interview is Important, But It’s Only Talking

After the candidate has answered your eight key questions satisfactorily, you will have to confirm their statements before signing the huge, multi-month contract.

The Value of a Paid Test Project

Do not engage a freelance software developer for a huge project until you have tested him/her. The most practical way to determine the capabilities of the freelancer is via a paid micro-project.

Select a portion of your project which takes 10 – 15 hours and pay him/her to accomplish it at the same rate he/she demands. The test will provide answers to all of these questions:

• Could he/she set up the development environment effortlessly?

• Could he/she raise intelligent queries when he/she gets stuck?

• Was the code delivered on time?

• Is the code well-written and well-documented?

Failure of the test project may cost you some hundreds of dollars while failure of the massive six-month build will cost you thousands of dollars.

Checking References and GitHub Repositories

Request for links to their GitHub repository and check out the commit history on it. Regardless of whether you are familiar with the technology side of things, a GitHub repository with consistent and informative commit history will indicate that they are professional. Request two referrals from previous clients and email them one simple question: “Would you hire this developer again?”

The Gigmint Advantage: Skipping the Guesswork

Interviewing, verifying, testing, and evaluating code is extremely time-consuming—and time that most startup owners and business owners do not have. The conventional approach of going through hundreds of proposals on generic gig boards is very tiring and extremely risky.

It is here where the difference Gigmint.AI makes.

Gigmint eliminates the risks associated with the verification process. Hiring freelance developers via Gigmint allows you access to an exclusive group of already verified top-class software engineers and specialized AI developers.

As a result of Gigmint's thorough internal verification process, the competence, coding abilities, and communications skills of a prospective candidate will be already verified even before you consider his/her application. When you ask these 8 questions to a Gigmint engineer, you do not assess their abilities to write code—you just decide whether they are a good match for your idea.

Don't take risks with generic job boards. [Learn more about Gigmint.AI today.]

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Hiring Freelance Developers

What is the price of engaging a freelance software developer?

It depends heavily on the country where you are located, technologies used, and developer’s experience level. A junior software developer from a developing country will have the hourly rate of 20-40 dollars, whereas an experienced AI engineer or Lead Architect working in North America may ask for 100-250+ dollars. If you need an excellent, mid-level full-stack developer, then you need to allocate up to 50-100 dollars an hour.

Where can I find the best freelance AI engineers and software developers?

There are plenty of general platforms available on the web, but all of them are usually oriented on a “race to the bottom” pricing and the level of service provided. Therefore, you will waste time reviewing thousands of developers who are not suitable for you at all.

To hire or not to hire freelancers for my application?

If you have an idea that you would like to implement and a project manager (yourself, perhaps) and wish to save money and communicate directly with the person developing your product, then you should go for the freelancer. If you have a huge amount of money and would like to have the whole process done without your participation, then agencies are a better choice.

Final Thoughts on Building Your Freelance Dream Team

Employing an independent software programmer may be among the most important choices that you’ll ever have to make for your company. The code that they develop will serve as the base for your digital product, and their dependability will define your time-to-market.

Through proper preparation, posing these 8 crucial questions, and leveraging test projects, you will be able to avoid the pitfalls of hiring programmers overseas and create a truly effective and scalable digital product. The gig economy is teeming with talented minds that can help you realize your idea, you just need to know how to tap into this talent pool.

Want to bypass all the lengthy hiring process and employ top-tier talent right away? Hire elite and pre-vetted software and AI developers from Gigmint.AI today.