Questions to Ask a Web Developer Before You Hire Them
The best interview questions reveal how a developer makes decisions and manages risk. Ask for examples, boundaries, and ownership—not yes-or-no promises that every candidate can give.
Written by Anthony Barbaro, independent designer and developer in San Diego.
Direct answer
Start here.
Ask the developer to connect your requirements to relevant shipped work, explain what they would simplify, identify major risks, define scope and approvals, describe testing and launch, and clarify who owns every account and deliverable afterward.
Working document
Developer interview questions
Copy this list into your project notes and verify each item before committing money, access, or a launch date.
- Which shipped project is most relevant to this one, and what was your role?
- What information would change your recommended approach?
- What is explicitly excluded from the proposed scope?
- Who performs design, development, copy, QA, and project communication?
- How are feedback, revisions, delays, and scope changes handled?
- How do you test mobile behavior, accessibility, forms, performance, and analytics?
- Who owns the domain, code, content, hosting, and platform accounts?
- What support is available after launch, and what does it cost?
Decision detail
Ask questions that produce evidence
Instead of asking whether someone can build a fast or search-friendly site, ask them to show a relevant implementation and explain the decisions. Their answer should distinguish what they personally did from work delivered by a larger team.
Ask what did not go as planned on a past project and how they handled it. Specific constraints and corrections usually reveal more experience than a perfect success story.
Related service: Freelance Web Developer
Decision detail
Expose the real delivery process
Find out what happens between signing and launch: discovery, content, design approval, development, quality checks, revisions, and deployment. Each phase should have an owner and a visible output.
Ask how decisions are documented and what happens when feedback is late or contradictory. This matters whether you hire one freelancer or a multi-person agency.
Decision detail
Do not stop the interview at launch
A website remains connected to domains, hosting, analytics, forms, plugins, APIs, and business accounts. Ask who monitors and updates those systems and what you can do if the relationship ends.
Confirm the support channel, expected response, included maintenance, billable requests, backups, and emergency boundaries. “Support included” needs the same precision as the build scope.
FAQ
Related questions
Short answers to the follow-up questions that often appear during this decision.
Should I ask a developer which technology they use?
Yes, but ask why it fits your requirements, who can maintain it, and what costs or constraints it creates. A framework name alone does not establish project quality.
What is a warning sign during a developer interview?
Unsupported guarantees, vague ownership, reluctance to define exclusions, pressure to sign, or an inability to explain relevant work are reasons to slow down and ask for written clarification.
Apply this to your project