They sent a Google Doc. Forty questions. Stack, sprints, timezone. What should you ask a freelance developer before hiring? None of those asked who would be in the inbox in October.
I write a brief before I quote. That is my list. Yours is shorter. Freelance or an agency and what one person owns sit next to this. I take website work and product work. Still ask who types.
What interview lists miss about a freelance developer
The Doc wanted React versus Vue. A standup cadence. Hours that overlap London. I have answered all of that on calls. Then the work went to someone I never emailed, and the repo sat in an account I could not open.
Ask the thing that changes the deposit. A favourite framework does not. Who holds the keys does.
What to ask a freelance developer before you hire
I will answer these on the first call. If someone will not, that is the answer. Delete the rest of the Doc.
Who types?
The person on the proposal, or someone they forward Slack to. If finding that out takes a meeting, you did not hire a freelancer. You hired a chain. Read a freelance developer or an agency before you send money into that chain.
Who holds the repo, the hosting, the domain?
Those go in an account you control. If they sit in someone else's Gmail, you cannot leave. Who owns the product after launch is the same fact with a date on it. Ask it before the first invoice.
Which live URL did you ship?
A URL a stranger can open. Dribbble is a mood board. I put mine in selected work. If they cannot show one, you are buying a talk. A private repo with a story attached is still a talk.
What is not in this number?
Copy. Brand. The CMS. The second audience. If the quote is silent, those arrive later as extra invoices. The brief I write before I quote is where that list has to live. A number with no leftovers is a number that will grow.
Freelance developer answers that should stop the hire
A number in the first email, no job written down. That is a guess. Mine would be too. I do not send it.
They will not show a live URL
Under NDA, on a call, for a product that cannot be public, maybe. For a brochure and a form, no. If the work is a site a stranger has to use, they have shipped one, or they have not.
The handoff is a zip in Slack
Launch as a folder. Passwords in a thread. Ask where the repo lives now, on a job they already finished. If they cannot say, assume you will not get one either. You will pay again to take it over.
"We will figure out the CMS later" is the same hole. So is a quote that cannot say whether this is a website or a web product. If they will not name the job, you cannot compare two numbers.
When you should not be hiring a freelance developer yet
The Doc is sometimes how you delay writing the job down. You collect quotes on a thing that does not exist. That is expensive theatre.
You have not named the job
A stranger sends a form, or someone logs in tomorrow. Those are different hires. Asking who types does not fix a missing noun. Write the job. Then the four questions mean something.
You want a studio in one inbox
A new brand and a product in the same weeks. That is not a freelance interview. Cut until it is one job, or hire people who actually work in parallel. The four questions will not invent a second person.
I have watched a hire go through twenty questions and still get a zip in Slack.
Send the Google Doc. Tell me what you're hiring for. I'll cross out the ones that do not change the deposit.
