Hey guys,

This thread is for anyone that is familiar with hiring and/or being hired as a developer/programmer.

So I’ve put together specs for a location-based app and I’m planning to interview developers in the next week.

The specs are fairly simple - 3 screens with the main screen showing locations near the user, the distance from the user, and how many people are there.

I’ve received a range of offers from multiple freelancers, however I’m not technically inclined and so I don’t think I can make an informed decision as to who would be best for the job.

I plan to either hire another freelancer to help with selecting/interviewing potential candidates (catch 22) or get as informed as I can and use my best judgement.


Do you guys have any advice or suggestions on qualities (or red flags) to look for in a developer?

Also, what are some MUST ask questions I should keep in mind while interviewing?


As an example, one developer who I’m considering mentioned:

-this project would take an estimated 120-160 hours

-he would use Swift and Objective C for the front end (this sounds ok, but curious about back end and database technologies he would use)

-he’s willing to use any project tracking tool I’m comfortable with (any suggestions?)

-he would use Git or Bitbucket for management/delivery of the app


I welcome any and all advice

Honestly without a technical background it's going to be very hard for you to evaluate as you already intimated, so giving you certain questions might be foolhardy. Hiring another freelancer just gives you another selection problem, but if you have a trusted developer that can do a quick gut check that's probably best. If not (or ideally in addition to that), I'd lean heavily on references - if you're able to have brief chats with past clients, that's going to give you the most mileage.

I've seen nontechnical people try to stack rank freelancers and even with a good deal of data it's just a trainwreck - try to talk to real clients who they've built real projects for. At the end of the day you care about code quality, speed, their ability to communicate with you and project manage along with you, and cost. A lot depends on your expectations - is this something you want built quick/cheaply just to see if there's interest, or is this something that you expect to hold up with X00 users on it, etc. If you can talk to past clients, ask how their work has held up if you're expecting it to be anything more than an MVP. Ask how they were to work with, how they'd rank them on a scale of 1-10 of other developers they've worked with, and when they give a number less than 10, ask them what they'd have to change to be a 10 to get at the crux of what the person is maybe not so great at.

If you can't talk to past clients, at least ask them to see prior work. Given your constraints, you're probably looking to minimize risk more than anything, so if you can find someone who's built multiple apps with similar features to yours (location-based, etc.) that are still out in production working well for real users, that's a good sign. Do find out what language/framework they're writing the backend they're using along with what DB, and ask how many apps/how long they've used those tools for. Freelancers especially seem to love testing out the new framework du jour rather than sticking with the tried and true - which is great if they're using the best/latest tool for the job, but it's not so great when it's their very first time using it and they're learning on your dime.

For project tracking tools you're probably deciding between Jira (made by Atlassian), Pivotal Tracker, or Trello. Pivotal is definitely the most engineer neckbeardy - and even as an engineer I think it's clunky and I hate it. I think Jira's leaps and bounds better than the others, but you kind of have to do some up front configuration of it to roll it the way you want it, and that's probably better left to someone with stronger opinions on these things (generally a developer who's worked on multiple different agile teams). Trello is probably your best bet as something a nontechnical manager and a dev can work on together.

Github or Bitbucket are fine - I prefer Github but it's mostly a wash when you're talking about 1 developer, and it takes 5 minutes to port to the other down the road.

You can't hire competently. If you don't have someone who can do this for you, give up.

I'm going to be looking into past projects and references pretty hard, that seems to be the best route
I'm definitely trying to gauge if this project is feasible on a small budget. I don't know strong the correlation between cost and the number of users that are able to use the app is, but I'd like to at least be able to test it in one market (city or state) and see if there is interest.
I'm also not opposed to building out on a bigger budget, but the time frame to complete the project would likely get extended.

This is great advice, thanks. I've been told I should make sure they write the backend so it can be hosted on any server. Any guidelines on recommended databases? Also, would creating the app as a hybrid app instead of a native app reduce costs?

I think your being genuine, but trying and failing is more my style.

How much are you planning on paying per hour (or for the total project)?

My budget is about $5k, but I'd ideally like to pay ~$3k or less if possible. However, it does depend on what I can reasonably expect for that price. I understand waiting to increase my budget and getting it done at a higher price point may be necessary.

I am. Your chance of failure is guaranteed.

Mihkel is correct

Another voice saying your app project is a guaranteed failure.

If you can't code, you can't build an app that will make you money. The end.

You guys are being awfully harsh and elitist.

Based on what OP said he actually seems like he could have a decent developer interviewed already, and he is just asking for advice on how to expand his knowledge. Instead of telling OP he is an idiot and doomed to failure some advice should be in order here. Obviously he is not trying to create the next facebook here, just a simple app.

OP -- I would warn you that as simple as you think your specs might be they, they probably are not that simple. You should have very specific requirements of what you are looking for and have that agreed to ahead of time or the chance of failure increases significantly.

From the little info provided, the developer you have talked to seems knowledgeable so far. I'd need to to know more info about what you are actually trying to do to ask the right questions.

Also, considering you talk about front-end, back-end, and can relate some technical terms correctly means you are much further ahead than Mihkel/Thremp(a previously banned poster due to his negativity), Your Mom, or Toothsayer give you credit for.

You don't have to be that technical to hire a technical person, but you do have to learn some basics about how technology works and how to ask the right questions. Based on what you have written, you seem to be on the right track so far, and asking for advice here should get you better results than you have gotten so far.

The key is how detailed your specs are (that you say you provided to the developer in you OP) The specs should specifically lay out how you want each screen to look and how each interaction to take place. If you aren't sure and were just talking about a general idea of how your screens should work, then you should hire a Business Analyst that is good at requirements gathering to create a technical spec that you can provide to developers.

I'm sure you could use some training in some area but you obviously have a clue and are not doomed to 100% failure like others have written. Based on your OP, you are already ahead of the average person.

I ran out of time to edit my post, but just to make it clear: Do not agree to anything with a developer unless your specs are very clear for what you are looking for. Anything you leave vague will open yourself up to failure. Get everything you want specifically in writing and make sure they agree to that before hiring them.

I would never hire someone who wants to use Swift and Obj-C. That makes literally no sense. Maybe Obj-C++ with a Swift wrapper. Or an Obj-C wrapper. But using Obj-C and Swift just doesn't make any sense.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The idea that knowing "front end" and "back end" is some form of useful knowledge is akin to reading the back dust jacket of Programming for Dummies.

Furthermore, the specs for this app are (obviously) iOS only. Does he want this to be cross platform? Then it needs to be done with Phonegap or something of the sort.

Honestly you aren't even suited to give advice on the subject. OP is not on the right track, and he will never succeed until he either learns the technical details or hires someone who does (chicken/egg problem there as well).

Apps can be made for 3-5k? That's wild, I genuinely didn't know that. That's gotta be someone in India right?

An order of magnitude less. Maybe two. Seriously consider the functionality of a flashlight app (ignoring any malware).

C'mon guys it can't be all doom and gloom.

The app essentially shows users the nearest basketball courts and how many people are currently playing there.

I think the 'specific requirements' aspect is really where I need advice. For instance:

- Native development vs browser-based? Functionality matters most to me, so I think this comes down to which would end up costing the least (which I believe browser based would, but I'm not exactly sure why)

-What are my options for the backend and pros/cons for each (I've been recommended BaaS)

- Server options? (From what I understand, the more hands on I can be, the cheaper I can go and vice versa)

- Preferable databases?

- How do I check/ensure the app is being built to be scaled for more users? This doesn't seem like concern right now, but I am curious.


I originally planned to develop the app myself, so I've done a fair bit of dev research and have dabbled a bit in Python. However my schedule won't allow me the time I need to learn how to code, at least not in a reasonable time frame, so I think this is my best route. To their point, I do feel somewhat incapable of assessing a developer's skills. I disagree, however, that I should give up because of this.

Thanks for being optimistic to help balance things out.

Is this because Swift can't be ported easily to Android? If it's iOS only I don't think it would be a problem but I would like it to easily port if the cost to develop is similar.

Cross platform would be nice, but it really comes down to functionality. Given my budget, I'm really looking for the most cost effective way to include most of the functionality and (if possible) make it cross platform.

Keep in mind this is coming from a web developer (not a native app developer). The $ is way too low in my opinion.

$5000/160hrs is ~$30/hr. To put that in perspective, a competent web developer (who could put together a well built app in a month, i.e. an app that won't self destruct in production) would be charging $100+.

Some questions:

Where are you planning on getting the information from (i.e. where the basketball courts are geographically and how many people are at each one at a given time)?

Do you want real time updates or will you be satisfied by the user refreshing the screen manually (or the screen refreshing itself at some interval)?

Edit: By the way, I am not pretending that your specific app could be put together in a month. It all depends on the requirements. I mean for an app consisting of 2-3 simple screens, a stateless server (that could scale under load), and a simple but well crafted data model, a month to have it running in production is not unreasonable, I think, given a competent developer.

I disagree with the whole previous post.

I would pay literally no attention to scale at this time. I think the idea of even discussing it is ridiculous.

That is almost as ridiculous as the idea a competent web dev charges $100+.

Couldn't agree more with Mikhel. Scale is completely irrelevant.

This app is 99.9% likely to never get any meaningful number of users. Planning and paying for a 1 in 1000 event (at least) is silly at this stage.

Lots of very competent web devs charge way less than $100/hr (or even $50/hr). That figure is just absurd.

Anyway, to answer the OP, picking a developer is pretty simple:

1. Is there hard evidence that he knows his stuff relative to what you want done? Since you don't know technical details, it's worthless to look at them. Besides, evidence like similar jobs done in the past (with actual portfolio screenshots, live apps to look at), previous projects on the freelance site, will answer this question better than any amount of interviewing.

2. Can they complete the job? The best way to know that is if they have a history of successfully completing jobs they've bid for. Comments tell you a lot. You're basically making a bet on a) the developer's competence in picking jobs he can handle and b) the developer's desire to please and get/keep a perfect reputation. Repeat hires also show good long term coding practices.

All of the stuff about technologies, etc, is all useless. Has he succeeded in jobs in the past is the only qualification. You're betting on someone's ability to pick jobs they can succeed at and do it in a timely manner. Everything else is just noise since you don't know technical details.

Someone want to message me with a competent web dev charging under $50/h? I could always use one!

I suppose you could get someone competent for $50/hr but it's going to be a rare event. I've seen a lot of what comes out of India or wherever and for the most part, it isn't good at all. Hell, I've seen what comes out of well regarded US dev shops for $100+/hour, and a lot of it is **** as well.

A lot of this depends on what people mean by "web developer".

A wordpress developer is different from a full stack javascript developer in terms of cost.

Regardless, even a good wordpress dev at $50/hr (as a consultant) has got to be a very rare event (and a case of him/her not planning on reporting that money to to IRS). I mean, there are plenty of companies that would pay that kind of money for a full time developer (assuming he/she is experienced enough to be leading projects on his/her own) with benefits and without business taxes or the downtime between jobs that come with consulting. Obviously, this depends on where the developer lives but I think it is generally applicable.

However, if you want a competent full stack javascript/.NET dev or whatever (again, competent is someone who can lead a project on their own and execute it in a scalable way), I don't think you will be paying less than $100/hr (assuming the developer is acting as a consultant). If you are paying less than that, you will probably be getting somewhat defective code (unless you found a really good deal).

I mean, an experienced competent full stack web developer can get $150k+/yr which is the equivelent of $75/hr full time (with benefits etc.) Why would they go and consult for less than 33% more than that (given the extra costs that come with consulting)? Maybe there are people doing it for a little less than $100/hr but not much.

Edit: Unless people are talking about getting scalable code from India or wherever. The likelyhood of anybody, even techincal people, doing that is quite small. You can definitely build a prototype that way but you should expect to rebuild from scratch to scale.

This isn't true.

But I agree this is destined for failure.

fair and spot-on points you bring up, but def disagree on this specific item: I've operated my team out of India and Eastern Europe for the past 10 year (over 150 folks now); yes there are poor quality non-scalable solutions coming from those parts of the world sometimes, but the same is true with US developers. regardless of what you pay IME it is process driven first, then skill. both important, but process can make up for other issues and minimize downside/maximize benefits. FWIW we've built systems for companies that have transacted their first sale all the way to 8 and 9 figures; we have built apps that went from one tester download to viral growth of over 500k users in 3 months, all with a team that is entirely globally distrivuted. Our clients we support have gone on to be acquired (including their tech IP) and have been able to deliver scalable and usable products far beyond MVP or prototype (and even acquisition) stage.

Again, I recognize there are several (maybe a majority) of global options that cant deliver that, but saying none can is lacking accuracy. If you build the right team, create the right plan and manage the right process effectively you can go far. The best scenario I've seen is a hybrid scenario (aspirationally that is what I advise companies to go towards over time) where you have senior leadership and talent within proximity and then keep your bench filled with a global mixture of talented (and affordable) resources for everything from development to dev ops. that's where I see the trend continuing to go anyway.

just my two cents anyway

This is a clear sign that you are technicality ******ed.