Insights · Hiring

2 min read ·

Hiring someone from outside to work on a system your business depends on is a real risk. These questions separate the people who will protect it from the ones who will leave you with a bigger problem.

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01

  • Will you give me a fixed price for a written scope before you start?
  • What exactly will I receive at the end, and in what form?
  • What happens if the work takes longer than you estimated?
02

  • What access do you need, and can it be read-only at first?
  • Will you sign an NDA, and a data processing agreement if we handle personal data?
  • Will any of our data leave our systems, including into AI tools?
03

  • Who owns the code and documents you produce?
  • How will my team understand and maintain what you changed?
  • Are you a registered business that can invoice and sign a contract?
  • Can I speak to someone you have worked for, or see a sample of your written work?
04

Good engineers welcome these questions and answer them in writing. If someone avoids them, that is your answer.

05

For small fixed-scope work, paying upfront or in two parts is normal. For larger work, tie payments to written milestones.

Start with a small paid piece of work with a written deliverable, such as a diagnosis or audit, and judge the quality of what you receive.

Refusing to sign an NDA, no written scope or price, no references or shipped work you can check, and asking for full admin access to everything on day one. A good engineer asks for the minimum access needed and puts the scope in writing.

You should. The contract should say that the code and documents written for you belong to you, and the work should live in your own repository, under your own accounts, from day one.

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