Portfolios tell you what someone shipped when everything went well. You want to know what happens when it does not, because that is the part you will actually live through.

Nine questions. The answers matter less than whether they are specific.

1. Who will actually write the code?

You want names, and you want those people in the room now. A common pattern is that the person who sells is senior and the person who builds is not.

Good answer: the people you are talking to, or named individuals you can meet. Bad answer: “our team”, with no names.

2. What happens when the estimate turns out to be wrong?

It will. The question is who absorbs it and how you find out.

Good answer: a description of how they tell you early, and what the options are. Bad answer: “our estimates are accurate.”

3. What are you not good at?

The most useful question in the list.

Anyone who has been doing this a while has a list: mobile, design, a domain they avoid. A person who claims to be good at everything either has not been doing it long or is not being straight with you.

4. What would make you turn this job down?

Same instinct, sharper. A partner with standards has criteria. If any job is a yes, you are talking to someone who needs the revenue more than they need the fit to be right, and that shows up later as work done grudgingly.

5. How do I get my work out if I leave?

Ask it early and ask it plainly. Where does the code live, who has access, what does the handover involve, and does it cost anything.

Good answer: an immediate, unbothered, specific answer. Bad answer: anything that sounds like it has not come up before.

6. What do you need from me, and how often?

Every build needs decisions from the client. If nobody tells you that upfront, you will discover it as a stalled project blamed on your response times.

Good answer: a specific rhythm. Review this weekly, expect questions within a day.

7. What happens in month four?

Plenty of arrangements are built entirely around the initial build. Ask what the relationship looks like once the first version ships: who fixes the thing that breaks in November, and under what terms.

8. Can I talk to someone you have worked with for more than a year?

Not a testimonial: a conversation. Long relationships are harder to manufacture than glowing quotes, and a client of eighteen months will tell you about the rough patch.

If a company is new and has no long relationships, that is fine, but it should be said plainly rather than covered over.

9. What is the number, and what is it not?

Get the price and get the exclusions in the same breath. The exclusions are the part that surprises people.

What to listen for

Less the content than the shape. Specific beats confident. Someone who says “that part I would need to look at” is more trustworthy than someone who has an immediate answer for everything, because the immediate answer to a question they have not investigated is a guess wearing a suit.

And notice who asks you questions. A supplier takes a brief. A partner interrogates it, and occasionally tells you the thing you asked for is not the thing you need.

What to ask a development partner before you sign