Walk into the call ready.

Q1.Can you show me 3+ live URLs for production sites you shipped in the last 18 months?

WhyFilters out portfolio-only devs who can't point to recent production work.

Q2.Who specifically writes the code for my project? Same person end-to-end, or a chain?

WhyContractor chains are the #1 quality-dilution path. You need names.

Q3.What's your fixed price for this scope, or your hours cap with written change-order process?

WhyUncapped hourly is a blank check. You need the number before signing.

Q4.When does code ownership transfer, per milestone paid, or on final payment?

WhyFinal-payment IP is a hostage clause. Milestone transfer protects you if the engagement breaks.

Q5.Will I get admin access to hosting, domain, analytics, and email from day one?

WhyAny dev who 'holds' your infra accounts holds your business hostage. Non-negotiable.

Q6.What's your bug-fix warranty after launch? How long and what's covered?

WhyNo warranty = ship-fast-bill-later. You want 30-90 days minimum.

Q7.Walk me through your testing + QA process. What percent of post-launch bugs were preventable?

WhyA dev who can answer this concretely has a real process. Manual-click-only is a red flag.

Q8.Can you put me in touch with a past client for a 15-minute reference call?

WhyWritten testimonials are selective. Phone references catch patterns writing won't.

Q9.What will the monthly infrastructure bill look like after launch? Itemize if possible.

WhyAgencies hide this to avoid spooking the sale. Transparent devs will itemize.

Q10.If I hire a different dev in 12 months, what in the stack would they NOT be able to take over?

WhySurfaces proprietary frameworks, closed CMSes, and lock-in traps before the contract.

Q1.Show me how you handle multi-tenancy. Row-level security, separate schemas, or separate databases?

WhyTenancy model affects cost, security, and scale forever. A dev without a strong opinion here hasn't built real SaaS.

Q2.What's your Stripe billing implementation? How do you handle proration, seat-based upgrades, and failed payments?

WhyBilling edge cases are where most SaaS bugs live. Good devs know the Stripe primitives. Bad devs say 'we'll use Stripe Checkout' and stop there.

Q3.How are feature flags handled? Are they runtime or build-time?

WhyRuntime flags are table stakes for shipping without full redeploys. A dev without this is going to block your product velocity.

Q4.What's the auth stack and how are orgs, roles, and permissions modeled?

WhyRBAC decisions made wrong in week 1 bite at every scale milestone. You want Clerk, Better Auth, or Auth0 with a clear role model.

Q5.How do you handle webhooks + background jobs? What happens if a job fails?

WhyFailed payment webhook = unpaid invoice nobody notices. Good devs design for at-least-once delivery and retry.

Q6.What's your strategy for email deliverability as we scale past 10k users?

WhyAmateur setups bounce at scale. Good devs know about dedicated IPs, SPF/DKIM/DMARC, and transactional-vs-marketing separation.

Q7.How is the admin / internal-ops dashboard built? Do you reuse the main app framework or spin up a separate tool?

WhyRetool/Refine vs. custom internal tools is a real decision. Devs who don't consider this ship awkward admin UX.