Mariel Desailly

Begin with proven experience, not the number of logos on the website. Ask to see a couple of engagements that resemble your stack, and then ask who actually wrote that code. An honest provider will put you on a call with the engineers. Answers that name nobody at this stage usually mean the delivery team is not the team you were shown.

The agreement needs a slower read than the pitch. Three sections matter more than the rest: intellectual property assignment, non-disclosure, and notice periods and handover. All the work product has to transfer to you as it is paid for, along with designs, typescript backend frameworks scripts and infrastructure configuration. Be careful with any clause that keeps reusable components in the vendor's hands, as it is usually exactly the piece that locks you in.

Find out how the estimate was built. A serious estimate arrives with the assumptions behind it, a breakdown per feature and a best case and a worst case. A fixed-bid deal only makes sense when the specification is complete; in any other case the provider prices the risk in and you pay for it anyway. A time-and-materials model puts the risk on your side, so it needs a sprint cadence, demos and a budget cap.

How the work is run beats the number of developers. Establish what is livewire happens when the scope changes, who signs off on a feature and how quality assurance works. A team can walk you through running software rather than status reports. Written acceptance criteria remain your only real protection against an argument at delivery time.

Finally, plan for the handover before it becomes urgent. Ask that the repository sits on infrastructure you own from the first commit, and that documentation is updated as part of the work. A partner who is comfortable with this says yes immediately; resistance at this point reveals a great deal.