What to Look for When Hiring a Web Developer

Hiring a web developer feels like a minefield if you're not technical. Everyone's portfolio looks impressive, everyone promises the world, and the price range is so wide it tells you nothing. A five-page website could cost you £800 or £18,000 depending on who you ask, and from the outside, it's genuinely hard to tell whether the expensive option is ten times better or just ten times more confident at sales.

I've been on both sides of this — building websites and hiring people to build them. Here's what I've learned about separating the good from the average and the average from the outright risky.

Green Flags: Signs You're Talking to the Right Person

• •They show live work, not just screenshots. Anyone can make a Figma mockup or a Dribbble shot look stunning. What matters is whether their sites actually work in the real world.
• •They ask questions before they talk about technology. A good developer wants to understand your business, your customers, and your goals before they mention a single framework.
• •They offer fixed pricing with a clear scope. Hourly billing creates a misaligned incentive. Fixed pricing means they've thought through the scope and they're confident they can deliver.
• •They talk about what happens after launch. A website isn't a one-off project. If the proposal doesn't mention post-launch support, maintenance, or handover, that's a gap.

They show live work, not just screenshots. Anyone can make a Figma mockup or a Dribbble shot look stunning. What matters is whether their sites actually work in the real world. Ask for URLs you can visit, click around, and test on your phone. Check the page speed. Try the forms. Screenshots can hide a multitude of sins — janky mobile layouts, three-second load times, broken navigation. Live work can't.

They ask questions before they talk about technology. A good developer wants to understand your business, your customers, your goals, and what success looks like before they mention a single framework or platform. If the first thing they tell you is "we'll build it in React" or "WordPress is perfect for this" without understanding the problem, they're fitting your business to their hammer. The best developers are annoyingly curious. They'll ask who your customers are, how they currently find you, what your sales process looks like, and what you want the website to actually achieve. That's not them wasting your time — it's them doing the job properly.

They offer fixed pricing with a clear scope. Hourly billing creates a fundamentally misaligned incentive: the developer earns more when things take longer. Fixed pricing means they've thought through the scope, they're confident they can deliver, and if they underestimate, that's their problem — not yours. A fixed price also forces the scope conversation upfront, which prevents the most common source of web project disasters: both sides having a different idea of what "done" looks like.

They talk about what happens after launch. A website isn't a one-off project. It needs security updates, performance monitoring, content changes, and someone to call when something breaks. If the proposal doesn't mention post-launch support, maintenance, or handover, that's a gap. Ask directly: what happens when something goes wrong at 9pm on a Friday? The answer tells you a lot.

Red Flags: Walk Away From These

• •No contract or vague scope. The single biggest predictor of a project going sideways.
• •They outsource everything without telling you. If the person you're talking to isn't building your site and you don't know that, communication will suffer.
• •They can't explain their process. Vague answers like "we'll figure it out as we go" mean the project will be chaotic.
• •They push one platform regardless of your needs. The technology should fit the problem, not the developer's comfort zone.
• •They give you an exact price within five minutes. A proper quote takes research, questions, and thought.
• •They skip user research entirely. Design without research is decoration.
• •Unrealistic timelines. A bespoke site in two weeks means corners are being cut.

No contract or vague scope. This is the single biggest predictor of a project going sideways. If they can't tell you exactly what you're getting — how many pages, what functionality, how many revision rounds, what the timeline is — you'll end up in an argument about what was "included" three months from now. A professional developer should be able to hand you a document that clearly defines what's in scope and what isn't.

They outsource everything without telling you. There's nothing inherently wrong with subcontracting specialists — a freelancer might bring in a copywriter or a designer. But if the person you're talking to isn't the person building your site, and you don't know that, communication will suffer. You'll play telephone through a middleman, feedback will get lost in translation, and timelines will slip. Always ask: who is actually doing the work?

They can't explain their process. How do they handle feedback? When will you see progress? What does the timeline look like week by week? How many revisions are included? If these answers are vague — "we'll figure it out as we go" — the project will be chaotic. Process isn't bureaucracy; it's how professionals manage complexity.

They push one platform regardless of your needs. WordPress isn't always the answer. Neither is Shopify, Webflow, Next.js, or whatever they specialise in. The technology should fit the problem. If someone recommends the same stack for every project, they're not choosing what's right for you — they're choosing what's easy for them.

They give you an exact price within five minutes of hearing your idea. This one seems counterintuitive given what I said about fixed pricing, but there's a difference between a considered fixed quote and a number pulled from thin air. A proper quote takes research, questions, and thought. Someone who says "yeah, that'll be £4,000" before they've understood the brief is either wildly underestimating or padding the number to cover unknowns. Either way, you lose.

They skip user research entirely. If nobody's asking who your customers are and what they need from your website, the end result will be a site that looks nice but doesn't perform. Design without research is decoration. It might win compliments, but it won't win customers.

Unrealistic timelines. A custom website takes time. If someone promises a bespoke, fully functional site in two weeks, they're either reusing a template and calling it custom, or they're going to cut corners you won't notice until six months later. A realistic timeline for a small custom site is 6–10 weeks. Anything significantly shorter deserves scrutiny.

Five Questions to Ask Before You Sign Anything

These aren't trick questions — they're designed to quickly reveal whether someone is the real deal or winging it.

1. Can I see three live sites you've built in the last year? Not screenshots, not case studies — live URLs. If they can't provide these, or the sites they show are slow, broken on mobile, or clearly template-based, recalibrate your expectations.

2. What's included in the price, and what isn't? This should be answerable in detail. Hosting, domain, content creation, SEO setup, post-launch changes — which of these are included and which are extra? The things that aren't included are where surprise costs hide.

3. Who will I be communicating with during the project? You want to talk to the person doing the work, or at least someone with enough technical understanding to give you real answers. If the answer is "your account manager," ask what happens when you have a technical question.

4. What happens if I'm not happy with the result? This question makes people uncomfortable, which is exactly why you should ask it. A confident developer will have a clear answer — revision rounds, milestone sign-offs, or a refund policy. A vague answer here is a red flag.

5. What does post-launch support look like? How long is it included? What does it cover? What's the response time? What happens after the included period ends? A website without ongoing support is a car without a mechanic — it'll work until it doesn't, and then you're stuck.

How We Work at McInery

I'll be honest — everything in this article is shaped by how we think web development should work, so it's only fair to explain our approach. At McInery, you communicate directly with the person building your site. No account managers, no telephone game. Weekly demos mean you see real, working progress — not status update emails or static mockups. Pricing is fixed before we start, with a clear scope document, so there are no surprises. And if you're not happy after the first milestone, you get a full refund. We think that should be standard. It isn't, which is why we mention it.