15 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Software Development Company

Evaluating a software development company without a technical background is genuinely difficult. Most clients end up relying on impressions from sales conversations, website aesthetics, and testimonials — none of which reliably predict delivery quality. These 15 questions are designed to surface what you actually need to know.

About Their Process

1. Walk me through your development process from contract signing to delivery.

A competent firm has a clear, specific answer. It will include discovery/scoping, design or architecture, development phases, testing, and deployment. It will name who is responsible for what. It will describe what you as the client do at each stage.

Red flag: "We're flexible and adapt to what the client needs." This sounds collaborative. It means they have no defined process.

2. How do you handle requirements that are unclear or incomplete when the project starts?

Requirements are always incomplete. The question is what the vendor does about it. The right answer involves a structured discovery process, documented requirements before development begins, and a formal process for handling gaps discovered during development.

Red flag: "We'll figure it out as we go." This means your vague requirements become their judgment calls, which produce the wrong system.

3. What happens when something takes longer than you estimated?

The honest answer involves buffer built into estimates, proactive communication when estimates are at risk, and a formal change process if the cause is scope rather than estimation error.

Red flag: "It doesn't take longer — we have a strong team." Everything takes longer sometimes. A vendor who won't acknowledge this isn't being honest.

4. How do you handle scope changes after the project starts?

Look for a formal change order process: a written request, an impact estimate, your approval before work proceeds. This is for your protection.

Red flag: "We're flexible — we'll add things in." This sounds accommodating. It means no scope control, which means no timeline or budget control.

About Their Team

5. Who specifically will work on my project?

Get names, not just team size. Ask about their experience with projects similar to yours. A competent firm will name the project manager, the lead developer, and the QA person and can speak to their backgrounds.

Red flag: "We assign the best team for each project." Translation: you'll find out who's working on your project after you sign.

6. What is your current workload, and how will my project fit?

Agencies sometimes accept more work than their team can handle. Your project gets staffed by junior developers or gets deprioritized when a more demanding client needs attention.

Red flag: vague answers about capacity or enthusiasm that doesn't translate to specifics about allocation.

7. If the lead developer on my project leaves or is unavailable, what happens?

Staff turnover happens. A competent firm has documentation and redundancy that makes individual transitions manageable. Knowledge should live in documentation, not only in people.

About Their Past Work

8. Can you show me projects that are technically similar to mine?

Not just industry similarity — technical similarity. Real-time requirements, multi-user platforms, mobile apps, e-commerce with complex logic — these are different engineering challenges. Ask to see work that matches your type.

Red flag: portfolio of marketing websites when you're asking about a complex application. They may do excellent work in their domain and be mismatched to yours.

9. Can I speak with two or three past clients directly?

Don't just review testimonials — talk to actual people. Ask them: Did the project deliver on time and budget? How did the vendor handle problems when they arose? Is the system still running well? Would you hire them again?

Red flag: no references available, or references who are vague about specifics.

10. Has a project with you ever failed or gone significantly over budget? What happened?

Every experienced vendor has had a difficult project. How they describe it tells you whether they're honest and whether they learned from it. The right answer takes responsibility for what was theirs and explains what they do differently now.

Red flag: they've never had a project go wrong. This is not possible with any significant project history.

About the Engagement Structure

11. What is your proposal structure, and how is the price broken down?

Ask for a line-by-line breakdown of what's included. Not a total with a scope description — a detailed breakdown by phase or feature set. This lets you compare proposals meaningfully and identifies assumptions.

Red flag: a total price with minimal breakdown. There's nowhere to negotiate and no way to understand what you're buying.

12. Who owns the code and intellectual property after delivery?

You should own it. The contract should state this clearly. Some vendors retain license rights or ownership in default terms.

Red flag: any ambiguity about IP ownership, or language that gives the vendor license rights to your code.

13. What is your testing process?

Testing should be a defined phase with allocated time in the plan, not something that happens during development and ends when the developer thinks it works. Ask about unit testing, integration testing, and user acceptance testing.

Red flag: "Developers test their own code." That's not a testing process.

14. What does post-delivery support look like?

After the project is delivered, what happens when a bug is found? Is there a warranty period? What does ongoing support cost? What's the typical response time?

Red flag: no clear answer. Post-delivery support left to ad hoc conversations is how maintenance gaps develop.

15. What do you need from me to make this project successful?

This question reveals whether the vendor has thought about the client relationship, not just the development work. The right answer includes what information they need from you, what decisions you'll need to make, what response times they expect, and how much time you'll need to invest.

Red flag: "Not much, just final approval on deliverables." You're a participant, not just an approver. A vendor who doesn't acknowledge that is one who hasn't thought carefully about the client's role.

Using These Questions

The goal isn't to pass/fail vendors on every question — it's to gather information that lets you make a judgment. A vendor who gives strong answers to 13 of 15 and has a weak answer on one or two specific questions may still be the right partner if their strengths match your priorities.

What you're looking for overall: honesty, specificity, and evidence that the vendor has thought carefully about how projects succeed and fail.

If you're evaluating vendors for a project and want to compare notes on what you're hearing, we're happy to offer a second opinion. Reach out at routiine.io/contact.

Routiine LLC is a Dallas-based software and AI development company. We expect and welcome all of these questions — and have clear, specific answers to each one.