Guide · Updated October 2026
These are the questions we would ask if we were on your side of the table. None of them are trick questions. A good team will answer each one plainly, and how they answer tells you as much as what they say.
The team
1. Who will work on my project, and how senior are they?
A good answer names people or roles and their experience, and offers to introduce them. A weak one talks about the size of the company.
2. What is your engineer retention?
A good answer is a number, measured over a year. High turnover means repeated handovers on your project, and you pay for each one.
3. Will the people who scope the project be the people who build it?
Continuity between scoping and delivery is where estimates stay honest. If scoping is done by a separate pre-sales team, ask how the estimate gets handed over.
How the work runs
4. How do you scope and estimate?
Look for written assumptions, open questions, and risks alongside the number. An estimate with no assumptions is a guess.
5. What does a normal week of communication look like?
You want specifics: what is written down, what is demonstrated, and how often. Ask to see an example of a real update sent to a client.
6. How many working hours overlap with mine?
A good answer gives the hours and explains what happens outside them. A few shared hours with disciplined written updates work better than a full day of overlap with nothing recorded.
7. How do you handle changes in scope?
Change is normal. A good answer describes a process: how the change is written up, how its cost is agreed, and who decides. A weak one says it will not be a problem.
Proof
8. Which live products can I look at?
Working software you can open is the best evidence. Ask what the team built and what they still run today.
9. Can I speak to a client you have worked with for more than two years?
Long relationships are hard to fake. If every reference is recent, ask why earlier clients did not stay.
The contract
10. Who owns the code, and from when?
The best answer is that you own it by default from the start, in the contract, with repository access throughout.
11. What happens if we stop?
Ask about notice periods, handover, and what you receive on exit. A confident partner makes leaving straightforward.
12. How do you price, and what is not included?
You want to know the model (fixed scope, time and materials, or milestones) and what sits outside it, such as hosting, third-party licences, or support after launch.
Ask us these questions
We would rather be asked all twelve. Our short answers: around 50 senior-led engineers with 98 percent annual engineer retention; the team that scopes is the team that ships; written replies from engineering leadership within one business day; code and IP owned by the client by default; and most partnerships start with a four-to-eight-week paid pilot. The longer answers are a conversation.
For the reasoning behind the checklist, read how to choose a software outsourcing partner. For the trade-off on price, see senior-only teams versus budget outsourcing.