The Best Questions to Ask Software Development Companies

Whether you’ve hired a software development company before, or if it’s your first time, it can be difficult to sort through the large array of choices. As you start to reach out to different companies, there are often unknowns and uncertainties that are not apparent at first glance (similar to the act of developing software). So how do you find the best company for your needs and eliminate uncertainty?

This, of course, depends on what you are building, the stage of the product, your current team, your preferred software process, your timeline, your access to capital, and a variety of other factors. But even if you have a clear understanding of your needs, I’ve seen many people struggle with the process during my time at Intrepid.

So, to help find the right partner for your company, I’ve compiled a list of comprehensive questions that will help parse out the difference between companies and ultimately help lead to a better engagement.

Ask these questions to a few different companies, and I guarantee that you will start to better understand the landscape and the unique capabilities of each company.

Development Capabilities:

• Describe your development capabilities (ex. iOS/Android/Ruby). How big is each team?
• Where are your teams located?
• Do you work with contractors and partners?
• How do you evaluate a client’s technology landscape? If we have existing frameworks and APIs how do you evaluate and integrate with these?
• Can you send a code sample?

Strategy & Design Capabilities:

• Describe your strategy and design capabilities.
• How big is each team?
• How is the design team structured?
• Where are your teams located?
• How do you evaluate a client’s current strategy, identify key business goals, and create consensus?
• If we have existing brand guidelines how do you integrate with these?
• Explain your design methodology. Explain how you engage with clients throughout the process to ensure a successful engagement.
• What processes do you employ?
• What design tools and software do your designers use?
• What inspires your UX/UI decisions during the engagement?

Development Engagement Model:

• Explain how you typically engage with clients. What is your preferred method of engagement?
• What is the cadence of communication and what tools will you use? Can we be integrated into these systems?
• What is the mix of personnel that would work on the project? E.g. development, design, project management, QA.
• Explain your development methodology. Explain how you engage with clients throughout the process to ensure a successful engagement.
• Explain your QA process
• Explain your methodology for on-going maintenance of deployed software.
• How would you keep us aware of your progress? On both a technical and design side.
• What is the average team size?
• How quickly can you ramp up additional resources?
• How will the code be delivered at the conclusion of the project?

Software Estimation:

• How does your team typically estimate the cost and time to build software?
• In general, how accurate are your estimates?

Portfolio and Past Work:

• Give relevant examples from your portfolio, and include an explanation of the initiative and details of your involvement (design, strategy, development, team size, technology leveraged, length of project).
• How did your past client’s measure success?

Rates:

• What are your rates?
• What is your billing structure? E.g. weekly, hourly, fixed?
• Will there be any additional costs?

Company Info:

• Give us a description of your company and business model
• What is the history of the company?
• What is your mission statement?
• What sort of customers do you normally work with?
• How big is the company?
• Where are your headquarters and other offices located? How big is each office and what are the specific competencies?

If you have any other great questions that you think should be added to the list, please send them my way! Feel free to email me: [email protected]