Many of you are planning to create mobile apps, and you'll need a good mobile app developer to help you achieve your goal. Finding a good mobile app developer can be a daunting task. This is a very special skill and you may have to do some homework before finding the right developer for your project. There are many companies and independent developers with this skill set, but not everyone is right for you. If you have not had an app developer in the past, this can be a very difficult process to find the right developer. To make it easy for you, we have to come up with a checklist that you can follow to hire the best app developer for you:

1. Choose them who understands your needs

You want to make sure that developer who you want to hire understands your needs and business objectives. They should be able to listen to your thoughts, needs, your business objectives, your audience and future plans. A good mobile app developer will be able to provide you with feedback, technical inputs, and suggestions on your needs. If they have prior experience in the same industry, then they should be able to provide you suggestions on the characteristics. By doing so, you will learn the developer's communication skills, technical knowledge, and more important tilt for your project.

2. Ask them to brief your project

A good developer should be able to understand your project scope, needs and explain it to you completely. You want to know if they have properly analyzed the requirements and there are valuable suggestions and questions for your project. You should provide your wish list, any design sketches/layout, or extended RFP of those features so that they give the maximum response. You should ask them if they see any challenge in your project and how they plan to overcome those challenges.

3. Look at their technical capabilities

You should fully understand their app development capabilities. You should find out whether they are equally capable of creating apps for iOS and Android? Create an app using the native app development approach or cross-platform app development approach? Do they know how to design the UI / UX of the app? Can they create a backend for mobile apps? Will they upload the app to the app store, how is their post-production support? You want to make sure that they can develop a full lifecycle for you so that you can do everything for the same time to reduce your time and cost.

4. Look at their past work

You can request a previous work history they have done on mobile apps. You can ask them to provide previous' portfolio and CV. You can download and test your apps. You want to know whether or not they have created apps with the same functionality. If you are looking for Google Maps and push notifications in your app, then you want to make sure that they have developed these features in the previous app. Developer experience with similar features will reduce the amount of time spent in building your app.

5. Look at their reputation

You want to see reviews, rewards and online reputation for developers. Do they have customer testimonials on their website? Do they have reviews on third-party sites such as Clutch.co, UpWork, AppFutura or Google Review? Do they have negative reviews? Before you decide to hire them, take some precautions.

6. Ask for references

When you are ready to hire them, you should ask for 2-3 references that you can call to listen to your previous customers. Whenever you want to hire a developer or seller for your IT projects, this is a very common practice, but many times people leave it.

7. Check out what their pricing model is

You want to know the pricing model that the developer will follow you to charge. Would they charge you based on hourly basis or fixed cost? You want to know how they will invoice you and if they engage in hourly engagement they will send a time-sheet. If this is a fixed cost, then you want to know the milestone and cost associated with each milestone. You need to draft an agreement that clearly mentions the fees and payment terms between you and the developers. Also, if you are really impressed then you should be aware of the developer's strategy and policy for post-production support.

8. Time availability for starting and completing the project

It is very important for you to know whether the developer has enough bandwidth to start your project and complete it on time with complete dedication. You do not want to hire a developer who will wait 3-4 weeks to start a project or developer who will work only a few hours per week on the project. You want a person who can jump on your project quickly and devote the required time per week to keep pace and interest in the project.

We firmly believe that if you follow our checklist, you will make a good selection. Sometimes you can leave the checklist and try to make the selection process faster, but if you end up making a wrong selection it can cut you later. To make the right product for you, we strongly recommend following the appropriate process in the selection.