Hiring an offshore developer: the questions that protect you

A note on where this is written from

I am the offshore developer in this scenario — based in Islamabad, working mostly for UK and Canadian clients. Writing this guide is not disinterested, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.

It is also the reason it is specific. I have been on the receiving end of every one of these questions, and I know which ones separate a supplier who has thought about the arrangement from one who has not. If a supplier cannot answer them, that is information regardless of where they are based.

Question 1 — is the data transfer lawful?

If your customers are in the UK or EU and the developer will touch personal data — a contact form, an order database, a CRM export — you are making a restricted international transfer, and you need a lawful mechanism for it.

Countries with an adequacy decision need nothing extra. Countries without one need Standard Contractual Clauses (EU) or the International Data Transfer Addendum (UK), plus a transfer risk assessment. Pakistan, India, the Philippines and many other common outsourcing destinations have no adequacy decision, so this applies to a large share of offshore hires.

• Ask for a Data Processing Agreement before scope, not at contract signing
• Check it names sub-processors — the hosting, email and error-tracking services that will also see the data
• Confirm the correct instrument: SCCs for EU data, IDTA for UK data. A supplier who does not know the difference has not done this before
• If no personal data will be touched at all, say so in writing and the requirement falls away

Question 2 — whose name is on the accounts?

This is the one that causes the most damage, and it is invisible until the relationship ends. If the hosting, domain and payment provider accounts are in the developer’s name, you do not own your website — you rent it from someone whose incentives may change.

1. The domain is registered to you, with you as registrant contact. Always. No exceptions.
2. Hosting is your account, with the developer added as a user
3. The payment provider account is yours, in your business name, with your bank details
4. Source code is in a repository you own, not on a laptop in another country
5. Every credential is handed over in writing at launch, not "whenever you need it"

A supplier who resists is protecting recurring revenue, not your interests. The professional version of that argument is "I will host it for you as a service" — which is fine, in your account, cancellable by you.

Question 3 — how is payment staged?

Neither extreme is reasonable. Paying everything upfront gives you no leverage; paying nothing upfront asks a stranger to fund your project on trust. The workable pattern is a deposit plus milestones, each tied to something you can open in a browser.

For a small build, 40% deposit and 60% on completion is standard. For anything longer, three or four milestones. If the developer is on a marketplace with escrow, use it — the fee buys a dispute process that does not otherwise exist across borders.

Question 4 — what happens when they disappear?

Suppliers go quiet. Sometimes for good reasons. The question is what you are left holding when it happens, and the answer is decided at the start, not at the point of failure.

• Code in your repository, committed regularly — not delivered as a zip at the end
• Written handover documentation, in the quote as a deliverable
• A stack another developer can pick up: boring, documented, widely used
• A staging URL you can see throughout, so "nearly done" is a claim you can check
• No single credential only they hold

What does not predict quality

Location, hourly rate and profile-photo professionalism predict very little. What does predict quality is whether they can show you live sites you can open, explain a decision they made and why, and give straight answers to the four questions above.

One test I would use if I were buying: ask what happens when a customer closes the browser tab immediately after paying. A developer who has shipped real checkouts answers instantly and specifically. One who has not says something reassuring and vague.

Questions people ask about this

Is it legal to hire a developer outside the UK or EU?

Yes. It requires a lawful transfer mechanism where personal data is involved — SCCs for EU data, the IDTA for UK data — plus a documented risk assessment. It is paperwork, not a prohibition.

Should I use a marketplace or hire directly?

Marketplaces give you escrow and a dispute process, at a fee, with weaker communication. Direct hiring is cheaper and better for long relationships, and puts the contracting burden entirely on you. For a first engagement with an unknown supplier, escrow is worth the fee.

How do I check the portfolio is real?

Open every link. Two of the fifteen sites on my own portfolio went offline because clients let hosting lapse, and I mark them archived rather than leaving a dead "live" badge — the build now fails if a site marked live stops responding. Anyone can screenshot a template; a working URL is harder to fake.

What about time zones?

A large gap is fine if it is used deliberately: brief at the end of your day, review in the morning. It becomes expensive when every clarification costs a full day. Ask for their working hours in your time zone, and how quickly they answer.

Who wrote this

Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan — fifteen live client sites, six of them stores taking real payments. The examples in these guides come from those builds and from the audit that rebuilt this site, not from a content brief. More about how I work, or read the case studies.