What to Consider When Hiring a HubSpot Developer
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First of all, congratulations on your growth!
The fact that you're looking to hire your first or next HubSpot developer means you've finally made it in this HubSpot ecosystem.
Now, let's get to business. Hiring a HubSpot developer may sound easy, but I can assure you it's not. Even before posting your job ad, many things are often unthought of. And in many cases, companies end up regretting hiring a HubSpot developer.
Besides hiring the wrong developers, the main issue is often due to the company's preparedness.
In this article, we're going to dive into two big categories:
1. The aspects of a developer you should be looking for
2. The aspects of your company to decide whether it's the right time for you to hire your first HubSpot developer.
HubSpot developer is more than a coder.
If you think a HubSpot developer is just like any other developer, I've got bad news for you. Developing on HubSpot is a whole lot different from other platforms. Not only do they have to master the primary programming languages such as HTML, CSS, hubL, and JavaScript, they'll have to know how every piece of the HubSpot ecosystem works and interact with each other and, most importantly, the best practices.
A small mistake in the development approach often results in a considerable investment loss in the future. I'm not only talking about the investment to develop your site on HubSpot, but the "potential" loss due to leads lost, inefficient workflows, and, even worse, technical issues affecting your site performance.
If all these sounds terrifying, worry not; we'll cover each part in the following sections.
HubSpot is an ecosystem with lots of playing parts.
By activating your HubSpot subscription, you should have known that HubSpot is a massive ecosystem, unlike other CMS such as WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla.
HubSpot CMS, Forms, CTAs, Chatflows, Workflows, Inbox, Tickets, Deals, A/B Testing, Smart rules, Reporting, and Dashboard, are only a few of the ocean of features that HubSpot offers.
The cool thing about HubSpot is that every single of these features interconnects with each other. This indirectly means the front-facing website is a mere "store" of your company. The real deal is what happens behind the scene.
- How the website collects leads which then connect to workflows.
- How do the leads get sent to an automated email sequence.
- How the website displays smart rules based on the company's regional policies.
- How to A/B test each page to find the best performing content.
- And a lot more...
See what I mean here? If you're about to hire a developer, you better hire one that truly understands how the whole ecosystem works, not only how to develop the best-looking front-facing website.
It's not only about HTML, CSS, hubL, and JavaScript.
You might be thinking, "I don't need to hire an experienced HubSpot developer; any developer can always learn the whole HubSpot ecosystem" Well, that's the formula to wasting time and disappointing build quality. You need a developer who can code, but you also need a developer who can understand the entire process of building a website on HubSpot.
This includes understanding the workflow between forms, lead generation, chat flows, emails, tickets, deals, custom integrations, and even inbound marketing. This includes knowing how to use the reporting tools to analyze the data collected by the website and utilizing HubSpot's tools to continuously improve the site's performance.
In short, if you want to ensure your website will perform well, you need someone who knows how the whole system works.
Certification is a great start.
There is always a start to mastery, and in this case, it's the certifications.
Just like college or university degrees, hiring developers with a good "starting point" is always a good idea, but does it guarantee mastery? There is no guarantee.
Suppose your project is a small or simple one. Hiring a developer with the knowledge of HTML, CSS, hubL, JavaScript, and all HubSpot certifications isn't ideal but should get your project(s) done.
It's a whole different scenario for massive projects. This basic knowledge will not be enough to get you a site build quality that can be used in the long run.
Experience is essential, but mastery is what you're looking for
Experience doesn't equal mastery. If we're to imagine this as a ladder:
- Step 1: Development skills (HTML, CSS, hubL, and JavaScript).
The core four languages to enter the ecosystem. - Step 2: HubSpot certifications.
In a good position to navigate the ecosystem and build a site that works with all the features. - Step 3: Experience.
Ideally, with a minimum of 2-3 years of experience in launching at least 5 HubSpot sites. - Step 4: Mastery.
A minimum of 5 years with experience in launching at least 30 websites.
Now how can we measure someone's mastery? The only way is to look at their portfolio.
Don't forget to request your applicant's best portfolio items in your job ad. This step is vital to get you an idea of their capabilities and the build quality they can provide for your projects.
Suppose they used to work for a development agency. You can request their "shared" portfolio items with the agency and ask them to explain their roles in those projects.
Freelance or Full time
If you're looking for a one-time project, freelance is always the best answer.
But since you've dived into the HubSpot ecosystem, isn't it a good idea to immerse yourself into HubSpot's methodology?
We call it Growth-driven design; you can find out more at https://academy.hubspot.com/lessons/implementing-continuous-improvement.
One of the critical aspects of Growth-driven design is continuous improvement which is a month-over-month refinement instead of a site relaunch every 2-3 years.
Now, hiring a full-time developer is the perfect fit if you're looking to implement GDD into your corporate culture.
Are you prepared to hire a HubSpot developer?
You should now have a good overview of the type of developer to hire. The next set of considerations is whether you are ready to hire a HubSpot developer.
Always remember that a developer is a team player; they can't function independently without a straightforward process.
How is your development process?
The first and most crucial step is ensuring you have a development process and pipeline.
You might think coordinating with your developer task by task via email is enough. It's not.
A typical development pipeline includes:
- Project planning.
- Backlog
- Design.
- Development.
- Testing.
- Deployment.
- Maintenance.
Do you have one in place? If not, you better get a developer with the experience to set one up. Or you should establish your internal pipeline first.
If you bring someone new into a team without having a clear set of rules or workflow, then you're going to create chaos.
How do you handle daily project management?
Assuming you have your "pipeline" ready. Who will act as the project manager?
Suppose it's you, do you have experience in handling development projects? What apps do you use? How do approve/request revisions? Who'll handle the post-launch steps?
The best alternative is to, of course, hire an experienced project manager. But that's going to be a different discussion.
How is your Quality Assurance process?
As a rule of thumb, you should always have at least two quality assurance steps.
The first is always a quality assurance step done by the developer assigned to complete the task.
The second is quality assurance done by either another developer or QA analyst.
Without this QA process, you'll most likely ship half-assessed site builds with a short lifespan. Or even worse, underperforming HubSpot sites will lose you a ton of money from lost leads and site errors.
You should always remember that it takes time for a newly built site to gain traction. Suppose you launched a brand new site in January; the soonest it will gain traction and data to analyze is in July, or 6 months later.
The better approach
By now, you should agree that hiring a HubSpot developer isn't as simple as paying any developer to handle your site builds. There are a lot more steps, considerations, and behind-the-scene parts involved.
You'll most likely lose money, time, and effort without completing all these steps.
"Is there a better approach"? The good news is there is.
What if, instead of hiring individual unproven developers, you can hire a whole team of experienced HubSpot developers and designers at a fixed monthly cost?
So instead of wasting a ton of time hiring your freelance or full-time developers, you'll get an entire team ready to implement your projects anytime at your disposal.
No fluctuating salaries, no bonuses, no price negotiations, and no time wasted in low-quality site builds.
Introducing: HubScout. It's more than a service; HubScout is your design and development team.
We'll help you boost your marketing and sales efforts while keeping your budget under control. You get unlimited development tasks per month, all at a fixed price. No hidden fees, ever.