12 February 20268 min read
Every provider's website says the same four things: pre-vetted talent, seamless integration, flexible engagement, significant savings. Ours does too. None of it distinguishes anybody, because none of it costs anything to claim.
What distinguishes providers is how they answer specific questions. Below are the ones worth asking, and, more usefully, what a weak answer sounds like.
1. What did the vetting actually consist of?
You want a concrete process: a technical exercise, who reviewed it, what the communication assessment was. A weak answer describes a CV screen and an interview in language vague enough to mean anything.
Follow up with: what proportion of applicants do you reject? A screen that passes nearly everyone is not a screen, and a provider that has never counted has not thought about it.
2. Why this person, specifically?
Ask why they proposed this candidate over the others available. A good provider gives you a reasoned trade-off, stronger on the framework you use, lighter on the infrastructure side, and here is why that fits what you described. A weak answer restates the CV.
This question also reveals whether you are being matched or simply being handed whoever is free.
3. Will you tell me if I do not need this?
Ask directly whether they have ever advised a prospect not to buy, and what the situation was. Everyone will say yes in principle. The ones who mean it have a specific story ready, because it is memorable when you turn down revenue.
4. What does the handover look like?
Ask at the start, not at the end. What exactly would you receive, how long does it take, and is it included in the rate? A provider who treats handover as chargeable extra work has an incentive to keep you dependent, and that incentive will shape a hundred small decisions long before you ever ask to leave.
5. What is explicitly out of scope?
Anyone can write down what is included. A provider who volunteers a clear exclusions list has thought about where the disagreement is going to come from. If the statement of work has no exclusions, write them yourself and see how the conversation goes.
6. How many hours a day will we actually overlap, year-round?
Get the number, then ask whether it holds through the year. Countries that do not observe daylight saving see their overlap with Europe move twice annually, which quietly shifts your stand-up in and out of someone's evening. It is a small thing that becomes a recurring irritation.
7. Who is on the call after the sale?
Ask whether the people scoping the work will be the people doing it. Being sold by seniors and delivered by whoever was available is a common pattern, and it is not always wrong, but you should know which one you are buying before you sign, not discover it in week three.
8. What happens when it fails at 3am?
For anything running in production, ask what alerting is built in, who is named as the owner, and what the response expectation is. Software that fails silently is worse than the manual process it replaced, and 'we'll monitor it' is not an answer.
9. Can I talk to the engineer before committing?
A thirty-minute technical conversation tells you more than any CV, and a provider confident in their vetting will arrange it without friction. Reluctance here is the single most informative reaction on this list.