How to Vet an Offshore Developer: A 6-Step Process

To vet an offshore developer, test the work, not the resume. Give a short, paid exercise in your own stack, run a structured technical interview, score every candidate on the same scorecard, check written English, and finish with a one-week trial on real tickets. That process finds developers who ship from week one.

A great offshore developer is one of the best hires a growing company can make: a full-time engineer who works your hours, knows your codebase, and ships every week. The way to get there is a vetting process built on evidence. Here is the six-step process we recommend, and the one we run for our clients.

1. Write down what the developer will actually do

Before you look at a single candidate, write the job description. List the work the developer will own in the first 90 days, the stack, and the tools. “React developer” is a title. “Build new screens in React and TypeScript from Figma designs, and own the component library” is a job.

This step keeps every later step honest. The exercise, the interview questions, and the scorecard all come from this list.

Start from one of our free templates:

2. Screen resumes for evidence, not keywords

A resume tells you where to look. Look for:

Shipped work you can see: a live product, an app in the store, a public repository, or a portfolio with links.
Time on your stack in production, not only in courses.
Experience with remote teams and written communication.

Keep the screen short. The practical exercise in the next step does the heavy lifting.

3. Give a short, paid practical exercise in your stack

This is the most important step. Give each shortlisted candidate the same small task, in your stack, that takes two to four hours. Pay for their time.

Good exercises look like the real job:

Full-stack: add a small feature to a sample app, with a form, an API endpoint, and validation.
React: build a screen from a design, with loading and error states.
Python or Node.js: build an endpoint that calls a third-party API, with retries and tests.
QA automation: write end-to-end tests for a sign-up flow and report the bugs you find.
DevOps: write a pipeline that builds, tests, and deploys a small service.

Ask for the code as a pull request with a short written summary of the trade-offs. That one request shows you code quality, Git habits, and written English at the same time.

4. Run a structured technical interview

Use the exercise as the agenda. Ask the candidate to walk you through their pull request, then ask the same core questions of every candidate:

Walk me through the last feature you shipped. What would you do differently?
Tell me about a production bug you fixed. How did you find the cause?
How do you write a pull request description for a reviewer in another time zone?
What do you do when a ticket is unclear and the person who wrote it is offline?
Which tests would you add to the exercise you just submitted?

Then add role-specific questions. Every one of our developer role pages lists sample interview questions, for example for the full-stack developer, Laravel developer, and DevOps engineer roles.

5. Score every candidate on the same scorecard

Score each candidate right after the interview, before you talk to anyone else about them. Use the same areas and weights for everyone:

Practical exercise: working code
Code quality and readability
Depth in your stack
Testing habits
Debugging
Data modeling and APIs
Git and code review
Written English
Spoken English and communication
Ownership and async habits

Our free developer interview scorecard has all ten areas, weights, 1-to-5 scoring anchors, and totals that calculate on their own. It also flags any must-have area that scored below 3.

Flat illustration of an offshore team: a globe, a video call, and a shared checklist.

6. Start with a one-week trial on real work

The final test is real work. Give your new developer repository access, a working local setup, and a first ticket that is small and real. In the first week you will see how they read your code, ask questions, and ship.

Set them up for success:

Keep repositories, cloud accounts, and app store accounts in your company’s name, and grant access to them.
Work on a staging environment or a branch first.
Agree on a daily written update and a weekly check-in.

Time zones: make the overlap work for you

The Philippines is on UTC+8 all year. A developer who works your hours joins your stand-ups, answers review comments the same day, and ships while your team is online. That is how our developers work: full time, in your time zone, embedded in your team.

Or let us do the vetting for you

Rekruuto hires full-time software developers from the Philippines from $2,500 a month. We run this process for you: only the top 2% of applicants are accepted, every candidate completes a practical exercise in the stack you name and a technical interview, and you interview your shortlist yourself.

Full time, dedicated to your team, working your hours
Ready to start in 14 days
A 1-week trial, with a replacement or a refund if you are not satisfied
Trusted by 100+ customers

See every role on our software developers page: full-stack, React, Node.js, Python, Laravel, WordPress, Shopify, mobile, QA automation, and DevOps. When you are ready, book a strategy call and tell us your stack.