How To Hire A Bubble Developer
Hiring a Bubble developer is tricky. Clients trying to find a developer can face the following issues:
- difficulty assessing developer’s technical skills
- lack of communication from developer
- difficulty writing project scopes
So, I’m going to try my hand at suggesting how you might go about hiring a Bubble developer, what to expect when hiring, and other useful bits and bobs. This isn’t a ‘definitive’ guide. Full disclosure, I develop apps myself as part of my Not Quite Unicorns agency. As part of that, I do audits of existing apps and unbelievably often find apps developed for pretty large amounts of money that have no privacy rules, significant security issues, or incredibly incompetent build practices. I like to think we’re pretty good, and our clients think so too, but I don’t want this post to sound like I know everything there is to know about hiring a Bubble developer. This is based on my experience hiring recently and also the issues my own clients have had with past developers.
This guide is primarily targeted at non-Bubblers that haven’t delved too much into the platform and don’t have the technical expertise to assess developers. It might also be of use to smaller agencies like my own who are trying to hire new developers (this is what I’ve been doing recently).
What is Bubble / low-code?
Bubble is a no-code development platform. You’ll have heard of platforms like Wordpress/Wix/Weebly/Squarespace. These are all mostly CMS (content management systems). They are suitable for landing pages, booking forms, marketing pages etc. If you are looking for anything along those lines, those tools will be better.
So, why use Bubble? The way I describe what I do to friends and family is I build web applications - anything more complex than a landing page and contact form. Web applications allow users to create, read, update, and otherwise manage data. Bubble, at its core, is designed for users to interact with a web app by inputting data and displaying that data / taking action on that data in useful ways. If this sounds like your app, Bubble could be a good fit for you.
Bubble isn’t the right app for you if the primary point of your app could not be expressed in rows and columns. An app like Canva, for example, wouldn’t fall into the ‘right for Bubble’ category. You probably could build it with enough plugins, but there’s just other tools more suited for the job.
Okay, so let’s say your project is possible with Bubble. Here’s the TLDR of what you need to know and some relevant links if you want to read further:
- Bubble allows really fast development and iteration. With a well built app, it’s easy to add new features and build your app. I try to build apps lean and then add features in the future once we’ve understood behaviours from real users. You can get a Bubble app launched within 2 weeks, with traditional code taking 2-3 months at a minimum. New features can be launched daily rather than weekly or monthly.
- Apps hosted on Bubble can scale when built well, and only when built well. You can take it beyond an MVP without much problems. The amount you’re paying will scale with usage so if it’s built efficiently the cost of the app will never be more than a small portion of your revenue.
- Your app can only be hosted with Bubble. You cannot self-host your Bubble app. This means if Bubble suddenly jacks up prices, you can be in a bit of a muddle. My response to clients with this is that if you build a successful MVP with Bubble and later something did happen, you probably have enough money to build it out again somewhere else.
- Bubble bills with a fixed monthly fee plus usage based overages. Bubble measures useage by Workload. It’s an arbitrary measure of how much work your app does. It is very hard to predict - if a developer can’t give you an estimate before building your app, that’s not a negative reflection on their own ability. As a rough guide, for my clients on average, Bubble costs between 5-10% of their MRR. Link
- Bubble doesn’t make very good mobile apps. Right now, it doesn’t officially support mobile apps at all. You can put your app on the App Store/Google Play store by wrapping it. This is essentially an app that is a browser that can only view your app. You can generally tell it’s a website when interacting with it. Bubble has Native Mobile Apps on their roadmap for 2024. I personally don’t think it’ll be ready before 2024Q4. BDK Native, Air Native
Now, don’t confuse no-code for no work. It requires time and skill. If you’re trying to build it yourself, you will fail. The first time you build your app will NOT be the first time, no matter how much natural talent you have. It will be slow, you’ll build up technical debt, and there’ll likely be issues you’re not even aware of with respect to security. If you’re building yourself, give yourself 3 months at a minimum to learn Bubble basics and more realistically 6 months to launch a pretty effective app.
Agency or freelancer?
Bubble developers generally fall into two categories - agencies and freelancers. Some developers will work in-house - this seems pretty rare but it may just be that they’re fairly silent as they’re not grovelling for jobs on the forum!
Agencies are generally more reputable. They’ll come with bells and whistles like project managers, UI designers, QA specialists, etc. They have large talent pools (e.g Airdev) which means they can likely find someone pretty good to work on your project. Consequently, they’ll cost more. Agency projects with more than one team member will generally start at $20K. These agencies are the ones you’ll find ranked high on the Agencies page. As an aside, the Agency categories (bronze/silver/gold) are fairly meaningless in assessing an agency. They’re mostly to do with how many projects the agency has completed and how much revenue they generate with Bubble. However, agencies not guaranteed to be good. I’ve audited really poor agency built apps that have been charged at $30K+. I’ll move onto how to assess quality later on.
Freelancers are individual Bubble developers not working as part of an agency. I’ll lump single-person agencies into here as well as they’re functionally identical. They’ll be cheaper as they don’t have a huge team behind them, and will often move faster as there’s just them working on the project. However, this means freelancers need to be a jack of all trades - developer, QA, communicator, project manager. The fact there’s no team watching the project means they must be responsible for their own quality assurance and it is therefore even more important with freelancers that you can vet their competence before hiring them.
How much do developers cost?
Well, this is tricky. It’s also debatable. It varies wildly depending on:
- experience
- More experienced developers charge more. That’s only fair and provides good value for you. You get what you pay for (well, hopefully…)
- efficiency
- A developer that charges $120/hr might work twice as fast as a $60/hr developer. Don’t underestimate that effect - when I interviewed developers with a couple of technical problems, some came up with solutions in 2 minutes. Some took 20.
- location
- Cost of living varies across the world. The major Bubble centres of work are Europe, North America, and Asia, with particularly high numbers in Nigeria, India, and Pakistan. Europeans/North Americans charge more because it costs more to live there. People in countries with lower costs of living are willing to charge less because they can get more with their money there. All else being equal, why choose the expensive one over the cheaper one? Perhaps timezones are better, perhaps you want more legal protection by working domestically, etc
Some developers will bill hourly, and some fixed rate. I bill fixed rate, and only work with developers on a fixed rate basis except on rare specific occasions where it’s just impossible to predict how long something will take. I can see arguments for both.
Fixed rate
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- less risk for client / more risk for developer
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- incentivises efficiency
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- incentivises shortcuts
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- developer can mis-estimate project cost and be disadvantaged
Hourly rate
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- less risk for developer / more risk for client
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- chance of costing less than expected
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- disincentivises efficiency
So, anyway, ballpark figures - your best Bubble developers will charge at least $80/hr+. However, don’t assume that because they charge that, that they are justified in charging that amount.
Payment schedules vary, just use common sense. I personally ask for a 30% deposit and the remaining 70% on completion. Don’t pay all up front, unless it’s a particularly small job.
Where do I find a developer?
You can make a job post here, or use the Bubble request for proposal tool. I’m not convinced there’s much benefit to either, though on the RFP tool you’ll probably find more agencies compared to on the forum. Freelancers will be found on both.
You MUST make a detailed job posting. Experienced developers won’t waste their time responding if you don’t include the essentials. Things to include:
- detailed project description (the more detail the better - requirements, ‘X for Y (e.g Uber for Chefs)’ comparisons can help
- users - who are your users? Internal or external? What problem are you solving for them?
- deadline - roughly when do you want it completed by? Even if you say you don’t mind, you surely wouldn’t be fine with having it completed a year from now. Give a deadline range at a minimum.
- budget - of course you don’t want to disclose your negotiating position, but if you have a particularly small budget, you need to say so or you’ll get responses from people you can’t afford.
- any geographic restrictions (time zone generally isn’t a huge issue so I’d recommend any geographic restrictions are related to compliance/tax/grant requirements rather than developer location)
How do I choose a developer?
You’ve posted your job ad. You’re going to get at least a dozen respondents, probably more. If I was hiring more developers, I would filter by the following:
- remove all developers that didn’t follow your application instructions (e.g ‘email me’ and they DM you or ‘send a past project’ and they don’t). If they can’t follow your instructions whilst they’re trying to get you to pay them, don’t expect them to once you’ve already paid them.
- remove all developers without evidence of competence. You need to begin assessing their ability. If they give you nothing to work off of, remove them now. Proof of competence can include:
- past work
- testimonials
- forum activity / community contributions
- their own portfolio page
- Bubble developer certification
That’ll actually filter around 75% of applicants out! So, we’ve got perhaps 5-10 developers/agencies that we’re looking to whittle down to two or three to get detailed quotes from. How do we do this?
Portfolio
An applicant’s portfolio includes their own page, and any past work they share. These are the stuff they’re most proud of. This will generally be their best work (it’s the best they can put out for you to see). If it doesn’t work, or you don’t like how it looks or feels, then you probably won’t like how your site feels if they build it for you. Also, be careful how much attention you put on how an app looks. Plenty of Bubble developers just aren’t good at UI design (myself included). Most developers will be able to replicate any designs you provide accurately. If you don’t have any designs, you’ll want to choose a developer that can include design (or subcontract it out).
Testimonials
Testimonials are great. If clients love the developer, you probably will too. Find out what they liked particularly about this developer - does that align with your needs? One caveat with testimonials is that bad apps can have good testimonials. I recently audited an app which was a bit slow but not too bad to use, and the original client was happy and did a case study for the original developer. However, almost the entire database was exposed and the app had built up a huge amount of technical debt. The client was happy, but the app was bad and the client would eventually learn about those problems down the road when they try to expand the app. Building a good app isn’t just about meeting the project scope exactly - it’s about meeting the project scope and building it in a way that allows it to grow beyond the scope in future.
Forum Activity
Forum activity is a pretty good indicator of a user’s experience. How many posts have they read? How long have they spent on the forum? Have they made any posts that contribute positively to the community and Bubble education? You probably can’t go wrong by contacting anyone that ranks highly here directly. It’s hard to be shit at Bubble if you’ve read tens of thousands of posts about it…
Bubble Developer Certification + Airdev Certification
This is an interesting one. I have not taken the Bubble certification yet (I haven’t had a need to having been pretty booked up for a while). I have interviewed developers with official Bubble certifications that I would not hire. Having seen some of the practice questions, and talking with community members about it, I would use it to disqualify people rather than qualify them (i.e if they have no past work/testimonials/forum activity and no certification, I wouldn’t have much faith).
I mention the Airdev certification specifically as their bootcamp is widely taken by beginners. Airdev is a reputable Bubble agency (I have respect for them as they put out lots of free resources and educational material, and well defined procedures that mean projects generally go well. You do of course have to pay a hefty premium for that.) Their bootcamp is free, and it takes a couple of months. It consists of building a few apps based on Airdev’s templates. I see a lot of forum posts along the lines of ‘available for work, just completed Airdev course’. I would not hire anyone who has only just completed the Airdev certification. It’s good for Bubble basics and they could perhaps contribute as part of a team, but most apps will be too difficult for the developer to build entirely themselves. Of course, every developer is different.
The Final Few
You should probably meet with the final two or three candidates virtually. Check you get along with their communication and work style. Ensure your vision and theirs are aligned. Each meeting should be no more than 30 minutes but it’s important to get to know your candidate. Get each candidate you’re still interested in to send you a final proposal. This should be a detailed project scope with all app requirements, deadlines, and payment information. Do not proceed without a project scope. Then, it’s a comparison job. If A charges more than B, is the extra value A provides worth the extra fee? Does A understand my requirements better? Which do I trust more? These are questions I think you can only really tell after meeting them which is why I recommend meeting the developers.
Technical Interview
This is important to run if you’re able to conduct it. If you can’t conduct a technical interview yourself because you’re not a Bubble developer, see my offer below 
The technical interview gives a chance for you to understand how a developer thinks, and verify their competence with Bubble. It shouldn’t be long - you should respect your applicant’s time - they’ll be applying to lots of jobs. Maximum 15 minutes to assess their technical ability - you probably don’t need any longer. I’ll explain a technical interview question I used recently, and why I think it helped me choose talented developers. Here’s the scenario.
- We have a marketplace with Products.
- Each Product has a field for title and a field for description.
- We have an Input that acts as a search box and should filter a repeating group to show Products only when the Product’s title contains the input’s value or the Product’s description contains the input’s value.
- How do you approach this?
The challenge here is that search constraints in Bubble are additive. You can’t just do title = Input’s value and description = Input’s value because that would show Products only when the title and description contains the input’s value. There’s three solutions here (this isn’t multiple choice - the candidate must come up with these solutions):
- Merged search: Search for Products (title contains keywords Input’s value):merged with Search for Products (description contains keywords Input’s value)
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- requires no DB structure change
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- fairly efficient speed wise
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- WU inefficient as two searches done
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- Data structure change: Add a titleDescription field on the Product data type that is updated when the title or description changes using a backend trigger, and search that field in the Repeating Group
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- more WU efficient due to less searches required
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- speedier as only one search required
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- requires extra field which could make the data type heavier depending on the use case
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- Advanced filter: Do a search for Products with advanced filter This Product’s title contains keywords Input’s value OR This Product’s description contains keywords Input’s value
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- WU efficient if small number of products as filtering is done client side
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- inefficient client side performance for larger number of products
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- WU inefficient if larger number of products as too much data is sent by Bubble to the browser
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The top two are the best solutions. 3 is only acceptable if there’s a small number of products. We’re not too interested which option they choose - just why. Get them to identify the pros and cons of their approach. If they choose Option 1, ask them to try another way that only uses one search because the client wants to save WU. If they choose Option 2, ask them to try it without modifying the data structure because the description could be quite long and we want to keep the data type light. If they choose Option 3, tell them there’s going to be 500 products - would that still be the best solution? In Bubble, there’s multiple solutions to most problems, and we’re interested to see if the developer can identify the solutions, and the advantages and disadvantages in each specific case. See how they think and how they resolve any hiccups.
Developer Recruitment as a (Free) Service
I’m going to try something out. I’m going to offer Bubble developer recruitment as a service, for free (for now!). No catch - I just want to see if there’s a market for it. Find out pain points and demand, and take it from there.
I’ll learn your project requirements, find you developer candidates (on the forum, RFP area, or people I know directly), and conduct technical interviews (you may join these yourself too). By the end, I will provide my top recommendations based on your requirements, and the results of the interviews I conduct, taking into account competence, value for money, and anything else that’s important to you. Of course, I’m not going to be allowed to recommend myself as your developer! If you’re interested in this, DM me and we can take it from there. I just ask you give feedback about what kind of support would help you recruit. I own two registered companies myself so understand most people’s pain points when recruiting, but I’m a Bubble developer - not a recruiter by trade!
Thanks for making it this far. If anyone else has tips they’d like to share from their own hiring experience, please do contribute below! Happy Holidays! 
Now I wonder, how many more people are going to start messaging you for work…
