Contractor Vetting Checklist

The twelve-question vetting

Domain experience (3 questions)

1. How many MLM platforms have you shipped? At what scale (active distributor count)? The acceptable answer involves at least two platforms at $1M+ GMV scale, with specific name-able references (NDA-friendly).

1. Show a code sample from your most recent MLM engagement. Even a redacted commission calculation function tells you whether the contractor knows the patterns or is reasoning from first principles in real time.

1. Which comp plans have you implemented natively? Walk me through one in detail. Specific answers ("binary with carry-forward depth of three and weekly flush, paired with unilevel residual paying nine levels deep") versus generic answers ("we've done all the standard plans") is the discriminator.

Approach (3 questions)

1. When does a SaaS adoption beat a custom build, in your honest view? Contractors who can articulate the SaaS-wins case clearly are the ones whose recommendations will be trustworthy when the answer genuinely is custom. Contractors who can't or won't are motivated rather than honest.

1. What's the riskiest part of the scope I described? The acceptable answer involves a specific risk you hadn't fully thought through; vague answers about "scope creep" or "communication" are filler.

1. What's your testing strategy for commission calculations? Commission code that fails silently is the most common production bug pattern in custom MLMs. Contractors with a real testing strategy (PHPUnit suite covering edge cases, golden-master testing against historical data, property-based testing for invariants) are the ones whose code will hold up.

Engagement structure (3 questions)

1. Are you available 30+ hours per week for the engagement window? Part-time contractors on a full-time scope is the most common operational mistake we watch founders make.

1. Who owns the code at completion? The acceptable answer is "you do, completely, with no ongoing license dependency on me." Contractors who try to retain rights or require ongoing maintenance contracts are flag-raising.

1. What happens if the scope changes mid-engagement? The acceptable answer involves a documented change-request process with written estimates; vague answers about "we'll figure it out as we go" produce the worst engagement outcomes.

Risk (3 questions)

1. What's your bus factor? Who covers if you're unavailable? Solo contractors have bus factor 1; for engagements over $30K or 8 weeks, this is too high a risk. Either insist on a backup contractor or shift to an agency engagement.

1. Reference clients. Three names, available for short calls. Contractors who can't produce three references either haven't shipped enough work to have them or had engagements that ended badly enough that references aren't available.

1. Have you ever had to walk away from an engagement? Why? The acceptable answer involves an honest story (scope changed beyond what the contractor could handle, client team became unresponsive, technical issue exceeded the contractor's capability). The unacceptable answer is "no, every engagement has gone perfectly," which means the contractor is either inexperienced or not telling the truth.

Red flags to watch for

Vague answers to question 4 (always recommends custom development regardless of scope). No real testing strategy on question 6. Inability to produce three references on question 11. Any of those alone is a hard pass; combination of two or more is a clear signal to walk away.

What works

A contractor who can name two MLM platforms at $1M+ scale, walks through a specific comp plan implementation in detail, articulates when SaaS is the better answer (and means it), has a documented testing approach, and has three references available for calls. This profile is rarer than buyers expect but worth the search; one engagement with a senior MLM contractor delivers more value than three with generalist full-stack developers.