Founder of Goodspeed
Hiring a Bubble developer looks straightforward until you realise how wide the gap is between someone who can drag elements onto a page and someone who can build a product that scales. Both will call themselves a Bubble developer. Both can show you something that looks finished. Only one of them will structure your data so it stays fast, secure your app so it does not leak, and write workflows another person could actually maintain. Telling them apart before you commit is the whole challenge.
The stakes are real because a Bubble app is only as good as the person who built it. A great developer gives you a foundation you can grow on for years. A weak one gives you something that demos well and then becomes a source of constant firefighting, slow pages, surprise costs, and bugs nobody can trace. The cost of the wrong hire is paid slowly, in every change that turns out to be harder than it should be.
This guide covers what a great Bubble developer can actually do, how the freelancer, in-house, and agency options compare, the skills that separate good from great, how to vet candidates so you are not guessing, where to find them, and why many teams ultimately choose a team like Goodspeed. The goal is to help you hire on evidence rather than on a confident CV.
What a great Bubble developer can actually do
A great Bubble developer is defined by the parts of the work you cannot see in a demo. They design a data model that keeps searches fast as records grow, enforce security through privacy rules so data never leaks, write efficient searches that use constraints rather than filtering everything in memory, and build reusable workflows that another developer could pick up and extend. These are the foundations that decide whether an app scales or struggles.
Anyone can learn to place elements and wire up a simple button. What separates a genuinely capable developer is the structural thinking underneath, the decisions about how data is organised, how access is controlled, and how logic is arranged so the app stays maintainable. When you hire, you are really hiring for that invisible layer, because it is what determines your experience long after the visible parts are finished.
Freelancer, in-house, or agency team
There are three main ways to get Bubble development, and each suits a different situation. A freelancer is flexible and often cost effective for a defined project, but you depend on one person's skill and availability. An in-house hire makes sense when Bubble is core to your business and you have continuous work to justify a permanent salary. An agency team gives you a range of skills and built-in cover, at a higher headline cost.
The right choice depends on how central Bubble is to you, how much ongoing work you have, and how much risk you can absorb if a single person becomes unavailable. Many teams blend approaches, using an agency to build the foundation properly, then a freelancer or in-house developer to maintain it. There is no universally correct option, only the one that fits your situation, which is worth thinking through before you start hiring.
The bus factor problem with a single developer
Relying on one developer, whether a freelancer or a sole in-house hire, carries a risk worth naming plainly, the bus factor. If that one person becomes unavailable, through illness, a better offer, or simply moving on, and the app lives only in their head, you are exposed. The knowledge of how everything fits together leaves with them, and picking the app up cold is slow and painful.
This is not an argument against ever hiring an individual, but it is a reason to insist on maintainable, well organised work regardless of who builds it, so anyone can take over. A team structure, such as an agency, removes the single point of failure entirely because more than one person understands the app. When continuity matters, the bus factor should weigh heavily in how you choose.
Skills that separate good from great
Plenty of developers are good enough to build something that works today. Fewer are great, and the difference lies in specific skills. Great developers denormalise data thoughtfully so common reads are cheap, they paginate repeating groups by default, they design privacy rules that are both secure and performant, and they keep workload unit consumption low through efficient backend workflows. They build for the app's second year, not just its launch day.
They also communicate well, explaining trade-offs and pushing back when a request would cause problems later. A good developer says yes and builds what you asked. A great one tells you when what you asked will hurt you and offers a better path. When you assess candidates, probe for this depth, because the surface skills are common and the deeper ones are what you are actually paying for.
Vet with a live app and a real task
The most reliable way to judge a Bubble developer is to look at a live app they built and, ideally, set a small paid trial task. A live app in real use tells you far more than a portfolio of screenshots, because it reveals how their work performs under actual conditions, how it handles data, and how it behaves at the edges. Ask them to walk you through the decisions behind it.
A paid trial task, a small, well defined piece of real work, shows you how they actually build, not just how they talk. You see their data structure, their workflow organisation, their communication, and their judgement, all before making a bigger commitment. Paying for the trial is fair and gets you serious candidates. It is the closest thing to trying before you buy, and it filters out the confident but shallow quickly.
Test data modelling and security directly
Because data modelling and security are where great developers distinguish themselves, test those areas explicitly. Ask a candidate how they would structure the data for a feature relevant to your app, and listen for whether they think about relationships, indexing, and avoiding giant embedded lists, or whether they reach for whatever is quickest. The quality of their thinking here predicts the quality of the app.
On security, ask how they control which users can see which data. A great developer will talk immediately about privacy rules enforced at the database level. A weaker one will describe hiding things on the page, which is not real security at all. These two questions, on structure and on access, cut straight to the competence that matters most, and they are hard to fake with rehearsed answers.
Where to find Bubble developers
Good places to look include the official Bubble forum, where active developers participate and you can see how they think through public answers, and the official Bubble agency directory, which lists vetted agencies and certified developers. Both give you a starting pool with some signal already attached, rather than a cold search through people who merely claim the skill.
Referrals from other founders who have built on Bubble are also valuable, because a recommendation from someone who lived through a project carries real weight. Wherever you source candidates, treat the source as a starting filter rather than a guarantee, and still apply your own vetting. The forum and directory narrow the field to people worth evaluating, but the live app and trial task are what actually confirm whether someone is great.
Beware developers who only show mockups
A recurring warning sign is a developer who can only show mockups, prototypes, or screenshots rather than apps that are actually live and in use. Mockups prove someone can make something look right. They say nothing about whether that person can build software that survives real users, real data, and real edge cases, which is the part that actually matters.
Insist on seeing production apps, and be cautious of anyone who deflects that request or has only unlaunched work to point to. It may mean inexperience, or it may mean their launched work does not hold up to scrutiny, either way it is a reason to dig deeper before committing. The best developers are proud of their live apps and happy for you to explore them, because their work rewards a close look.
Match the hire to the stage of your app
The right kind of developer depends partly on where your app is. Building from scratch rewards someone strong in data modelling and architecture, because those early decisions shape everything that follows and are expensive to undo later. Maintaining and extending an existing app rewards someone who can read another person's work, understand it quickly, and change it safely without breaking what already runs.
Being clear about your stage helps you hire the right strength rather than a generic developer. A brilliant architect may be overkill for routine maintenance, and a capable maintainer may struggle to design a complex new system from nothing. Knowing which phase you are in, and hiring for the skills that phase demands, is a simple step that noticeably improves your odds of getting the right person.
Why many teams choose Goodspeed
Many teams weigh up the options and choose an agency team precisely because it removes the risks that come with a single developer. At Goodspeed we are a certified Bubble agency that has shipped more than two hundred products, which means the depth of skill you are hiring for is proven across a great deal of varied, real work rather than resting on one person's CV.
Working with a team also solves the bus factor, because more than one person understands your app, so continuity is never hostage to one individual's availability. We build in your account, hand you full ownership, and structure the work so it can be maintained by anyone, including your own team later. For founders who want proven capability without the single point of failure, a team like ours is often the most reassuring answer.
Hire on evidence, not on confidence
The thread running through all of this is to hire on evidence rather than on how confident someone sounds. Confidence is easy to project and tells you nothing about whether the data model will hold or the app will stay secure. A live app you can use, a paid trial task, and direct questions about structure and security give you real evidence, and evidence is what protects you from an expensive mistake.
Whether you choose a freelancer, an in-house hire, or an agency team, apply the same rigour, insist on production work, test the deep skills, and value maintainability so you are never trapped. Do that and you dramatically improve your chances of hiring someone genuinely great, whose work you will still be glad of long after the hiring decision itself has faded from memory.
Hire for scale, not job titles
Hiring a great Bubble developer is about seeing past a confident pitch to the deeper skills that decide an app's future, a sound data model, security through privacy rules, efficient searches, and maintainable workflows. Vet on evidence rather than talk, insist on a live app and a paid trial task, test data modelling and security directly, and weigh the bus factor when choosing between a freelancer, an in-house hire, and an agency team.
Do that and you will hire someone whose work you stay glad of for years, rather than one you have to firefight around. Many teams choose an agency team precisely to get proven depth without the single point of failure. If you want a certified Bubble team that builds products you own, book a free call with our Bubble team.
Written By
Founder of Goodspeed