Websites have to be hosted somewhere (it’s sitting on someone’s hardware) – a common scenario involves Amazon Web Services (AWS), and it would look a lot like this:
- After finding three website developers through upwork.com and interviewing them, you settle on one you’d like to work with. In your first consultation, this developer tells you that your website could be hosted using Amazon Web Services / AWS and that s/he can set up all the web code for you.
- Knowing that you need specialists, you ask the consultant whether s/he’s proficient in AWS administration or is best at website design. You tell them you’re hiring another consultant and ask if they think you need another web developer or another AWS specialist. Let’s say in this case, the developer says s/he’d rather focus on the website and that you could hire another AWS administrator.
- You don’t need to know what an AWS admin does – go back to upwork.com and freelance.com and look for “aws admin”. Find someone who has their act together and looks professional, interview them with the earlier questions.
- Have the two people talk to each other while you’re on the line in a conference call, they’ll hash out the details and tell you how they’ll best work together. Tell them you want a primary and a secondary, that the secondary will only be called for some questions and a regular review and ask who’d rather be primary or secondary; if they can’t make up their minds, pick as primary the one you communicate with best.
- They might agree that you only need one person to manage AWS and the website content – tell them it’s your policy to have two and ask the technicians who they think you should talk to, then contact that person and interview them.
Often website developers don’t like working with another person, but knowing that someone else will have eyes on their code they’re sure to make it clean and readable. If they don’t and your second technician complains about that often, you might have to replace your primary admin.
