The CTO’s Checklist for Evaluating Offshore Development Partners

After evaluating dozens of offshore partners over 11 years, our team distilled the assessment into a structured 20-point checklist. Score each item from 0-3. Any partner scoring below 45/60 is a risk. Below 35/60 is a guaranteed disaster.

Technical Capability (6 items, max 18 pts)

• [ ] Tech stack alignment — Do they have demonstrable experience in your specific technology stack? Can they show production projects?
• [ ] Architecture competence — Can a senior architect produce a high-level design for your project during evaluation?
• [ ] Code quality evidence — Can they share sample code or conduct a live coding session during evaluation?
• [ ] DevOps maturity — Do they have CI/CD pipelines, containerization, and infrastructure-as-code practices?
• [ ] Testing culture — What is their minimum test coverage standard? Do they have dedicated QA engineers?
• [ ] Security practices — Do they implement SAST/DAST scanning, dependency vulnerability checks, and secure coding guidelines?

Process Maturity (5 items, max 15 pts)

• [ ] Agile methodology — Can they describe their sprint workflow, including planning, standups, reviews, and retrospectives?
• [ ] Documentation standards — Do they produce architecture decision records, API documentation, and onboarding guides?
• [ ] Change management — Is there a formal process for scope changes with impact assessment before implementation?
• [ ] Estimation accuracy — Can they share historical data on estimated vs. actual project timelines?
• [ ] Incident response — Do they have a defined process for production issues, including escalation paths and SLAs?

People & Culture (4 items, max 12 pts)

• [ ] Team transparency — Can you interview the actual engineers who will work on your project?
• [ ] Retention rates — What is their average developer tenure? Below 18 months is a warning sign.
• [ ] Communication proficiency — Can developers communicate effectively in English during technical discussions?
• [ ] Cultural bridge — Do they have a client-facing project manager who understands your business culture?

Contractual & Legal (5 items, max 15 pts)

• [ ] IP ownership — Does the contract explicitly transfer all IP to you upon delivery?
• [ ] Governing law — Is the contract governed by a strong IP jurisdiction (Dutch, UK, Singapore law)?
• [ ] Data protection — Is there a GDPR-compliant data processing agreement?
• [ ] Exit clause — What happens if the engagement fails? Is there a code handover process?
• [ ] Replacement guarantee — What is the SLA for replacing a team member who leaves? (Target: 2 weeks)

Bonus Category: Business Continuity & Risk Resilience (5 items, scored separately)

The core 20-point checklist above evaluates whether a partner can build your product well. It does not evaluate whether the partner will still exist, in a form you can rely on, two or three years into the engagement. For any project with a 12+ month horizon or meaningful budget, add this bonus category as a separate risk screen — score it 0-3 per item like the core checklist, but keep the two totals distinct rather than folding this into the 45/60 threshold, since business continuity is a different kind of risk than technical or process risk.

This category matters more for offshore partners than for local vendors, for a simple reason: if a local agency collapses, you can walk across town and hire replacement developers within days. If an offshore partner collapses, you are dealing with a cross-border wind-down, potential difficulty reaching former employees, and a much longer runway to stand up a replacement team. The five items below are the ones enterprise procurement teams ask about routinely but individual CTOs and founders often skip during a fast-moving evaluation.

• [ ] Client concentration risk — What percentage of the partner’s total revenue comes from their single largest client? Above 30-40% concentration on one account means losing that account (or that account’s parent company having a bad year) can destabilize the whole company, including your project.
• [ ] Financial stability signal — Has the partner been profitable and operating continuously for 5+ years, or are they a recently-spun-off unit riding a single funding round? Ask directly; a partner confident in its financials will answer without hesitation.
• [ ] Key-person dependency — If the lead architect assigned to your project left tomorrow, does the partner have a documented succession plan and a bench of engineers who could step in within 2-4 weeks? Or does institutional knowledge live in one person’s head?
• [ ] Disaster recovery and infrastructure redundancy — Does the partner have a business continuity plan covering office/power/internet outages (relevant for Vietnam’s occasional monsoon-season disruptions), and do they operate from more than one physical location or support remote failover for critical staff?
• [ ] Unsupervised reference access — Will the partner let you speak directly with 2+ current clients without a company representative on the call? Partners confident in their client relationships rarely gatekeep this; partners who insist on being present or only offer curated references are signaling something.

A partner can score a perfect 60/60 on technical and process criteria and still represent a serious business risk if they are financially fragile, over-concentrated on one client, or dependent on a single irreplaceable architect. This bonus category exists precisely to catch that blind spot — it has surfaced real risk in evaluations where the core checklist alone would have produced a false “safe” signal.

Interpreting the bonus score (max 15 pts): 12-15 indicates a structurally stable partner suitable for multi-year, mission-critical engagements. 7-11 is workable for shorter or lower-stakes projects, but negotiate explicit contractual protections — source code escrow, a documented succession plan for the lead architect, and a shorter notice period — to offset the elevated risk. Below 7 points, treat continuity risk as a primary decision factor regardless of how well the partner scored on the core 60-point checklist; a technically excellent team is of limited use if the company delivering it cannot reliably exist through your project’s timeline.

How to Use This Checklist

1. Schedule 45-minute evaluation calls with 3-5 shortlisted partners
2. Score each item honestly during the conversation
3. Request portfolio references for any item you cannot assess directly
4. Eliminate any partner scoring below 45/60
5. Conduct a paid pilot project (2-4 weeks) with the top 2 candidates before committing

Manifera’s Scorecard

When Manifera is assessed against this checklist, the key differentiators include: contracts under Dutch law from the Amsterdam office, direct access to interview Vietnamese engineering candidates, transparent Agile workflows with client-facing sprint boards, and an 11-year track record of 160+ successful project deliveries.

Download the full evaluation template: manifera.com/contact-us.

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