A developer without prioritization skills needlessly extends timelines, builds inferior products, and costs more money. Here's how to assess how well a developer prioritizes.

Test past products

Demo one of their products. Identify the value proposition and core features. Does the product nail those features? Are the secondary features more polished than the core features? Are there any bugs that affect the core features?

Review a roadmap

Find where they organize their tasks and projects. This information is often available on GitHub (in Issues, READMEs, Projects, or Milestones) or project management software. Does the developer have a system for prioritizing and triaging tasks? Do the most important items come first in the roadmap, or are they spending time on non-essentials?

Ask how they'd prioritize your product

Give them a short pitch about your product and ask how they'd start working on it. Someone with good prioritization skills will:

• Ask lots of follow-up questions in order to understand the problem and how the product solves it
• Identify the core features and minimum viable product
• Focus on delivering value to the user (rather than themselves) as quickly as possible
• Think about small, quick iterations rather than big, extended releases