---
title: "Onboarding freelance developers"
description: "Prepare freelancer onboarding and handover with limited access, a first deliverable, a reviewer and operating notes. Keep ownership with the client's team."
canonical: https://sdk.enterprises/en/insights/onboarding-freelance-developers
language: en
---

# Onboarding freelance developers

Updated: 2026-10-29

> Prepare freelancer onboarding and handover with limited access, a first deliverable, a reviewer and operating notes. Keep ownership with the client's team.

## What must be ready before work starts?

Name a reviewer and escalation contact. Prepare the repository, test environment, backlog and only the access the assignment needs. Agree the first reviewable change and working overlap before granting production access.

## Plan knowledge transfer from the first week, not the last

The migration ends; running the platform does not. Ask how your team will learn to operate what is built: pairing on real tasks during the migration, runbooks for recurring operations, and a walkthrough of monitoring and alerts with the people who will be on call.

Ask for everything to live in your accounts and repositories from the start: infrastructure code, pipelines, runbooks and diagrams. Then agree how the handover is accepted, for example your team deploys and rolls back an application without the partner's help.

We worked on the team that moved 600+ Crédit Agricole internal applications from legacy VMs to AWS, delivering 50+ of those migrations ourselves. If you want a second opinion on a migration proposal, or a team to deliver part of the work, our cloud infrastructure engineers can go through these questions with you.

## How do you accept the handover?

Have your team run the tests and follow the release or recovery notes. Record unfinished work, ownership and known risks. Transfer operational knowledge, then revoke unneeded access when the assignment ends; payment administration alone is not a handover.

## Key takeaways

- Name a reviewer and escalation contact.
- Have your team run the tests and follow the release or recovery notes.
- Ask how the inventory will be built and checked, because every estimate and wave plan depends on it.

## FAQ

### What must be ready before work starts?

Name a reviewer and escalation contact. Prepare the repository, test environment, backlog and only the access the assignment needs. Agree the first reviewable change and working overlap before granting production access.

### How do you accept the handover?

Have your team run the tests and follow the release or recovery notes. Record unfinished work, ownership and known risks. Transfer operational knowledge, then revoke unneeded access when the assignment ends; payment administration alone is not a handover.

### I am not sure exactly who I need. Can you help?

Yes. Describe the problem in your brief or on a call and we help you shape the role. If it turns out you need a project delivered instead, we can do that too.

[Hire developers](https://sdk.enterprises/en/hire-talent)

[Start a talent brief](https://sdk.enterprises/en/start-a-project?need=talent)

## Related services

- [Technical audit and consulting](https://sdk.enterprises/en/services/consulting)
- [Custom software](https://sdk.enterprises/en/services/product-engineering)

## Further reading

- [Hiring developers for a startup](https://sdk.enterprises/en/insights/hiring-developers-for-a-startup)
- [Freelance developer costs](https://sdk.enterprises/en/insights/freelance-developer-costs)