Hire the Top 3% of Freelance Drupal Developers

How High is the Demand for Talented Drupal Developers?

The demand for talented Drupal developers is extremely high because, as of January 2025, high-traffic sites use Drupal even more than Shopify and WordPress. Examples include the National Institutes of Health, MIT, Lenovo, Udemy, Home Depot, and USPS. However, the platform’s community is smaller than that of other content management systems (CMSs), and finding the right hire for a successful development team becomes more difficult as demand increases. Hiring managers must know their team’s needs and development processes to attract and hire programmers who best match their project requirements.

This hiring guide helps you understand the developer market, know which skills are relevant for hiring a developer, craft an attractive and accurate job description, and run effective interviews. By following these recommendations and understanding the various sub-roles and skill levels, you can make informed hiring decisions that will lead to successful projects.

What Does a Drupal Developer Do?

A Drupal developer specializes in building and adding custom functionality to web applications relying on the open-source Drupal CMS. Some developers can create entire applications that use the platform as a foundation to benefit from its user interface and server-side functionality.

What Attributes Distinguish Quality Drupal Developers From Others?

Skilled developers are proficient at performing quality control, creating testing suites, and ensuring the performance of complex site features after updates and migrations.

Top candidates have more profound knowledge of the CMS and strong technical prowess in its architecture. They can create, maintain, and extend a site to handle steady and extreme traffic loads. By contrast, a novice has less practice in setting up sites from scratch and handling the aftermath of updates or code issues that come up. A novice developer’s lack of hands-on experience can create security and performance problems further down the road. In contrast, an experienced programmer will have the wide range of technical skills necessary to tackle these issues quickly and successfully.

1. Design and Architecture

Drupal experts know the platform inside and out. They bring a crucial perspective on client needs and site administration challenges, and can leverage the platform’s modular structure to build scalable components and maintain distributions. For example, a proficient developer knows how to choose the right search engine for a project, keeping both technical aspects and UX in mind.

2. API Knowledge to Business Needs

Top professionals have experience extending the framework with core APIs like:

1. Entity API: handles custom data entities and their properties
2. Libraries API: manages the integration of external libraries
3. Search API: implements interfaces to search engines

When a new feature is needed, they know the pros and cons of using various subprojects and can justify their choice in the context of business requirements. Their deep understanding of the platform’s core functionality ensures that they can smoothly integrate new features while maintaining the integrity and seamless performance of the system.

3. Component and Ecosystem Familiarity

Experts have current and in-depth knowledge of the framework’s ecosystem and technical components; they can easily manage missing features and requirements. They won’t waste time reinventing the wheel or relying on immature third-party modules. Imagine a task requiring a Drupal website to allow users to contact administrators. Instead of building a custom form, an expert uses the core Contact module and extends it via hooks — avoiding reimplementation — if the client needs further customization. Their familiarity with many modules and components enables them to efficiently choose the best tools for the job, ensuring adherence to coding standards and the delivery of high-quality custom websites.

4. Prioritizing Hidden but Critical Aspects of Code

An expert programmer puts security and performance first on a greenfield project while drawing on their previous experience of knowing how to handle subpar legacy projects. Experienced developers can mitigate security vulnerabilities after the fact and optimize performance with:

1. Database profiling
2. Caching strategies like content delivery network (CDN) usage
3. Framework-specific best practices

They know to avoid introducing security holes in the first place by:

• Checking their code quality with the Drupal Security Kit module
• Leveraging the input sanitization and cross-site request forgery (CSRF) protection features built into Drupal’s Form API

They implement regular code reviews to ensure the codebase remains clean, secure, and maintainable. These habits are essential for managing and maintaining complex websites that require robust security and performance.

5. Streamlining Theme Development to Save Time and Complexity

The best developers have excellent theming knowledge, from its extensible template architecture to CSS hierarchy to preprocessing functions. When business requirements necessitate customization, skilled developers know how to quickly locate the relevant theme file and tailor it to produce the desired UX. They ensure that themes are maintainable and can accommodate regular updates without disrupting the user experience. Their ability to create seamless digital experiences ensures users have an engaging and intuitive interaction with the site.

Overall, an expert will be more than comfortable tackling any part of a project—front end, back end, scaling, security—and will do so with business goals and best practices in mind.

How Can You Identify the Ideal Developer for You?

The first step for companies looking to hire programmers is to understand the broad categories of “front end” and “back end,” along with the combination of the two, “full stack.”

Front-end Developers

The front end of a site is the part visible to the user. A front-end developer uses technologies familiar to any front-end web developer, like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; an expert will have a deep understanding of theme and module architecture, as well as specific tools, like the templating engine Twig, which enables them to apply standard front-end technologies effectively. A firm grasp of these technologies is essential for creating an engaging and responsive user interface, whether it’s for corporate websites, e-commerce sites, or personal blogs.

When to hire: Look for front-end developers if you have a large or mid-sized team or your back end is complete.

Back-end Developers

A site’s back end is the part that runs on a web server, dealing with data and the logic behind the project. Like any other back-end web developer, a back-end specialist must have hands-on experience with REST APIs, integrating external systems, and at least one major SQL engine, preferably the one already used in your project’s stack, if applicable. They’d need to know architectural best practices. A specialist, for example, can make an informed choice between Drupal’s core REST module and the third-party JSON:API module, depending on the project’s needs, and know how best to migrate the project from existing modules to new ones, ensuring a smooth transition. Familiarity with version control systems like Git is essential for managing code changes and collaborating effectively with the development team.

A back-end developer has expertise in other areas such as the framework’s core architecture, hook system, views system, user and permissions management systems, entity and field types, database management, database queries, and caching modules like BigPipe, Varnish, and Page Cache. They are adept at integrating third-party services to enhance site functionality and minimize repetitive tasks to achieve optimal site performance.

When to hire: Hire a back-end developer if your development project requires complex data handling or custom functionalities.

Front End, Back End, or Full Stack?

It’s important to distinguish between developers with knowledge of the Drupal CMS and those with deep but general programming knowledge. While the former suffices if you aim to find a developer to build and administer a site using the CMS, you will need a proficient programmer if your project requires customization and proper maintenance services. Strong critical thinking skills are essential for developers to analyze project requirements and troubleshoot effectively. You don’t necessarily need a developer with niche skill sets, but having someone who understands the full scope of solutions can significantly enhance your project’s success.

Front- and back-end development are not the only helpful categories. Evaluating a candidate’s soft skills, such as problem-solving, communication, and collaboration, is essential for ensuring a good fit within your team. Consider how to match a candidate’s level of expertise to your needs and expectations and plan for how to handle any gaps:

Years of experience aside, look for candidates dedicated to staying current with the latest software development trends and best practices.

Which Complementary Skills Does Drupal Development Require?

Below are the most relevant complementary skills to the Drupal content management system:

• PHP and Symfony – PHP is a proven technology for website development and the core language of Drupal, so a developer will need to be comfortable with PHP best practices to avoid security risks, performance issues, and technical debt. Similarly, but secondarily, Symfony is an integral part of Drupal’s architecture, so Symfony-savvy developers will be much more comfortable writing code that’s idiomatic to the CMS.
• Laravel and Slim – These programs are nice-to-haves but not required unless your project already relies on one of them. Developers can work on a typical codebase without knowledge of Laravel or Slim — separate PHP frameworks unrelated to Drupal.
• JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3 — Front-end developers need to know JavaScript for any custom interactivity, HTML for page structure, and CSS for layout and presentation. The more familiar they are with these core web technologies, the more efficiently they can elevate a project’s user experience.
• MySQL – Another nice-to-have skill is MySQL; candidates don’t specifically need MySQL experience unless your project dictates it. Drupal supports other SQL engines, like PostgreSQL, and most SQL-central database experience will yield quite a few transferable skills.
• Git – A candidate’s Git knowledge helps them comprehend your project’s source control strategy (e.g., Git flow) and related conventions. For a greenfield project, you’ll want a developer with enough Git experience to explain their preferred approach and its pros and cons.

To hire dedicated programmers, the best place to start is to list the specific technologies used in your project. This list will help you write better job descriptions, filter rėsumės effectively, and conduct insightful interviews.

How Can You Write a Job Description for Your Drupal Project?

List your project requirements, focusing on essential skills and technologies, so you can accurately customize a job description template. Provide as many relevant details as possible, including:

1. Accepted engagement models: Whether you’re looking for full-time developers for your in-house team or freelance experts, candidates should understand the nature and duration of the role. To ensure your project’s success, whether you need a single developer or a dedicated team depends on your project’s scope and complexity.
2. Relevant technologies: Highlight whether the role has a front- or back-end focus, which SQL engine your project uses, the need for experience with particular code deployment processes, and any special integrations your product relies on. Sharing how many users and clients the project serves helps provide potential candidates with an idea of the project’s scale and needs.
3. Business goals: The company’s and overall project goals are helpful for candidates. For example, if you’re migrating from a legacy codebase, it’s critical to include the details of its technology stack.
4. Size of the company: Many developers are interested in joining a startup’s initial team, while others prefer the stability of a larger organization.
5. Project management methodology: Share your company’s project management methodology, whether derived from Agile or a more waterfall-based system.

Doing so will help candidates self-select, saving time for both them and your organization.

What Are the Most Important Interview Questions?

Since Drupal development involves several other technologies, an effective job interview will mirror the several layers of Drupal development’s stack, according to need. Keeping in mind whether you’re hiring a back-end, front-end, or full-stack developer, it makes sense to mix interview questions with a few about HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, PHP, and/or MySQL, and any others applicable to your particular project’s tech stack (and legacy tech stack). The overall goal is worth considering—for example, it’s appropriate to touch on some e-commerce specifics in an e-commerce development interview.

Even in an interview focused on technical skills, the best questions are sometimes open-ended, providing the opportunity for insightful dialogue and a consequent look at the candidate’s communication skills. Here are seven ideas for questions that can help you find the right hire for your developer position, starting with fundamentals and then moving on to more complex ones.

1. Which language is Drupal developed in?

PHP is the framework’s core language. However, PHP skills aren’t the only factor to consider when hiring. Experience in handling production in Drupal environments is necessary.

It is worth noting that PHP is not the most accessible programming language. Common PHP mistakes can significantly impact security, performance, and debugging efficiency, so it pays to screen for in-depth knowledge of PHP best practices before hiring a candidate.

2. Which PHP frameworks are relevant to Drupal development?

Symfony is the leading PHP framework used in Drupal development. Since version 8 of the platform, its core has used Symfony in components like ClassLoader and HttpFoundation and features like routing, event dispatching, and the Twig template engine. Thus, developers will often interact with Symfony while creating custom modules. Generally speaking, frameworks are a smart choice for any back-end development, especially when building larger projects, as they allow the developer to focus more on the system’s architecture and keep the code streamlined. However, this is not a strict requirement.

Alternatively, Laravel can be used for Drupal development—as can the PHP microframework Slim—but is often seen as a less efficient alternative.

3. What are your top three considerations when migrating a project from Drupal 7 to 10?

There are several considerations when migrating to the newer version of Drupal. A skillful answer will consider some, if not all, of the following:

• How to perform a Drupal migration using the Migrate API and other third-party tools
• How to cover existing functionalities with the modules available in Drupal 10, especially if further custom module development time is needed to ensure compatibility
• How to ensure that a smooth migration plan will include maintenance of current UX standards, especially regarding themes
• Whether the team has sufficient resources to meet new server and infrastructure requirements, including the time needed to implement and support them during migration
• How to make users aware of the differences between Drupal 7 and 10, and how to get the most out of Drupal 10 for particular use cases

This question is vital because version 7 is obsolete (unsupported since January 5, 2025). Drupal 8 and 9 are already past their EOL (end of life) dates, unlike versions 10 and 11.

4. What’s the most significant difference between Drupal 9 and 10?

The major differences between the two versions include user-facing advances in forms and media management. Responses to this question can also focus on behind-the-scenes changes, including compatibility breakages that can impact migration time. Another critical difference is that Drupal 10 is still supported, whereas Drupal 9 is not. This question welcomes further discussion of the candidate’s experience since Drupal 10 has many well-known improvements over earlier versions.

5. How would you create a custom Drupal 10 theme from scratch?

There are multiple methods for creating a custom theme. Besides looking for a confident understanding of concepts like Twig templating, theme hooks, and preprocessing functions, this is a chance to dig deeper into the candidate’s preferences and development workflow, which includes the following:

• Module awareness.
• Practical approaches.
• Methodologies.
• Preferences around project organization. (Do they prefer test-driven development? Do they value documentation as an asset?)

6. How has Symfony adoption in Drupal’s core affected how you approach modern code?

Responses to this open-ended question will shed light on the candidate’s opinions about dependency injection, event-driven architecture, and routing. Even if they don’t embrace these elements and approaches in their custom module code, you can gauge the candidate’s expertise by how well they can explain Symfony components such as:

1. DependencyInjection
2. EventDispatcher
3. Routing

Experts know the major areas in which Drupal uses these components.

7. How do you handle errors on the back end so that users and administrators see a level of detail tailored to their roles?

Responses to this question will vary depending on the platform version:

• For projects involving Drupal 7, the candidate must be familiar with logging errors using watchdog().
• For projects using more recent versions, the candidate must know how to use dependency injection and LoggerChannelFactoryInterface.

Why Do Companies Hire Drupal Developers?

Companies hire Drupal web developers to build, maintain, scale, customize, or migrate websites. The platform is a popular CMS choice because it offers both scalability and a user-friendly front end. With the platform’s core team continuing to make user- and developer-friendly quality improvements, reduce technical debt, and leverage new features, the need for developers continues to trend upward.

With Drupal 7’s EOL date of January 5, 2025 now past, plenty of companies will want to plan their migration to Drupal 10 or 11 to continue to benefit from security patches and performance updates. As of January 2025, nearly two-fifths of known Drupal sites are still on version 7, meaning that competition for skilled developers is likely to increase to meet migration needs.

With the hiring process advice, job description outline, and interview questions provided in this guide, your company can ably position itself to attract and hire top-notch developers as needed to ensure your continued success.