How to Hire Drupal Developers: A Complete Guide

Hiring Drupal developers in Latin America gets you experienced PHP engineers at significantly less than US salaries and working through your business day. It’s the most practical way to fill the role without paying six figures for every senior candidate.

The catch is finding the right one. Drupal sits behind WordPress and Shopify on name recognition, so the pool of professionals who really know it is smaller. In many cases, the seat stays open while patches, module updates, and integration work pile onto whoever already runs your site. 

The recruiters you’d lean on often miss, too: one founder told us his recruiter kept sending candidates who covered only 60–70% of the skill set he asked for.

I know for a fact that talent exists in Latin America. It’s just the recruiters have not done the best job of sourcing the best ones.

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Budget is usually what starts the search: Hire With Near’s analysis of 2,000-plus hiring conversations found it’s the top driver for 41% of companies.

This guide covers how to hire Drupal developers, what the role costs, what to screen for, where to find candidates, and how to avoid the mistakes that cost companies their first-choice hire.

What Does a Drupal Developer Do?

Drupal developers build and maintain flexible, scalable websites and web applications using the Drupal CMS.

They work primarily in PHP, building custom modules, configuring core functionality, managing integrations, and optimizing performance. They’re responsible for everything from setting up site architecture and user permissions to debugging back-end issues and applying security patches.

Many assist with front-end work, but their main value lies in extending and stabilizing Drupal’s back-end to meet business needs.

You’ll often find them working alongside project managers, UX designers, and front-end developers as part of a broader team.

That said, some Drupal developers take on full-stack responsibilities, especially on smaller teams. These developers may work with front-end technologies like Twig templates, SCSS, and JavaScript, but typically only to implement and support functionality rather than lead on UI or UX design.

Drupal developers are the technical backbone that keeps your site running fast, keeps it patched, and lets it scale as your business grows.

Drupal Developer, Drupal Engineer, or Drupal Consultant: Which Role Are You Hiring?

Most companies searching for any of these titles are hiring a Drupal developer: the person who builds and maintains the site day to day. The other titles describe different scopes of work, and US employers use them loosely, so it helps to know what each one signals.

• Drupal developer: Builds and maintains the site day to day, covering custom modules, content types, integrations, patches, and performance. The most common hire, and what most job posts mean.
• Drupal engineer: The same core work with more weight on architecture and scale, usually on multi-site or high-traffic builds. Many US employers use “Drupal engineer” interchangeably with developer, so read the responsibilities, not the title.
• Drupal consultant: Advisory rather than hands-on daily, covering audits, migration planning, version upgrades, architecture recommendations. Usually engaged per project rather than as a permanent team member.
• Drupal programmer: A resume-era synonym for developer. You’ll still see it on CVs and older job boards, alongside “Drupal expert,” which signals seniority rather than a distinct role.

For your job post, I recommend using “Drupal developer” as the title (because that’s what candidates search for) and describe the scope in the first two lines. If you genuinely need architecture and scale work, put that in the requirements rather than switching the title.

How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Drupal Developer?

Hiring a Drupal developer in Latin America costs between $30,000 and $66,000 per year depending on seniority, against $80,000 to $189,000 for an equivalent US hire.

US salaries have climbed steadily, driven by demand and a shrinking pool of PHP specialists. The JetBrains 2025 State of Developer Ecosystem survey of 24,534 developers lists PHP among the languages in long-term decline as newer developers pick up Rust, Go, and Kotlin. 

That doesn’t mean PHP is going away. It means fewer developers are choosing it, so strong PHP developers, and by extension strong Drupal developers, take longer to find.

Those numbers are steep and they’re one of the main reasons US companies look at nearshore and offshore software development in Latin America, where the cost of living is lower, so salary expectations for experienced engineers sit well below US rates.

Here’s what hiring a Drupal developer costs compared to an equivalent US hire, according to Hire With Near’s salary benchmarks and our IT roles salary guide:

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For the most up-to-date figures, see Hire With Near’s US vs Latin America Salary Guide.

That’s savings of up to 71%, depending on seniority. What matters about those Latin American figures is that they aren’t junior-developer pricing; they’re what experienced engineers cost in those markets. 

According to Hire With Near’s 2026 State of LatAm Hiring Report, 98% of the engineering roles we filled in Latin America last year went to mid-level or senior professionals, split 47% mid-level and 51% senior. The same regional talent pool that supplies experienced back-end developers supplies experienced Drupal developers.

These salary differences reflect local economic conditions, not differences in talent. Pay fairly within the local market and you’ll hire senior engineers for a rate lower than a US equivalent. Many companies put that difference into a bigger team rather than banking it.

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What Skills Should You Look For When Hiring a Drupal Developer?

Hiring the right Drupal developer means finding candidates who bring a mix of strong back-end skills, clear communication, and a thoughtful approach to building scalable systems that support your business long-term.

In my nearly four years recruiting technical talent at Hire With Near, the strongest engineers I place aren’t the ones with the longest tool lists. When I’m evaluating a Drupal developer, I ask them to walk me through a project: what their role was and what they built. If the explanation disappears into jargon, they’re usually repeating terminology rather than describing work they owned. 

One thing worth knowing before you start: PHP and WordPress talent is plentiful across Latin America, so a Drupal search there tends to move faster than clients expect.

Here’s how to break that down.

Hard skills (the must-haves)

These are the foundational technical skills every Drupal developer should bring to the table.

• PHP proficiency: Since Drupal is built on PHP, your developer needs to write clean, maintainable code in this language. They should be comfortable working within Drupal’s hook system, OOP patterns, and Symfony components.
• Drupal 11 and Drupal 10 architecture: If you’re hiring a Drupal 10 developer today, know that Drupal 11 is the current actively supported branch and Drupal 10 reaches end of life in December 2026, so a team still on 10 is on a clock. Look for developers who understand how to structure content types, configure Views, and manage configuration files using Drupal’s built-in tools. If a candidate’s hands-on experience stops at Drupal 9, unsupported since November 2023, ask which upgrades they’ve run since, how they handled deprecated code, and what broke.
• Module development: Both custom and contributed modules are core to how Drupal sites scale. Your candidate should be able to write custom modules from scratch, extend existing ones, and know when to use each approach.
• REST APIs and integrations: Many Drupal projects involve integrating with CRMs, ERPs, or marketing platforms. Look for experience working with RESTful APIs or JSON:API to connect external systems.
• Version control with Git: This is a basic expectation on any modern development team. Ask how they’ve used Git in collaborative environments and whether they’re familiar with branching strategies like Git Flow.
• Database experience: Drupal primarily uses MySQL and PostgreSQL. A good developer should be able to write queries, understand database structure, and debug performance issues at the query level.

Soft skills (equally important)

Drupal developers work closely with designers, product managers, and other engineers, so soft skills carry as much weight as the technical list above.

• Clear communication: Look for candidates who can explain their technical decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Problem-solving mindset: Drupal is a flexible platform. However, that flexibility can introduce complexity. Strong candidates know how to troubleshoot issues methodically and propose scalable solutions that align with product goals.
• Accountability and ownership: You want someone who takes initiative and responsibility, not someone who waits to be told what to fix. Ask about times they’ve owned a project or had to make tough trade-offs.
• Receptiveness to feedback: A developer’s ability to grow often depends on how they receive input. Ask how they handle code reviews or what they’ve learned from past feedback.
• Team collaboration: Great Drupal projects rarely happen in isolation. The best developers know how to work within Agile teams, contribute during standups, and align their work with sprint priorities.

Nice-to-have skills (the differentiators)

These bonus skills aren’t required, but they can make onboarding smoother and your project stronger.

• Front-end experience: While not all Drupal devs touch the UI, familiarity with Twig templating, SCSS, and basic JavaScript is helpful. This is especially true for full-stack roles or smaller teams.
• Docker and CI/CD experience: Automated testing and deployment pipelines are standard in modern teams. Developers with Docker or CI/CD experience (e.g., GitHub Actions, GitLab CI) can deliver code more reliably.
• Use of profiling and debugging tools: Xdebug is widely used across the Drupal community, according to the 2025 Global Drupal Developer Survey. Proficiency here shows that your candidate knows how to track down performance issues and build more efficient code.
• Community contribution: A candidate who’s contributed to Drupal.org modules or forums tends to stay current and shows a strong grasp of how Drupal works under the hood. A bonus, not a requirement.

Headless and decoupled Drupal

Some companies run Drupal purely as a content back-end, with a separate front-end built in React, Next.js, or Vue. That’s a headless or decoupled build, and it’s common when the same content has to feed a website, a mobile app, and a partner integration at once.

If that’s your setup, you need a headless Drupal developer specifically: screen for JSON:API or GraphQL experience plus one front-end framework consuming Drupal as a content source. 

Ask what they exposed, how they handled caching and authentication across the boundary, and what broke. A developer who has only built traditionally themed Drupal sites can learn this, but won’t arrive fluent in it.

Where Can You Find and Hire Great Drupal Developers?

You have four realistic ways to find a Drupal developer: source and hire on your own, use a freelance platform, bring one in through staff augmentation, or work with a staffing partner that recruits and employs on your behalf. Getting there involves two decisions, in this order:

1. Should you hire locally, remotely within the US, or look internationally?
2. Which sourcing channel is best suited for this kind of role?

How to decide between local, US-remote, or international talent

The first step is deciding how wide to cast your net. While Drupal development can be done effectively from anywhere, the right location strategy depends on your priorities: collaboration, cost, speed, and experience level.

• Local (in-office): Hiring someone onsite makes sense if your team is office-based and you need regular in-person collaboration. It simplifies admin and communication, but limits your pool and comes with higher costs, especially in major US cities.
• US-remote: Expanding your search across the US gives you access to more talent while retaining cultural familiarity and shared business practices. But you’re still paying US-level salaries, and demand for experienced developers remains high.
• Offshore/nearshore: Looking globally gives you a far bigger pool of candidates, and offshore developer rates are often lower, with senior engineers who have years of production Drupal and PHP work behind them. Drupal is widely used in Latin America, South Asia, and Eastern Europe, all of which produce strong technical talent. If overlap with your workday matters, hire Drupal developers in Latin America rather than a region that works while your office is closed.

For many US companies, Latin America strikes the right balance:

• Your Drupal developer is online during your business day, wherever your team sits in the US, so stand-ups, code review, and same-day fixes happen live instead of waiting overnight.
• English proficiency is high, particularly among engineers who’ve worked with US companies before.
• Cultural alignment with US business practices and working norms tends to be strong.
• Salary expectations are sustainable and fair, holding up over years rather than months.

If you haven’t hired outside the US before, our guide to hiring remotely in Latin America covers the practical setup. For the country-by-country picture, see hiring developers in Latin America.

Choosing the right sourcing channel

Once you’ve decided where to hire, the next step is choosing how to find and engage candidates. Each channel offers its own mix of reach, speed, and screening effort.

• Sourcing on your own means posting to a job board or LinkedIn and screening every applicant yourself, plus engaging with an employer of record to handle contracts, payroll, benefits, and local compliance for a cross-border hire. The trade-off to know upfront: an EOR handles the employment side, not the recruiting, so finding and vetting candidates stays with you.
• Freelance platforms move faster but are built for project work, and Drupal rarely ends at launch. Security patches, contributed module updates, and version upgrades keep arriving.
• Nearshore staff augmentation sits in between, with the firm employing a pre-vetted developer who works on your team under your direction.
• A specialist staffing partner does both jobs at once: sourcing and vetting against your stack, then handling payroll, benefits, and compliance once you hire. That’s why most companies hiring a full-time remote Drupal developer end up working with one of the LatAm staffing firms that recruit in the region.

How to Hire the Best Remote Drupal Developers, Stage by Stage

Hire a Drupal developer in three stages: scope the role and write a job description that filters, screen with a short piece of real Drupal work you review together on a call, then move to an offer inside two or three rounds. The hard part is hiring someone who can write clean, scalable code and works well with your team. That’s where most companies hit a wall.

Coming back to the 2025 Global Drupal Developer Survey, which drew 753 responses from 58 countries: Drupal developers work everywhere, from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe to Latin American tech hubs like Brazil and Argentina. 

The pool is wide and competitive, which makes knowing where to start the hard part. The stage-by-stage version below is how you narrow it down.

Stage 1: Before and during sourcing

Before you post anything, take a step back and think about what *kind* of Drupal developer your team really needs. Are you looking for someone to build complex back-end logic? Extend custom modules? Or also touch some front-end theming?

Clarity matters. Companies often over-specify requirements, layering on front-end frameworks, DevOps experience, and API architecture until the role becomes unrealistic. Focus instead on the core tech stack, Drupal version experience (10 or 11), and business-critical tasks they’ll handle.

Your job description should act like a filter. Be clear about the Drupal-specific responsibilities, tools, and workflows you use. If you rely heavily on GitHub Actions for CI/CD, or your team works in two-week sprints using Scrum, say so.

Stage 2: Screening and evaluation

To test a Drupal developer’s skills, give them a short, scoped piece of real Drupal work, then review it with them on a call. A polished resume doesn’t always reflect strong coding fundamentals, and AI-assisted CVs have widened that gap. 

For Drupal developers, a good test project could be debugging a broken module, refactoring a messy block of PHP, or building a JSON:API endpoint with tests. This helps you evaluate how they code and think.

Once the take-home is submitted, don’t just read through it alone. Schedule a short call to walk through their work together. Ask why they approached the problem a certain way.

Let them explain trade-offs. This reveals communication skills, collaboration style, and whether they understand their own code or just Googled a workaround.

Look for ownership and self-awareness

Great Drupal developers push code, but they also know how a module choice today shows up as maintenance work six months from now.

Ask about mistakes they’ve made and how they’ve handled feedback. If a candidate can’t explain what went wrong in a previous project (or blames others), that’s a red flag. The best developers are transparent, open to critique, and constantly learning.

Stage 3: Making the offer and closing the deal

If you find someone great, don’t sit on it. Good developers with strong communication skills and real-world Drupal experience get picked up quickly. Delays in scheduling interviews or extending an offer can cost you the best candidate on your list.

Build an offer that reflects what devs care about

Compensation matters, but it’s not the whole picture. According to the HackerRank 2025 Developer Skills Report, most developers prioritize opportunities for career growth and staying current with new technologies.

For Drupal developers, that means projects running on current versions: Drupal 11, or Drupal 10 with an upgrade path. It also means modern tooling like Docker, GitHub Actions, and API-first development, plus room to lead or architect rather than just maintain legacy code.

Work-life balance, clear roadmaps, and a sense of ownership also carry weight. Offering flexibility, learning opportunities, and paid time off aligned with their region can make your offer stand out. This is especially true when hiring internationally.

Set expectations from day one

When you extend the offer, include a simple 30-60-90 day outline. What should success look like in the first month? What kind of support will they have? This helps your new hire ramp up faster and gives them a clearer sense of purpose from day one.

You can read more about how to make strong job offers and how doing so leads to securing and keeping top talent in our detailed guide.

Top Interview Questions for Hiring Drupal Developers That Reveal the Right Fit

Four questions tell you most of what you need to know about a Drupal candidate: how they solved a tricky Drupal problem, how they would speed up a slow Drupal site, how they decide between a custom and a contributed module, and how they test a new feature. 

The right questions go past PHP experience and which modules a candidate has used. They reveal how the person thinks, collaborates, and works through a real problem.

“Tell me about a Drupal project where you solved a tricky problem. What was your role?”

This question tests problem-solving, ownership, and communication. A strong answer should walk through a specific issue, how they diagnosed it, and what role they played in resolving it.

Look for candidates who explain their decision-making clearly, reference technical trade-offs, and demonstrate hands-on contribution rather than passive involvement.

A red flag here is vague descriptions, blaming others, or not being able to articulate their role.

“How would you improve the performance of a Drupal site?”

Drupal performance often comes down to how well a developer understands caching, content rendering, and database optimization.

Strong candidates might mention techniques like using Redis or Memcached for caching, enabling Drupal’s built-in performance settings, optimizing Views queries, or lazy-loading assets. Watch for those who explain *why* they’d take each step, not just list features.

Weak answers rely too heavily on general advice or skip over the back-end implications.

“How do you decide when to build a custom module versus using a contributed one?”

This question gets to the heart of architectural decision-making. A good developer should weigh time, maintainability, and security when making this call.

Look for responses that mention reviewing contributed module support, update frequency, community adoption, and whether the functionality aligns closely with business needs.

Avoid candidates who default to “just build it ourselves” without considering existing solutions.

“Can you walk me through how you would test a new feature in Drupal?”

Testing is often overlooked in interviews, but it’s critical for long-term stability. Strong answers should include a mix of manual and automated methods, such as unit tests, functional testing, and test environments. Listen for tools like PHPUnit or Drupal’s SimpleTest.

This also reveals how clean and scalable their code really is. Developers who mention test-driven development or CI/CD integration are often better prepared to deliver production-ready work.

If you want to go one step further in your interview process, give candidates a short, real-world take-home task.

It works, and it’s what developers prefer. According to recent data, 66% of developers would rather be evaluated on practical challenges, and 78% say most hiring tests don’t reflect the work they’re hired to do. So scope the task from your backlog, not a puzzle site.

There’s a second reason to run one. Federico Bilello, a Software Engineering Recruiter at Hire With Near, puts it plainly:

Even though I do everything I can to verify a candidate’s skill set before they get to the client, there’s always a small percentage who make it through to the technical interview. The only way to truly find out if someone is proficient is that technical interview. That’s where the truth comes out.

— Federico Bilello, Software Engineering Recruiter, Hire With Near

What Are the Common Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring a Drupal Developer?

The five mistakes that most often cost companies their first-choice Drupal hire are over-emphasizing degrees, dragging out the process, hiding the tech stack and roadmap, skipping the coding test, and treating communication as a nice-to-have. 

Even with a solid hiring process, it’s easy to fall into patterns that lead to poor fits, delayed timelines, or talent walking away mid-process. 

Here is each one and what to do instead:

Overemphasizing resumes or formal degrees

Some of the best developers don’t have traditional computer science degrees. This is especially true in Latin America, where many engineers start working before finishing school, or never pursued a degree at all.

I usually recommend that clients don’t make a college degree a must-have for engineering roles. If you filter out candidates based solely on education, you risk missing highly skilled developers who’ve contributed to major Drupal builds, customized core modules, or improved site performance in high-traffic environments.

What to do instead: Focus on real-world experience and problem-solving skills. Ask candidates about the modules they’ve built, the challenges they’ve solved, and the architecture decisions they’ve made. The best developers can walk you through those projects clearly and confidently.

Dragging out the process with too many interviews

Drupal developers are in high demand. If your interview process takes weeks and involves multiple coding tests and redundant calls, strong candidates will move on.

What to do instead: Set a tight timeline with no more than 2–3 rounds: an intro call, a short take-home or live coding session, and a final decision review. Keep communication clear and fast. If you wait, someone else will move faster.

Not being transparent about your tech stack or roadmap

It’s a red flag for candidates when a company isn’t clear about whether Drupal is part of the future or just a legacy system they plan to phase out.

If you’re unclear about which version of Drupal you’re using or whether a migration is planned, you’ll likely lose candidates who want long-term growth and technical relevance.

What to do instead: Be upfront. Explain the current stack, any planned upgrades or migrations, and how this role fits into the roadmap. It builds trust and helps both sides assess fit.

Skipping the coding test, or not reviewing it together

Handing out a generic assessment and grading it in silence tells you little. You’re hiring a collaborator, so watch how they talk through the work, not only whether the code runs.

What to do instead: Assign a short, relevant task (like building or debugging a module), then review it together in a call. This gives insight into their thinking, communication style, and ability to explain trade-offs.

Underestimating the importance of communication skills

Technical strength is essential, but Drupal developers often work with designers, content teams, and the marketing or product leads who own the site. If they can’t clearly explain their decisions or receive feedback constructively, they’ll slow down your team.

What to do instead: Pay close attention to how candidates communicate during interviews, email follow-ups, and test reviews. Look for clarity, curiosity, and collaboration, not just technical expertise.

Why Should You Work With a Recruiting Partner?

A recruiting partner can turn a months-long Drupal search into a weeks-long one, because the sourcing, technical screening, and salary benchmarking are done before a candidate reaches your inbox. I’ll admit it: I’m biased. Helping companies hire software engineering talent in Latin America is what Hire With Near does. But I’ve also seen the difference it makes when businesses stop trying to go it alone.

Most of our clients come to us after spending weeks or months searching on their own. They’ve posted the job, sifted through unqualified resumes, maybe even hired someone who didn’t work out. By the time they reach out, they’re behind schedule, over budget, and still don’t have the right developer.

Rankings.io shows the alternative. The Inc. 5000 SEO agency had one HR manager, 11 open roles, and technical requirements it wasn’t willing to compromise on. 

Working with Hire With Near, they filled all 11, including two web developers and a web designer, at an average three-week time to hire and $463,000 in annual savings against US salaries. Their HR Director put it this way:

When I check with department managers, they say ’It’s like 100 out of 10.’ The talent through Hire With Near has been professional, articulate, intelligent, and absolutely the right fit for our team.

— Gillian Alvillar, HR Director, Rankings.io

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When you work with someone who specializes in sourcing developers, especially across international markets, you cut out the noise. You get pre-vetted candidates who’ve already been screened for technical skill, communication, and cultural fit, so you’re not starting from scratch. You also get guidance on salary expectations, role clarity, and how to build an offer that lands your first-choice hire.

This is especially true for growing teams looking to hire offshore developers for their startup or scaleup without getting bogged down in the complexity of international sourcing, contracts, and compliance.

It also helps to work with recruiters who specialize in IT and tech hiring rather than a generalist agency. The questions that screen out a weak PHP CMS candidate aren’t the ones that screen out a weak data or sales hire.

And when the gap on your team sits above an individual contributor, Hire With Near also runs executive search for engineering leadership, including VP of Engineering and CTO-level roles.

Final Thoughts

The Drupal developer hire that works out is rarely the one with the longest tool list. It’s the developer who can explain a build to someone non-technical, make a module call that still holds up a year later, and own the maintenance that comes after launch. Screen for that, keep your process to two or three rounds, and move quickly when you find it.

If you’d like some help to run the search, that’s what we do. Hire With Near connects US companies with vetted Drupal developers in Latin America who work during hours that overlap your team’s day, write clean code, and expect fair-market rates.

Book a free consultation and we’ll talk through what you need, share salary benchmarks, and show you how the process works.

Not ready for a call? See pre-vetted Drupal developers in Latin America and get a feel for who’s available before you talk to anyone.

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