Your developer isn’t hiding problems from you on purpose.
But here’s the reality: they’re focused on building features, not monitoring infrastructure. Infrastructure feels like “not my job” to most developers. And admitting “I don’t know” about server configuration or SSL management? That’s hard for anyone.
The result? Critical issues pile up silently—costing you customers, money, or both.
Not sure if you have these problems? Scan your website free – takes 60 seconds
Why Developers Stay Quiet
Before we dive into the problems, understand this isn’t about bad developers. Most are skilled at what you hired them for: writing code and shipping features.
But:
- They’re not DevOps specialists
- They assume infrastructure “just works” if nothing’s obviously broken
- They don’t want to seem incompetent
- They’re worried you’ll panic over technical details
- They genuinely might not realize these issues exist
You still need to know about them. Let’s walk through the 8 most common problems we see.
What Our Scanner Can (and Can’t) Check
Before we dive in, let’s be transparent: our free scanner checks publicly visible issues only.
✅ What it CAN check:
- SSL certificate validity and expiration
- Site speed and performance metrics
- Mobile compatibility
- DNS speed
- Email configuration (MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC records)
- Mixed content issues
- Whether your site is currently accessible
❌ What it CANNOT check:
- Whether backups exist or if they work
- If monitoring is configured
- Software versions on your server
- Internal security configurations
- Hosting costs or infrastructure setup
- Historical uptime data
For those issues, you’ll need to ask your developer directly or get an infrastructure audit. Now, let’s look at the 7 problems…
Problem #1: SSL Certificate Expires in 30 Days (Or Already Did)
What your developer knows: “Yeah, should probably renew that”
What they’re not telling you: “I don’t actually know how, and I’m hoping it auto-renews”
The Business Impact
When users see a “Not Secure” warning, 83% will abandon your website immediately. That’s not a typo—83% of potential customers gone before they even see your content.
Modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) display prominent security warnings for sites without valid SSL certificates. Browsers now show “Not Secure” warnings for any site that doesn’t use HTTPS, making SSL certificates essential for maintaining user trust.
Why They’re Quiet
SSL certificate renewal is often delegated to hosting providers or DevOps specialists. Your developer might:
- Not have access to the certificate management system
- Assume it auto-renews (many don’t)
- Not know the renewal process for your specific setup
- Be embarrassed to admit they’ve never done it
Check Your Certificate Status
Quick check: Scan your site – shows SSL validity and expiration date
Red flag: Certificate expires in less than 30 days
What to Ask
“When does our SSL certificate expire, and how do we renew it?”
Good answer: Specific date, clear renewal process
Concerning answer: “I think it auto-renews?” or “Let me check…”
Real cost: Marcus’s SSL expired on a Friday. He didn’t notice until Monday morning when customers started complaining. Weekend sales lost: €8,400.
Problem #2: Your Backups Have Never Been Tested
What your developer knows: “Backups are running… I think”
What they’re not telling you: “I’ve never actually tested restoring from backup”
The Business Impact
The statistics here are brutal:
- More than half of all data backups fail
- 93% of organizations that experience prolonged data loss (lasting 10 days or more) go bankrupt within the following year
- 67% of organizations experienced “significant data loss” in the past year
Having a backup isn’t the same as having a working backup.
Why They’re Quiet
Testing backup restoration is tedious work that keeps getting postponed. It requires:
- Taking time away from feature development
- Setting up a test environment
- Actually verifying data integrity
- Documenting the restoration process
Nobody wants to do this until they absolutely have to—and by then it’s too late.
The Hidden Danger
96% of modern ransomware attacks attempt to infect not only primary systems but also backup repositories. If your backups are compromised and you’ve never tested them, you won’t know until disaster strikes.
What to Ask
The critical question: “When did you last test restoring from backup?”
Red flag answers:
- “The hosting provider handles that” (have they verified?)
- “It’s all in Git” (code ≠ database)
- “I set it up when we launched” (2 years ago?)
- Silence or “uh…”
What to do:
- Ask them to schedule a backup restoration test this month
- If they seem uncertain → Time for an infrastructure audit
- Note: Backup configuration requires server access - you’ll need to ask your developer directly or hire someone to audit your infrastructure
Problem #3: Site Performance is Slowly Getting Worse
What your developer knows: “It feels a bit slower lately”
What they’re not telling you: “I don’t have time to investigate performance issues”
The Business Impact
The data on website speed is clear:
- The probability of a visitor bouncing increases 32% as page load time increases from one second to three seconds
- Sites that load in 1 second have a 7% bounce rate, while sites that load in 5 seconds have a 38% bounce rate
- A one-second delay in page load speed results in a 7% loss in conversions
- The BBC’s website loses 10% of its visitors for every additional second of load time
For an ecommerce site doing €100,000/month, a 2-second slowdown could cost you €14,000 monthly in lost conversions.
Why They’re Quiet
Performance degradation happens gradually:
- Images accumulate without optimization
- Plugins get added but never removed
- Database queries get slower as data grows
- Third-party scripts pile up
Your developer sees it loading “fine” on their fast computer with cached data and no tracking scripts. They’re not experiencing what your customers experience.
The Developer Disconnect
82% of consumers say slow page speeds impact their purchasing decisions. But your developer loads the site in development mode with:
- Fast local machine
- Cached assets
- No analytics tracking
- No third-party scripts
- Ideal network conditions
Meanwhile, your customers hit it from:
- Mobile devices on cellular data
- Different countries with varying connection speeds
- First-time visits (no cache)
- All scripts and tracking pixels enabled
What to Ask
“Can you show me our actual page load time data from real users?”
Check yourself: Scan your site speed – shows real-world performance data
Industry benchmarks:
- The average page speed of a first-page Google result is 1.65 seconds
- The average page speed of a website is 3.21 seconds
If you’re over 3 seconds, you’re losing customers to faster competitors.
Problem #4: Security Updates Are 6+ Months Behind
What your developer knows: “We should probably update dependencies”
What they’re not telling you: “I’m scared updating will break things”
The Business Impact
The global average cost of a data breach is $4.9 million. For smaller companies, 26% that experienced cyberattacks lost between $250,000 and $500,000, while 13% lost more than $500,000.
Why They’re Quiet
Updating is risky in the short term:
- New versions might introduce breaking changes
- Testing takes time
- Something might break in production
- If it breaks, customers will complain immediately
So they delay. And delay. Until you’re running software with known security vulnerabilities.
The Dilemma
Your developer faces a choice:
- Update now: Small risk something breaks, spend time testing
- Update later: No immediate risk, but security vulnerabilities accumulate
Most choose “later.” Repeatedly.
What to Ask
- “When did we last update the server operating system?”
- “Are we running the latest version of [your platform]?”
- “How do you know if there are security vulnerabilities?”
Red flags:
- Can’t answer without checking
- Last update was over 6 months ago
- No process for monitoring vulnerabilities
The Real Numbers
68% of data breaches involved a non-malicious human mistake, often including failure to apply security updates on time.
Problem #5: No Monitoring = No Alerts When Things Break
What your developer knows: “We’ll find out if something breaks”
What they’re not telling you: “We’ll find out when customers complain”
The Business Impact
90% of mid-sized and large enterprises lose upwards of $300,000 per hour of downtime. For smaller companies, downtime costs can exceed $25,000 an hour.
But here’s the kicker: 51% of outages are avoidable according to IT decision-makers.
Why They’re Quiet
Setting up monitoring requires:
- Choosing monitoring tools
- Configuring alert thresholds
- Being on-call when alerts fire
- Actually responding to alerts
Your developer probably doesn’t want to be woken up at 2 AM. Who does?
The Silent Failures
Without monitoring, you don’t know about:
- Slow page loads (customers just leave)
- Intermittent errors (affect some users, not others)
- Background job failures (things stop working quietly)
- SSL certificates about to expire
- Disk space running out
- Memory leaks gradually killing performance
What to Ask
“Do we have monitoring set up? What alerts do you receive?”
Good answer: Specific monitoring tools, clear alert system, documented response procedures
Concerning answer: “We check the logs if something seems wrong”
Reality check: Organizations experienced an average of 86 outages a year, with 55% reporting weekly outages. If you’re not monitoring, you’re not catching most of these.
Problem #6: Mobile Users Are Getting a Broken Experience
What your developer knows: “Works fine on my laptop”
What they’re not telling you: “I haven’t tested it on mobile lately”
The Business Impact
46% of people will leave a website if it takes more than 4 seconds to load on mobile. 53% of visitors to mobile sites leave when mobile pages take longer than three seconds to load.
If 60% of your traffic is mobile (which is typical), and your mobile site is broken or slow, you’re losing 60% of potential customers.
Why They’re Quiet
Developers typically work on:
- Large desktop monitors
- Fast computers
- High-speed internet connections
- Latest browser versions
They test by resizing their browser window. That’s not the same as using an actual phone on a cellular connection.
The Testing Gap
Real mobile testing requires:
- Actual devices (multiple types)
- Different network speeds
- Various screen sizes
- Touch interactions (not mouse clicks)
- Different mobile browsers
Most developers do responsive design (it scales to fit) but don’t test actual mobile performance.
What to Ask
“When did you last test the site on an actual phone?”
Test it yourself:
- Pull out your phone right now
- Visit your site on cellular data (not WiFi)
- Try to complete a key action (purchase, signup, etc.)
Or scan your mobile performance for objective data
Problem #7: Hosting Costs Are Climbing But Performance Isn’t
What your developer knows: “The hosting bill is getting expensive”
What they’re not telling you: “I don’t know how to optimize it or if we’re overpaying”
The Business Impact
Many businesses are overpaying 30-50% for hosting because:
- They haven’t reviewed pricing in years
- Resources are over-provisioned “just in case”
- They’re using services they don’t need
- Better alternatives exist but migration seems daunting
Why They’re Quiet
Your developer might not:
- Understand infrastructure pricing models
- Know how to evaluate alternatives
- Want to admit they over-provisioned
- Have time to research and migrate
They’re also worried about being blamed if they reduce resources and something breaks.
What to Ask
- “Can you break down our infrastructure costs?”
- “What would happen if we grew 2x—what costs would increase?”
- “When did we last evaluate cheaper alternatives?”
Red flags:
- Can’t explain where money goes
- Hasn’t evaluated alternatives in 2+ years
- Shrugs at the monthly bill
Reality check: For a typical SMB/SaaS:
- Under €500/mo = probably appropriate
- €500-1,000/mo = fine if you can explain why
- €1,000+/mo = should have detailed breakdown
Problem #8: You Don’t Actually Own Your Infrastructure
What your developer knows: “The website runs on AWS, code is in GitHub, domain is with GoDaddy”
What they’re not telling you: “…but everything’s in my account, and I’m not sure how to transfer ownership”
The Business Impact
If your developer quit tomorrow, could you:
- Log into your hosting account?
- Access your code repository?
- Renew your domain?
- Change DNS settings?
- Deploy updates?
Many founders discover they can’t do any of these things—because their developer set everything up in their own accounts “for convenience.”
The data is stark:
- 30% of all data breaches now involve third parties—double the 2024 rate (Verizon DBIR 2025)
- 36% of breaches originated from third-party compromises, costing $4.91M on average (IBM 2025)
- Multiple documented cases of developers demanding $5,000+ ransoms to transfer domains back to clients who paid for them
Why They’re Quiet
Your developer set everything up in their account because:
- It was faster and easier during initial setup
- They didn’t think about long-term ownership
- Transferring ownership feels complicated
- They genuinely think “you have access” (read-only doesn’t count)
They’re not trying to hold your business hostage—but the outcome is the same if something goes wrong.
Real-World Cases
The AWS Account Lockout
An IT professional left a company with root AWS account access. The MFA was tied to his corporate phone, which the company deactivated. When their SQL server became unresponsive, they discovered they were completely locked out—no way to access their own infrastructure. (AWS account recovery)
The Google Analytics Hostage
An agency insisted they owned the client’s Google Analytics account—even after the client had paid all bills and fulfilled their contract. The agency refused to release it. The client lost years of traffic data and insights because the analytics were set up in the agency’s account. (Agency holding data hostage)
The Disappeared Designer
A web designer stopped responding to emails and calls during a family emergency. The client discovered they had zero access: no hosting login, no FTP credentials, no WordPress access, no email account passwords. The website became frozen in time—no updates possible until they could work with the hosting provider to recover access. (Designer disappeared)
These aren’t about bad people—life happens, businesses fail, relationships change. The problem is the dependency, not the person.
What to Ask
“Can you show me how to log into our hosting, code repository, and domain accounts? I want to ensure I can access everything if needed.”
Good answer: Walks you through the accounts, you verify you have admin access
Concerning answer: “Everything’s in my account, but don’t worry about it” or “You don’t need access to that”
Red flag: Gets defensive about transferring ownership
The Ownership Checklist
You should have admin access to:
- Hosting account (AWS/Azure/DigitalOcean/etc.)
- Code repository (GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket)
- Domain registrar
- DNS provider (if separate from registrar)
- Email service (if using custom domain)
- Analytics and monitoring tools
Don’t just have “an account”—verify you have ADMIN/OWNER access.
Take Action
Complete the 5-minute vendor dependency assessment to identify exactly where you’re vulnerable. You’ll get a prioritized action plan for taking back control—before it becomes an emergency.
The Real Pattern
These 8 problems share common traits:
✅ Your developer probably knows about them ✅ They’re not being malicious or lazy ✅ Infrastructure isn’t their core expertise ❌ They’re waiting for you to ask (or for something to break) ❌ They don’t want to worry you with technical details ❌ They genuinely might not realize how severe these are
What You Actually Need
Not a new developer – yours is probably skilled at what you hired them for.
What’s missing: Someone who:
- Proactively thinks about infrastructure health
- Monitors systems before they break
- Translates technical problems into business decisions
- Takes ownership of reliability and security
- Works alongside your existing team
How to Start the Conversation
Don’t: Send your developer this article with “FIX ALL OF THIS NOW”
Do: Pick 2-3 questions from above and ask them
Even better: Run a free scan first, then share the results
You’ll get:
- Objective data (not assumptions)
- Specific issues prioritized
- Clear next steps
Then have a conversation. Most developers will appreciate:
- You asking informed questions
- Having concrete data to work with
- Understanding you want to help, not blame
The Second Opinion Option
If your developer:
- Gets defensive when you ask these questions
- Can’t answer basic infrastructure questions
- Says everything is fine but data shows otherwise
- Hasn’t thought about these issues
You might need help. Not to replace them—to complement them.
That’s what I do. I work alongside existing development teams, think proactively about infrastructure, and translate technical decisions into plain business language.
No jargon. No vendor lock-in. No emergency firefighting.
Book a 30-minute consultation – we’ll review your scan results and I’ll tell you honestly what needs attention.
Key Takeaways
The 7 Hidden Problems:
- SSL Certificate Expiring - 83% of visitors leave when they see “Not Secure” warnings
- Untested Backups - 50%+ of backups fail; test restoration regularly
- Degrading Performance - Every 1-second delay = 7% conversion loss
- Outdated Security - 68% of breaches involve human mistakes like skipped updates
- No Monitoring - 51% of outages are preventable with proper monitoring
- Broken Mobile Experience - 60% of traffic is mobile; test on actual devices
- Rising Hosting Costs - Most businesses overpay 30-50% without realizing it
Start Here:
- Scan your website for free (60 seconds)
- Pick 2-3 questions from this article
- Have a blame-free conversation with your developer
- Get objective data before making decisions
Remember: Your developer isn’t the problem. The gap is in infrastructure expertise, not coding ability.
Sources & Further Reading: