I go to a lot of networking events where non-technical people have an idea, but they don’t have the technical know-how to build it themselves. They want to hire a CTO or a developer, but they don’t know how to evaluate their skills.
I am going to provide some ways you can vet these people. None of these methods will be perfect because the best way to vet a software engineer is to work with them. But it can make you more confident in your decision.