Hiring for Contentful: The Complete Guide

What Contentful Developers Actually Build

Before adding Contentful to your job requirements, understand what working with Contentful actually involves:

Media & Entertainment Platforms

Spotify uses Contentful for their podcasting and marketing infrastructure:

• Podcast metadata management and editorial workflows
• Marketing landing pages with A/B testing variants
• Campaign content across multiple markets and languages
• Integration with internal tools for content operations

Telus Digital manages enterprise-scale content with Contentful:

• 20+ brand websites from a single content platform
• Multi-language content across Canadian markets (English, French)
• Product catalog management with rich media
• Coordinated content publishing across business units

SaaS & Product Documentation

Intercom powers their customer-facing content with Contentful:

• Help center articles with structured search optimization
• Product documentation with version management
• Marketing pages with personalization by segment
• Release notes and changelog management

Jack Henry (financial services technology) uses Contentful for:

• Regulated content with audit trails and compliance workflows
• Technical documentation for banking integrations
• Multi-product content sharing across acquired companies
• Editorial workflows with approval chains

E-Commerce & Retail

Staples manages their product content ecosystem with Contentful:

• Product descriptions and specifications at scale
• Category landing pages with promotional content
• Multi-channel content delivery (web, app, in-store)
• Seasonal campaign management with scheduling

Urban Outfitters and similar retail brands use Contentful for:

• Editorial content mixed with product merchandising
• Lookbook and campaign storytelling
• Store locator and location-specific content
• Influencer and user-generated content curation

Contentful vs Sanity vs Strapi: What Recruiters Need to Know

Understanding headless CMS differences helps you evaluate candidates:

Contentful

• Model: Pure SaaS with enterprise focus
• Querying: GraphQL + REST APIs (both excellent)
• Editing: Web-based UI with customization via App Framework
• Pricing: Per-seat + usage-based (expensive at scale)
• Strength: Enterprise reliability, mature ecosystem, global CDN

Sanity

• Model: SaaS with open-source Studio
• Querying: GROQ (proprietary) + GraphQL
• Editing: Highly customizable React-based Studio
• Pricing: Pay-per-usage (bandwidth + storage)
• Strength: Real-time collaboration, deep customization

Strapi

• Model: Open-source, self-hosted or cloud
• Querying: REST + GraphQL
• Editing: Admin panel with plugin customization
• Pricing: Free self-hosted (hosting costs apply), paid cloud
• Strength: Full control, no vendor lock-in, cost effective

What this means for hiring:

• Developers who know one headless CMS can learn another in days
• "Must have Contentful experience" eliminates candidates with Sanity or Strapi expertise
• Content modeling concepts transfer across all platforms
• Ask about structured content principles, not specific CMS APIs

When Contentful Experience Actually Matters

Situations Where Contentful-Specific Knowledge Helps

1. Maintaining a Large Contentful Implementation
If you have extensive content models with migrations, custom apps, and complex webhook integrations, someone with Contentful experience will be productive faster. But any strong developer can learn Contentful in 1-2 weeks.

2. Content Model Migrations
Contentful's migration scripts and environment management have specific patterns. Experience with contentful-migration CLI and environment promotion workflows is valuable for mature implementations.

3. App Framework Development
Building custom sidebar widgets, entry editors, or field appearances using Contentful's App Framework requires understanding their SDK and hosting model. This is specialized knowledge worth identifying.

4. Enterprise Integrations
Contentful's enterprise features—SSO integration, custom roles, environment branching, content workflows—require specific configuration knowledge for organizations with complex requirements.

Situations Where General Skills Transfer

1. Content Modeling
Designing content types, defining relationships, handling localization—these are universal content architecture skills. A developer who modeled content in Sanity applies the same thinking in Contentful.

2. API Integration
Fetching content from Contentful's GraphQL or REST APIs and displaying it in React, Next.js, or other frontends uses standard data-fetching patterns. Any developer who's built API-driven applications handles this.

3. Webhook and Automation Setup
Connecting content events to downstream systems (rebuilding sites, syncing search indexes, triggering notifications) follows patterns common to any event-driven architecture.

The Modern Content Developer (2024-2026)

Content platforms have evolved. Understanding what "modern" means helps you ask the right questions.

Headless Architecture Fluency

Modern content developers understand:

• Separation of content from presentation
• API-first content delivery (REST vs GraphQL tradeoffs)
• Multi-channel publishing (web, mobile, voice, emerging platforms)
• Structured content vs rich text vs markdown

Content Modeling as a Strategic Skill

This is the most transferable skill across CMS platforms:

• Designing reusable content types with appropriate granularity
• Modeling relationships (references, linked entries, embedded content)
• Planning for localization strategy (field-level vs entry-level)
• Balancing editorial flexibility with developer constraints

Enterprise Content Operations

For companies at scale, content developers often handle:

• Environment management (development, staging, production)
• Content migration and versioning strategies
• Integration with translation management systems
• Compliance and audit trail requirements

Recruiter's Cheat Sheet: Evaluating Content Platform Skills

Conversation Starters That Reveal Skill Level

Resume Signals That Matter

✅ Look for:

• Specific products shipped with structured content (not just "Built CMS integration")
• Content modeling scope ("Designed 25+ content types for multi-brand platform")
• Frontend framework experience (React, Next.js, Gatsby, Vue)
• API patterns (GraphQL, REST, webhooks)
• Multi-language or multi-region content experience
• Migration or content operations experience

🚫 Be skeptical of:

• Only Contentful starter templates or tutorials
• No mention of content types or schema design decisions
• CMS-only without frontend integration context
• No evidence of working with content editors or stakeholders

GitHub Portfolio Signals

Strong indicators:

• Custom content type definitions with validation
• Migration scripts showing schema evolution
• Frontend projects with sophisticated content queries
• Contentful App Framework extensions
• Handling of preview modes and draft content

Red flags:

• Only default Contentful starters with minimal changes
• No TypeScript for content types (unusual for production)
• Hardcoded content mixed with CMS content
• No evidence of content model iteration

Common Hiring Mistakes for Content Platform Roles

1. Requiring Specific CMS Experience

The mistake: "5 years Contentful experience required"

Reality: Contentful gained mainstream adoption around 2015-2016 in early-adopter companies, but broad adoption is more recent. Few developers have 5+ years of deep experience. More importantly, CMS skills transfer directly—a Sanity expert becomes a Contentful expert in weeks.

Better approach: Require "headless CMS experience" and test content modeling skills in interviews.

2. Confusing CMS Work with Full-Stack Development

The mistake: Expecting a "Contentful Developer" to also be a senior systems architect.

Reality: Content platform work ranges from content modeling and API integration to custom app development. Clarify whether you need content architecture skills, frontend integration skills, or platform engineering.

Better approach: Be specific about the split. "70% content architecture and modeling, 30% frontend integration" is clearer than "Contentful Developer."

3. Overlooking Content Modeling Skills

The mistake: Technical interviews focused on API usage without testing content architecture thinking.

Reality: The hardest part of content work is designing content types that serve editors AND developers at scale. A developer who writes efficient GraphQL queries but models content poorly creates long-term problems and migration headaches.

Better approach: Give a content modeling exercise: "Design content types for a multi-brand media company with shared and brand-specific content."

4. Ignoring Editorial Workflow Understanding

The mistake: Hiring developers without considering how they'll work with content editors.

Reality: Content platforms serve non-technical users. The best content developers understand editorial workflows, publishing schedules, and localization processes—not just code.

Better approach: Ask: "Tell me about a time you designed a content model based on editorial requirements, not just technical needs."

5. Over-Requiring GraphQL Expertise

The mistake: Requiring "expert-level GraphQL" for a Contentful role.

Reality: Contentful's GraphQL API is well-documented and follows standard patterns. Any developer familiar with basic GraphQL concepts can query Contentful effectively. The REST API is equally powerful and sometimes simpler for specific use cases.

Better approach: Test API integration concepts, not GraphQL syntax. Ask how they'd approach caching, error handling, and query optimization.