I'm sure there's a dev who could have done the same work faster and cheaper, but they're extremely hard to find. Everyone wants to hire a frontend dev who can design and code. They'd either be outside my budget or they'll only take jobs from people with a personal recommendation.

There's also the problem that until you hire them, you can't distinguish between a talented developer and someone just pretending to be one. I might go through 10 expensive developers over a year before I find one who's actually capable of delivering the project in two weeks.

Do you have a recommendation for where I'd find someone who can do this job in two weeks to the same level of quality?

At least then you'd have that person for the future.

Philosophy, costs, timelines, and justifications aside - I’m curious if, in your experience, many “competent” developers have this sort of design experience in their wheelhouse?