Collaborators let you develop a website together with other people. You can invite teammates to collaborate on site content, write and edit code, or manage business settings. You can also transfer a site to a new owner but still continue collaborating on updates and maintenance.
For example, you might:
To edit a site's code and functionality, collaborators must be assigned a role with Edit Site permissions. You do not need to give collaborators Publish permissions to allow code editing, but note that without it, they cannot publish changes or test features on the live site.
If you should be able to work on a site after transferring it to a new owner, ask the new owner to invite you back as a collaborator with Edit Site permissions (see Inviting people to collaborate on your site) and accept the invitation.