Gotcha. In that case, it might not be such a simple setup. cPanel by default doesn’t support NodeJS in a user-friendly way unless the host is running CloudLinux, which does add it in a much more friendly way.
Since you have a VPS that hostgator has installed cPanel on, I highly doubt they have included this. You can quickly check by logging into cPanel and then seeing if you have a NodeJS option listed anywhere.
If you do not, it’ll have to be done via SSH or via the cPanel Terminal: https://docs.cpanel.net/knowledge-base/web-services/how-to-install-a-node.js-application/ which is a bit of a hassle.
What you’ll want to be looking for is an sysadmin rather than developer. Though, since HostGator is a bit more of a managed provider, you might be able to get in touch with them to see if they’ll set it up for you.