"I have money but no time, how do i find some bright college student to work on this small project for me?"
"I need 400€, How do i find a small project i can develop for and have no expectation of follow up or commitment"
I find hard to trust elance, upwrok and similar as it's either super-developer-guy or random-indian-guy, middle ways are buried behind the two extremes.
On the other side of the fence, as a programmer on those websites it takes a lot of time to build up reputation and network and it's easier to just get a job at McDonalds or similar (e.g. make a website and let someone else maintain it) for those 400€.
Something like university/hackerspace/open source facebook group with a barrier of entry to keep the quality but nothing as formal as a website
Can you pick another stereotype please? It costs you little and is less degrading to us Indian guys and girls who happen to see it.
I'm sure there are newbies and/or posers of other nationalities as well on freelance websites.
I do think that there is a quantity:quality issue with many foreign developers on these sites, but the work to go through them has to be easier than going through dozens of people by hand.
Of course, every culture has it's quirks. I'd avoid the specific reference and stereotype and just say that working with devs from a culture you're not familiar with can be challenging.
I interpreted this differently. The contrast was with super-developer-guy, who has a really high reputation and corresponding high rate that the op cannot hope to match. The other extreme is with developers with low reputation and a low rate. Not with developers that are "newbies" or "posers".
The sites he mentioned have a 10:1 ratio of Indian developer to non-Indian. How would you describe or phrase that?
If I contrasted super-wealthy-nations with African nations, would this be hurtful towards Africans or is it just a reflection of economic statistics?
In fact, it is both. Even if we can agree that African countries are on the whole poorer than those on other continents, it is not typically such facts that cause offence, no matter how ugly or inconvenient they are.
What is hurtful is the gratuitous use of a racial/national stereotype to enforce a negative association.
African nations did not have to be singled out to make the point. There are many other countries struggling with poverty. And it was more accurate for me to say something like "low-income-nations". Yet I chose to single out Africans for the association with poverty rather than use a more general term.
This is what many people find insulting about such use of stereotypes.
That said it's best to avoid it. Bad developers come in every form of humanity.
EDIT: WTF? All I did was try to give OP the benefit of the doubt that maybe he's not a total bigot. I agreed stereotypes are bad and that there are bad developers of every type of person.
Someone who thinks that's down vote worthy, please explain yourself. I'd like to know what's so objectionable about that.
Racist stereotypes aren't insidious and vile because they have no truth to them. Most stereotypes are based on reality, and some even apply to the majority of the stereotyped group.
The problem with stereotypes is that you're lumping people together in possibly negative categories only because of their race. That's scientifically unsound and harmful to the individuals who want to (and should be) considered individually without prejudice based on their race.
I feel like I wouldn't trust the devs there, unless i can verify/get to know them physically outside it would feel like throwing money in the wind and hoping it works
(400€ is USD$450. At an already low $50/hour, that's 9 hours. Or at a ridiculously exploitive wage, when it comes to software devs, of $25/hour, that's 18 hours, or 2-3 solid days of work.)
To a certain degree, Isn't that a part of the process? How is testing your developer different than testing your market?
The guy I ended up working with did an amazing job using a team of freelancers on the first task.
On the second task, he asked for more money up front, and then that was the last I heard from him. He took the money an ran.
I am looking for another person or team to help me now, but I think the process is going to be to start with a small task and try to build trust.
The most important skill in these cases is the ability to write amazing specifications.
I have had some good practice over the years, and you would be surprised how much it helps.
Here is the guy just in case you ever come across him
Every one of us spends our lives building on our experience and then presenting that experience to others in exchange for compensation.
Without a system to manage this, it's just something to be exploited.
How do you as the employee know that someone isn't going to have you do a bunch of work and deny you compensation, or request you do more additional work than what was agreed upon?
How do you as the employer know that someone isn't going to just take your money and not provide the requested work or provide something substandard?
If you can't build a reputation on either side, there's no reason for anyone to trust you.
Apart of that: "exert social pressure on the developer in case things don't go as expected" is an awful way to deal with conflicts.
That Indian (or Pakistani, or Croatian, or Thai) person could be just the partner you need. At least look at their work.
And a lot of time they charge less because their cost of living is much lower. You can actually pay them more than others would and still save on a "super" developer.
I think it would be equal time and less energy than going to a University Hackathon for hours and waiting to see who rubs you the right way.
For US freelancers, you're paying for down-time between clients and meetings that won't convert into any work. SuperDeveloperGuy (regardless of his nationality) is going to have a full book, and as such will be able to command a higher rate than random-(any-ethnicity-guy-with-less-than-desirable-experience). The reason why we bill out at lawyer rates is because our labor patterns are similar.
HN has a freelancer thread you can check. I've used it before. I generally discriminate based on the quality of their comments (a subjective metric, admittedly) as well as how long they've been a HNer. Keep in mind college kids are getting 35/hr minimum at any summer co-op, so again, 400 EUR won't get you very far.
RE: Elance, et al -- On Upwork I've had great experience with the Eastern Europeans/Russians who have tons of feedback (is it still racism if it's a positive stereotype? hmm).
[1] (Personally a client approaching me with a rate in that range is price-signaling to me "I'm going to brow-beat you for every dime"; somewhat counter-intuitively the quality of clients I've had has increased as a function of the rate at which I bill. Once I crossed the 3-figures-an-hour-threshold people started taking my time a lot more seriously.)
Your hiring problem is caused by your lack of time commitment to finding the talent. Your impatience comes through loudly in the post.
That said, Upwork could use some improvements (which I'm working on).
You'll have to get over the idea that you can higher someone perfect , instantly and that some magic group (that you dont actively manage) will ensure that people meet your quality standards
Here's a full feature walkthrough without marketing bullshit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17uPOmgFFo4
1. Find someone from https://nomadprojects.io/
2. Go to a hackathon and meet devs.
These are marketplaces:
Or, maybe, this question that you posted here on HN you can actually bring up during one of these meetups, and see if others have the same challenge, what advice they can offer? True, not as scalable as a website (or some similar alternative/online group), but at least your name would get known around the locale, and there's the networking opportunities, etc.
You have time. The only person I've ever met who actually had no time was on his deathbed.
Everyone else is poorly prioritizing their time. Or their money. Cut your expenses in half and you regain half of your productive hours.
And of course doing it yourself is an investment in yourself - possibly the most valuable investment you can make. Naturally this assumes that you treat the project as "deliberate practice" and not something to simply get out of the way.
If you have the right sort of personality traits (which anyone can develop) you absolutely have time.
[0]: https://cohort.is/
Most schools have some kind of online job board. One example: https://du.studentemployment.ngwebsolutions.com/JobX_FindAJo...
That said, while there's likely some great budding talent there, there's also a dearth of real world experience. You may find pitfalls there.
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I find people among my friends. What work really good, but unfortunately slow. But usually people are ready to help with out money. My projects are startups and people found them interesting.
I you need money or ready to pay you can go to freelance website, but I don't know what quality do you get.
