Ask HN: Where did you find your best "coder-for-hire"/consultant?

[msencenb]

So school has officially started and I have significantly less time than I expected to work on my startup.

I need a small Obj-C code snippet that checks whether an app is cracked, then sends some post data to a url depending on whether the app is cracked or not. All in all a very small project for someone that knows what they are doing.

So... my question to HN is where did you find your best consultants? Rentacoder, Elance, Odesk, or something else entirely?

[javery]

None of those. Personal recommendations will always deliver above any automated solutions.

Start with anyone you know who knows Obj-C, if you are posting this you probably don't know anyone that fits though.

So the next step is to talk to anyone else in a similar business to yours and see if they have someone they have used and would recommend.

The last step, post to places like HN asking for recommendations - if someone is willing to publicly endorse someone chances are they really believe in them.

[amccloud]

Checkout http://www.drobnik.com/touch/anticrack/

[msencenb → amccloud]

Noticed that this got down voted... do people have good/bad experiences with this?

[eof → msencenb]

Does not appear to be relevant to the OP.

[amccloud → eof]

You'd be right. It does not appear to be relevant. Though, since the op is looking for someone to write an obj-c lib for detection cracked apps my link is relevant.

[Luyt → amccloud]

May I suggest a relevant narrative under the screencast, instead of that horrible music?

[jdrock]

I found our best contractors on HN itself.

Posted an "80legs is hiring" and got a handful of quality applicants that were available on an as-needed basis at good rates, given the quality of their work.

[mikeryan → jdrock]

Unfortunately, I believe that option is only available to YC teams?

[_tggb → mikeryan]

There's nothing to stop you from submitting a story titled "$foo is hiring $language/framework developer!" with a description of the job or linking to the post.

And FWIW, Flurry's analytics library has an option to check for if the app is cracked or not. I haven't used it, but it is there. Its just a matter of turning it on, if you're already using them for analytics.

[dood → mikeryan]

Anyone can submit such a post, though I don't know if job offers are frowned upon, or even upvoted. Adding a fun puzzle/challenge will probably help though ;)

There are also the monthly "who's hiring" posts.

[eitally]

I wanted someone local so I used Craiglist and found a great programmer within 10min of my house.

[madhancr]

I do iPhone dev, contact me madhancr at hotmail

[raerae7133]

oDesk - easy to screen and pay people.