
How I hired a great web developer on oDesk for $12/hr - aymeric
http://aymeric.gaurat.net/2013/how-i-hired-a-great-web-developer-on-odesk-for-12hr/
======
impostervt
Though I'm a developer, I outsourced the development of my side project,
<http://www.watermarquee.com>. That was a bad call on my part.

I used oDesk to hire a development team from Indonesia. At the time, with a
small baby at home, I felt like I didn't have the time to develop it myself.
Also, I was just learning Rails, and felt that if I wanted it done right, I
should hire a professional, instead of trying to learn as I went (I had
written the free version myself, and hired the dev team to make the "Pro"
version which costs $5/month)

The development team did a good job, but only after the work was complete did
I find out they implemented some things differently than how I would have
preferred (my fault for not paying more attention). Also, it ended up taking
much longer than I thought and, thus, costing much more than I had
anticipated.

Knowing your application code from top to bottom is the only way to be able to
maintain it after the development contract ends. I dread having to modify my
app because I don't understand it all. I've done other projects since then,
and wrote them myself (in Sinatra or Node), and am now way more confident in
my development skills.

~~~
jrs235
I was going to email you but you don't have contact info in your profile.

Small tip: Please change the link that the logo on that top of your blog goes
to. The self reference to blog.hwatermarquee.com is silly and pointless.
Change it to www.watermarquee.com so folks can easily get from your blog to
your actual site (without having to click the "give it a try" link... which
scares me because I assume it's going to dump me off at a form to signup
rather than the site for more info.)

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axisK
When managed properly outsourcing doesn't have to be a problem. Bad hires do
tend to take a bit longer to show themselves and could end up leaving a bad
taste to everything outsourcing related.

A few years ago I did some work via oDesk and ended up with a permanent
contract for a US/Mexico based company that allowed me much more freedom than
I would have had working at any South African company in my area.

Overall I enjoyed working with most of the other employees from across the
world and some of the brightest people I've worked with was part of the team.
I do think however that it probably put a lot more pressure on our manager
than most conventional environments would.

 _edit_ Paragraphs

~~~
axisK
Oh, as a side note. The company I ended up working for also used a timed
"mini-project" to filter out some candidates, it wasn't much more than 2 days
worth of work. After that I also went through a telephonic which was more of a
introduction to what the company was doing as well as a bit of a culture check
to see if I would fit in.

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mbesto
> _Seriously, if you are an online entrepreneur, do yourself a favour and
> start outsourcing. It is low risk and has great returns._

If you are a serious online entrepreneur and have 0 experience outsourcing
online, be very careful. It's very hard to find the right developer at $12/hr.
The picture isn't always as rosy as the OP paints it.

> _Once I picked three candidates, I tell them they are entering a trial
> period where I need them to develop a small project._

This is really good advice, but this means you hired a developer at 3 *
$12/hr, which means you're project actually cost you $36/hr. This is reverse
thinking for many people, since most people go to oDesk/elance/etc because
they think their dreams can be created for $12/hr right off the bat. The
reality is, you should expect to pay a large amount of money up front
(trialing developers) to then get lower ($12/hr) returns later. This is a
massive misconception in the outsourcing world.

TL;DR - YMMV.

~~~
aymeric
The miniproject is not the reason why I hired him. I was hiring a web
developer to help me work on weekplan ultimately, the developer over the
course of the year will cost me much more than 6h*3 worth of work.

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pyalot2
For $12/hour you are not going to get the right stuff, not by a long shot.

By rule of thumb, if you are paying less for a professional in a job that
requires decades to do well, than you'd pay a McDonalds burger flipper, what
you are going to get is a McDonalds burger flipper. Good luck with that.

You know how companies always like to tout that they hired the cream of the
crop, the top percentiles? Well, by aiming for the $12/hour price segment,
you've made the reverse commitment, you've decided you're gonna hire from the
bottom 10th percentile, if even that.

As Paul Graham noted, the productivity difference between an average developer
and a great developer can be as great as 50x. I'm leaving it for you to figure
out what the difference between a bottom barrel developer and a great
developer is (hint, it's probably more than 50x)

~~~
rplnt
Did you read that part when he hired someone from different country than USA?

~~~
pyalot2
Well, I can tell you that in Switzerland $12/hour is half as much as a burger
flipper earns here, so...

~~~
numo16
In the US, you'd be lucky to make $9/hour working at McDonald's, generally
(may vary by region)

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tdtran
I don't know if the author considers Czech Republic as part of Eastern Europe
but $12/hour is pretty low there. It would be OK for a high school/undergrad
student to earn some extra money that way, but other than that it must be a
desparate "developer" to work at that rate.

~~~
aymeric
People who can't afford to be paid $12/h don't apply for the job. Usually, I
think Ukraine / Belarus / Romania web developers are ok with $12/h.

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lysenko
According to this survey(please use translator)
[http://jobs.dou.ua/salaries/#period=dec2012&city=all&...](http://jobs.dou.ua/salaries/#period=dec2012&city=all&title=Software+Engineer&language=C%23%2F.NET&exp1=1&exp2=3)

Median salary for junior .NET developer in Ukraine is $1500/month.

This data comes from full time employees, not freelancer. It is obvious that
freelancer should spend more time that full time employee to get the same
amount money. So, $12/hr is below the average for Ukraine.

I am RoR developer from Ukraine, with 4 years of experience and 'Rails Core
Contributor' achievement, my oDesk rate is $40/hr. And I consider it low.

TIP: Don't hire developer from Ukraine for less than $25/hr, or you will get
into trouble.

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Jach
Great writeup. Another approach I've seen to get inexpensive face-to-face work
is to call a local high school (sometimes college) and ask the CS teacher if
any students have some knowledge in web development / mobile development that
they gained outside of school, and then see if such a student wants to work
for you. It's usually a good deal for the student since they get to improve
their skills and learn more while getting paid better than a bagger's salary,
and it's a good deal for the boss because the student is probably a quick
learner and can fill in any knowledge gaps quickly, plus a part-time work
agreement during the school year is a low-risk trial period that can lead to
full-time in the summer.

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lukevdp
Just don't lose control of the code.

Outsourcing to $12/hr programmers works well when you're designing the
structure of the code and the way things work. Not so well when you give them
a free reign of how to code a feature (for example)

~~~
aymeric
It is true that my patterns were already set when I hired them. That's a good
advice.

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s_baby
How am I supposed to feel confident in pursuing a career in CS with 3rd world
developers doing the work for $12/hr?

~~~
rplnt
You seriously consider parts of Europe to be a 3rd world countries?

~~~
smalley
I think going with that nomenclature most of those countries (Ukraine, Hungry,
etc) would be second world countries. If I remember correctly folks in the US
coined those terms during the cold war. The first world countries were the US
and allies, second the USSR and allies and third world the unaffiliated
countries. Third world has come to be used as a term for impoverished
countries as many of the unallied countries at that time were rather poor, but
that wasn't the meaning. Somebody should definitely spot check me on this
postulate before they accept it as fact.

~~~
vacri
Originally, first world = NATO + allies, second world = soviet bloc, third
world = countries that were politically and economically too poor to warrant
investing much effort in. It was a Cold War thing.

These days, first world is synonymous with 'developed', third with
'developing' and second doesn't really have a meaning.

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sneak
> That lives you with around 30 applications. Off these applications, I focus
> my attention on Eastern Europeans. In my experience, Eastern Europeans have
> the right mix: low cost of living, high level of education, high level of
> integrity.

> I have hired developers from India in the past but it is harder to find the
> good ones among a lot of low quality applications.

Since when is it okay to be casually racist when making hiring decisions?
There's a reason this sort of shit is illegal in the US when hiring employees.

Don't be a dick.

~~~
k-mcgrady
He's not being racist, he's basing a decision on previous experience. He
didn't just decide "I won't hire anyone from India" - he tried it (it sounds
like he tried it more than once) and didn't have a good experience so he's
decided not to repeat that mistake. He doesn't think all Indians are bad
programmers just that it's easier to find a good one in Eastern Europe that
meets his requirements.

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hinmn
Good points in your article.

Generally, I think outsourcing has gotten a bad rap because a lot of the poor
quality firms / freelancers that have sprung up. The big sites like oDesk,
eLance, etc. have certainly helped to prevent the scammers that initially
populated the field, but more and more quality firms are popping up in
countries like the Philippines.

The key to outsourcing is doing it right. Outsource work you or key players
shouldn't work on. If you're a design company, find someone to slice and dice
for you. If your a coding company, find someone to design for you. Find a
partner that can be trusted and you work well with and you're set.

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sgdesign
Outsourcing is something I need to get better at. For some reason I never feel
at ease giving away control of my projects, which is why I often end up
spending time on peripheral things like setting up servers or coding up
mockups.

There's also the fact that I would feel bad about hiring someone for $12/hour
when my own hourly rate is more than 10 times that. But at the same time, I
would definitely not be able to afford somebody as expensive as me (or even
half as expensive)…

~~~
aymeric
1\. Someone paid $12/hour is actually a good pay in some regions of the world.
Even paying a virtual assistant $5/hour in the Philippines make sense
financially for them. So don't feel bad, you allow someone to be paid well and
have great flexibility at home.

2\. That's why the mini-project helps, you get to judge the person's
trustworthiness. There is a risk in outsourcing, I can't deny it, but the
returns far outweighs the risk for me.

~~~
phazmatis
$12/hour is a decent wage in parts of the US.

~~~
jlgaddis
In my hometown (a very rural area), most folks would be very happy to make an
hourly wage of $12.

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Gilou
You got me at "and everyone has PowerPoint.".. ;)

I like the idea though, it shows you can find the right people without
throwing too much money in, provided you plan it right, and put yourself in
the developper's shoes at some point. It would be interesting to evaluate how
much the recruiting costed you as well in the price. Your time, the paid (I
hope they all were) trials, and the time to organize your guy's work once in
the place.. Just being curious!

~~~
aymeric
it took me 5 hours of my time (mockup 1h, design + packaging to google play
4h).

it costed me $130 for the two developers I trialed.

it takes me maybe an hour to three hours per week to clarify the requirements,
review his code and chat with him

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thejosh
Paying a couple more dollars an hour more may result in $100-$200 more, but
produces much better work.

~~~
aymeric
Why do you think it would result in better result? You are assuming people
from countries with higher cost of living would do a better job than people
from countries with a lower cost of living. This is just not true.

~~~
agildehaus
I've seen some godawful code coming from people making close to $100/hr.

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webjunkie
Who accepts the job for $12 when there's written $12 to $17?

~~~
k-mcgrady
That's not how it works. Devs place bids within the users budget. Typically
the dev who quotes the least will be chosen for the job so when the budget is
$12-17 you are most likely to get selected by bidding $12.

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revorad
How did you "package the files into a Google Play app." ?

~~~
aymeric
I used eclipse and followed the documentation
(<http://developer.android.com/guide/webapps/webview.html>) that uses a web
view. i found a repo in github with a sample project:
<https://github.com/tscolari/android-webview-sample-app>

~~~
revorad
Thanks. I didn't know it was so quick to turn a web app into an Android app.

~~~
aymeric
I did it before so I knew how to do it.

