

Ask HN- Best place to hire quality English speaking programmers and designers? - daveyboy

I am looking to hire a designer and a coder for a project and I am wondering where the best place would be for my rfp, if I want to attract high quality and Anglo Saxon or flawless English speakers?<p>Odesk, Freelancer.com, Guru.com, Elance.com or elsewhere?<p>Do any of you guys bid on projects at some of these places?<p>What do I need to include in my rfp so that a kick ass programmer or designer will bbid on it and not just keep scrolling?<p>Thanks
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zemanel
I'm available for contract work. development in html5, java, python, django,
javascript, dojo, postgres, mysql, linux admin. <http://zemanel.posterous.com>
<http://github.com/zemanel> <http://pt.linkedin.com/in/josemoreira>
<http://djangopeople.net/josemoreira> irc://zemanel@irc.freenode.net

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kls
<http://www.hnhackers.com/> <\-- list of hackers news reader who freelance.

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daveyboy
That is fairly helpful....however, I don't really even know what I want as far
as skill set goes, and there is no way to submit a project and see if people
are interested, so I would have to pick people at random and just email
them.....

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kls
If you are looking for a rock bottom price, then you post it to a cheapa-
coder.com site and have 6000 people promise you things that are unrealistic
and then most likely outsource it out the back end to make the project
remotely profitable for them. As far as skill set, is that not what you are
looking for, someone to make those kind of decisions? Do you really care if it
is Ruby or Java or do you care about the finished product.

If the answer is yes to the finished product, then you may just want to take a
more personal tact to your search. Read profiles, find someone who sounds like
they would click with you and have them help you understand technically, what
you are trying to build and explain how they would go about it.

The skill set is about the most irrelevant item of your concern (unless you
have existing technology, in which case you should already know what skill set
you need). There are good and bad developers in every technology, but in the
end whether Ruby, Scala or Java if you have a good developer you are going to
get a quality product.

Most developers will put in some legwork up front for free, to help you
understand what you are trying to build and what is required to do it. If they
are not willing to help you become comfortable, then move on, but don't expect
them to start developing. They may do some wireframes and project planning for
free but most will not prototype without entering into a financial
arrangement.

You will have far more success with taking this approach than the shotgun
strategy of blasting your project out to below-average-coder.com. If you read
the profiles and select 2 people that you think would mesh well with you, I
can all but guarantee that out of the two one will suit you. I can't speak for
every person on that site, but the ones that I do know are good developers, it
is not your standard crap-shot-coders.com.

If I came off terse, I apologize, I am trying to help you break out of the
mental constraint that you have to have a lot of touch points to find what you
want. I have found when it comes to quality, it is the exact opposite. Good
developers generally avoid the crap shooting client and favor the more
personal relationship clients that they can build a long term relationship
with. They also will turn down projects that they don't posses the skill-set
for and more importantly make the introduction to other developers that do
have the skill set. Good developers have no shortage of work, they usually are
not hunting around on post-a-project.com, they favor stuff that comes in
through their network or from inquiries from entrepreneurs who seem like they
have a passion for what they are doing and who don't seem like they will be
difficult. If you want a good developer you need to get into that network and
that is what I am trying to help you understand.

I am not currently taking any projects, but if you want to shoot me an email
(in my profile), I can help you find what you are looking for, I know some
developers who are actively seeking new projects.

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daveyboy
Thanks. I appreciate the advice. I am not looking for rock bottom prices,
because I am looking for top flight quality, I guess I just wish there was a
freelance site where one could post an RFP and actually get quality.

I appreciate the offer for help, I will be reaching out to you.

Thanks

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kls
_I guess I just wish there was a freelance site where one could post an RFP
and actually get quality_

I am scratching that itch right now, because I know it is a pain for the few
that want/provide quality. I think I have a good take on it. But my partners
and I are in the concept phase right now, so nothing to show.

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cmelbye
What's the project? I'm sure there are some people you're describing here on
Hacker News.

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daveyboy
I never see people posting real rfp's here, so I figured it was considered
uncouth or in bad taste.

