

Ask HN: What are some challenges when you try to hire a dev freelancer? - Yadi

Hiring freelance developers can be overwhelming, but I know that lots of founders and small teams that are less technical have some horror stories and fear hiring freelance developers to build their initial products as well.<p>I wonder if there are some specific issues that keeps repeating over and over?
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1123581321
The best method is to _secretly_ hire multiple freelancers for the same task
until it becomes clear which one(s) are better than the others.

This can also be done with agencies and even business units in an existing
company. Many successful companies do this.

However, most companies hiring an unproven freelancer are looking to save
money and time, so they are unwilling to expend effort to effectively mitigate
risk.

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mtmail
Make sure you own (and have a copy) of all code and assets created. A link
into their github (or similar) code repository or a login into their servers
is not enough. I had a client who's previous agency flat out refused to hand
over anything. All invoices were paid and the website was running launched and
running since months. All functionality had to be recreated from (almost)
scratch.

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FlopV
I'd be curious to the best practices for hiring a freelancer. For example,
what you should bring to the table to make the engagement easier for both
parties. I would think a wire frame, but not sure what else to give the
freelancer the ability to start coding from the get go.

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MichaelCrawford
As a freelancer, a problem for me is that some of my colleagues give all
freelancers a bad reputation. I take pride in my work but not everyone does.

