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Ask HN: How to find people to develop your side projects? and vice versa
54 points by esac on June 8, 2016 | hide | past | favorite | 64 comments
I keep finding myself on both the sides of this question

"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




Everyone is "random" when you first meet them.

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.


Its quite a challenge. I was on vacation over in the Philippines, and I decided to see if I could find someone to help with the front end for my side project. I interviewed two people.

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.


I'm sorry you had a bad experience with a Filipino developer. I hope it hasn't soured you on the country as a whole.


I am not sour at all, I love the country. There are always going to be a few bad apples anywhere you go in the world.

Here is the guy just in case you ever come across him

http://spinworksstudios.com/


> random-indian-guy

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.


It's not that it is a stereotype that rubbed me wrong, but the addition of "random" and the contrast with "super developer" as if the indian guy is less worthy of time, hiring etc.

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.


I think what OP means is this: the tech ecosystem in places like Bangalore is booming more than anywhere else and the good programmers in India have amazing opportunities to make good money or are in career paths that heads to a position earning in a stronger currency, and so its hard to find rock star Indian candidates on these platforms.


If you go in not understanding the culture, there's also some traps you can run into. The Indian devs I've worked with are often hesitant to say "no" or "I don't know". You have to be able to work out the difference between an enthusiastic "yes" and a less enthusiastic one.

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.


Not sure if you're serious, but I'm fairly certain that is NOT what OP meant.


Um.. you do realize that the only difference between the Indian engineers at Google or VMWare in California, and some of the the guys working out of India is that the latter didnt do an MS or get a visa sponsored? Take the sharpest Indian dev you know in Palo Alto -- for every one of him, there are like five guys like that back home working on offshore Engineering teams. They are not doing php on Upwork.


> I find hard to trust elance, upwrok and similar as it's either super-developer-guy or random-indian-guy

Still that's not what the OP meant. As i agree tech is booming in Bangalore and all, the reference here is the opposite connotation to the super developer guy. While i don't disagree that there are people who put a WP and make money, avoiding stereotyping is good for everyone.


I suspect it's hard to hire Californian rock star developers on the low-bidder driven platforms as well for exactly the same reasons.


> I'm sure there are newbies and/or posers of other nationalities as well on freelance websites.

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".


That's my interpretation as well, and it's not much less insulting...


> Can you pick another stereotype please?

The sites he mentioned have a 10:1 ratio of Indian developer to non-Indian. How would you describe or phrase that?


This is not about demographics or whether there is a factual basis for the stereotype...

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.


> This is what many people find insulting about such use of stereotypes.

If we're making small talk and mentioning the factual disparity offends and the statement makes little difference to the conversation, then I concede your point. There is no reason to say it. In fact, saying it would be quite rude.

However, if the factual statement has a material impact on the conversation, you have a responsibility to speak the truth.

It doesn't matter how hurt your feelings may be, it is absolutely despicable to try to silence those speaking the truth, regardless of how it may offend your sensibilities.

If you read this thread, you would think you can jump on Upwork, hire some guy in India, and build a complex SPA or similar and save yourself some $$$. As a matter of fact, you can't. And it's important to say that so that people don't waste their time and money.


That's probably why the stereotype exists, sure. But that doesn't change anything. Throwing around racial/national stereotypes is hurtful.


The issue isn't in referring to the demographic of the site, but contrasting it with "either super-developer-guy or random-indian-guy". It implies that the two are mutually exclusive.


They are mutually exclusive on those sites. If you do not have experience on those sites specifically, that would explain your confusion.


I have experience of being on that site and they are not mutually exclusive. Are there 100 mediocre Indian dev's to 20 excellent Indian dev's? sure. But a straight stereotype in contrast to a super dev is not looking good here.


I found a guy that I was paying $8/hr from India. I make >$40/hr I would spend 1-2/wk writing out specs. I would get 10-20hrs/wk in coding. Could I have done the same code in about 8-15 hours probably(mostly due to communicating what you want to another person), but I was still getting way better bang for my buck than doing it myself. We both had access to bitbucket got the code uploaded every week to test. Were there frustrations absolutely. But, it's hard to beat 5 to 1.


Wouldn't another stereotype be degrading for the other group ?


It is a stereotype but y'know he may be talking about the reality in this case rather than just a general stereotype.

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.


I didn't down vote, but it's worthy of one because you're defending racism.

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.


That's the thing though, I'm not defending a stereotype. Re-read my comment. The last thing I do is agree it's best to avoid stereotypes, and that this particular stereotype is wrong anyway because there's bad programmers of all types.


You get what you pay for.

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.


That's why I felt that reputation should come from status/community, as a developer I don't want to be untrustworthy with my university/oss/friends/peers and as a employer i want to be able to exert social pressure on the developer in case things don't go as expected.


That's both time the same side of the coin.

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.


I think what you have is a misunderstanding of the market. 400 Euro isn't going to get you more than maybe half a days work (a day for a long engagement, for someone who's billing mid-tier[1] simply due to the economics of freelancing. You're paying both ends of FICA/SS so that's (-) ~17% federal immediately of whatever he's taking in.

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.)


One of the big problems you have is that at that price range, overhead is eating away at your money pretty fast. Even if you do an hour of negotiation with a few people for "free", then pay one of them hourly strictly for the work, both you and the people you talk to need to be factoring in that time to the ultimate price and whether it's worth it. I will observe that when people describe the successful freelance jobs they do at those rates, including some other comments in this very thread as I type, they seem to tend towards being some very stereotypical tasks that generally amount to "installing WordPress/Magento/similar and slight customization". If you're negotiating something non-stereotypical, you can eat up serious percentages of the time just describing the situation. You may have to step up to a slightly higher tier to even get beyond "hello".


http://reddit.com/r/forhire is full of the latter.


thanks for the link!

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


Anyone that tells you they can take your random idea and implement something high-quality and useful (if that's even possible for your random idea) for 400€ is indeed not to be trusted. The kind of skilled, competent and trustworthy people you're looking for would know that it's a recipe for disaster.

(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.)


Actually I met a guy that made easy money with one of these freelance sites where he was very reputable. I didn't understand it until I looked carefully at his responses to offers.

The key was that he had an extraordinary skill to translate the offer from ignorant, unrealistic, ludicrous, I-want-the-Moon expectations to a practical setup where the real work was to install an OSS PHP forum, apply some stock themes and program a couple of pages of functionality that wasn't out of the box.

He dressed this setup as matching, even exceeding expectations, and delivered ultra fast.

Do you think the customers were deceived? On the contrary, they were delighted and with reason.

The problem is that customers have little knowledge of how to describe their ideas, that they're (of course) in love with, and tend to present their requirements in a hyperbolic language so they seem to be asking for "a Facebook" for a hundred dollars.


Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Being able to do that is a _huge_ skill.


I used to get paid 500€ a month as a developer for a consulting firm, and it was a 12-hours-a-day kind of a job. The firm would then bill its clients 40-60$ for every hour I worked. From one perspective it does seem exploitative. But on the other hand, I know many people who still dream of getting that job - the money is not good, but it almost doubles when you get promoted, and the career path is good. It's a really intense place with almost impossible deadlines, and you get to learn a lot from the pressure.

I was recently offered a project where I had take a complex analytics algorithm implemented in Excel to the server and implement it as an API for ~250-300$. Took me around ~20-30 hours over an extended weekend to write it in golang and I feel good about it. The work was mostly simple transformations on the input data, though a large number of them. It resulted in roughly 1000 lines of code including tests and comments, and a big part of that time was spent actually understanding the algorithm.

Similarly, I did some work as a favor to a friend - a Facebook app that would send some inspiring quotes as notifications to it's users every few days. It took me maybe 10-20 hours to get it online. Frankly, I am not so proud of the code as it was written in such a hurry, and is a bit messed up. But to its merit, it's been functional for several months without any noticeable downtime, and has sent thousands of notifications so far without any need to touch the server.

These are the kinds of projects that can be done in a short amount of time without a long-term commitment, and make sense for such a budget. For me atleast, 10$ an hour is good money, and 25$ would be pretty decent. 50$ would be something of a dream - I would be making in a day what I used to make in a month at my previous job.


In my country (Italy) 400€ is 1/3 of the monthly wage for a junior developer


Okay, so 1/3rd of the monthly wage means 1/3rd of a month, meaning 26 hours of 4*40 hour weeks.

Assuming there's no other overhead an independent contractor needs to take care of in Italy (in the US the big one would be health insurance, but you live in a civilized country. On the other hand, your civilized country probably all takes reasonable paid vacation, and an independent contractor would probably want to charge enough to do the same. And there are other reasonable reasons contractor hourly rates tend to be higher than pro-rated full-time salaries, things included with a typical full-time job above the salary itself that a contractor has to pay for or spend time on themselves).

But okay, let's say 26 hours.

How many junior developers can take an idea, probably somewhat vague and poorly thought out, and turn it into something useful in 26 hours?

I'd say if they can, they probably ought not to be considered a 'junior' developer!


That would be 4*26=104 hours right? That seems a good amount of time.


I meant it as 26 hours total, but I had my math completely wrong. 40 hours a week * 4 weeks * 1/3rd is 52.8. I had it halfed somehow. But anyway, yeah.


and somehow I STILL have my math slightly wrong. Can I not do arithmetic? 40 * 4 / 3 == 53.33.

Anyway, I guess there some projects that can be done well in 53 hours, but it's still not a huge amount of time. At "USD$450 should be fine as a third of a monthy salary!", that's approximately $9/hour. Really? Okay. If you can find someone willing to take $9/hour for 53 hours of work for a project that really can be done well in 53 hours.... I think my point stands.


It is not.

It's 1/3rd the net monthly wage, i.e. probably less than 1/6th of the money you pay to have junior developer actually working for you for one month, once you factor in income tax, company tax, social insurance, sick time, vacation time and national holidays.


I wouldn't expect a junior to be able to manage the whole stack and get stuff on a server. Write an application probably, but it took me a few years before I could manage everything.


"I wouldn't expect a junior to be able to manage the whole stack and get stuff on a server."

Why not - with the right PaaS platform deploying stuff is trivial and you don't need to worry about servers.


Never seen a PAAS where it was "trivial" to set up from scratch. Can you name me one?


Azure Web Sites - they deploy straight from Visual Studio.


Fair enough I haven't tried that yet. AWS or Heroku aren't trivial to get a Django app running.


To be fair, I was probably exaggerating a bit when I said "trivial" but it is pretty straightforward and you can do all of it from inside Visual Studio:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/documentation/articles/web...

NB You can move to more sensible deployment mechanisms, but for getting going quickly it is pretty neat to deploy straight from your IDE.


> it would feel like throwing money in the wind and hoping it works

To a certain degree, Isn't that a part of the process? How is testing your developer different than testing your market?


I've hired 'random-$whatever-human' many times. Sometimes Indian (1/7) sometimes not even guys! WUT!

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


I solved this problem for me by building https://Squads.com. You're welcome to check it out of course. Invite only, to solve the random-klingon-eunuch problem.

Here's a full feature walkthrough without marketing bullshit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17uPOmgFFo4


Your question is making me rethink all "formal" employment as "Someone with a side project looking for people to work on it".


These are community websites, since you don't want a marketplace:

1. Find someone from https://nomadprojects.io/

2. Go to a hackathon and meet devs.

These are marketplaces:

1. https://gigster.com/

2. https://gun.io/


Maybe a local dev. group/meetup? I haven't been to one in years...But the one I used to visit (focused on web design AND web dev. which agreed was too broad) had often some senior folks, as well as newbies/college students/grads in attendance. Most everyone was very polite and accepting of both seniors and newbies. This of course constrains your search to folks who physically attend these meetups...but at least you can discuss things more easily than electronically, vet them in person, etc.

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.


I have been looking for a solution to the same problem - short projects with no long term commitment for some side income. Maybe this is useful - CodeGophers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11663869


> "I have money but no time"

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.


I know the founder, and it might be that Cohort[0] is what you're looking for. Not publicly available yet, alas.

[0]: https://cohort.is/


You mentioned "bright college student" and "university", which makes it seem like you have a preference for that route.

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.


Shameless plug: this is the exact use case for my start up, http://codegophers.com which we launched recently.

For people looking for coders, we offer quick turnaround on small projects, typically priced between $100-$500.

For coders, it's a quick way to make money without having to commit to a multi week project. Please check us out or email directly at start@codegophers.com


With 400 euros you do not need a dev but a modder: he/she buys templates and cloud space from well known marketplaces for peanuts or for free then inserts your content, sets up your project online and writes you one page to manage it properly. He/she will spend a couple hours and you are served with a working minimum viable product for showcase.


Why not ask Hacker News Community? May be we can create monthly post.

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.


I'm currently working on a platform to facilitate this sort of thing called http://hivemindly.com but it's not yet ready for a public launch. You can register your interest though.


I'm not sure what more do you expect ove upwork and the like? Tinder for developers? Unless you put in the time, it's not going work, in love or coding. Simple.




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