Ask HN: Advice for finding high quality freelance web developers?

6 points by jdamon96 6 years ago | 5 comments

Hi HN,

Has anyone had a positive experience with hiring a remote web developer(s) and advice for how to go about it?

Here's my situation:

- I work fulltime (70 hrs M-F) but have been using my weekends and holiday time to work on a web app on the side to help me with a process I regularly do for one of my hobbies.

- My development has hit a stand still because I have encountered a problem that I can specifically describe and I know would probably be trivial for an experienced web dev, but I'm not quite sure how to solve it.

- I tried using Upwork to hire a freelance web developer to implement this specific component I'm having trouble with, but I had an extremely poor experience (the developer charged me for 10 hours of labor and then sent me back code that they had taken from an open source repository on GitHub that also didn't even meet the specs I had described - I literally just Googled the first line of code bc it looked fishy and the repository popped up ).

I want to hire a web developer who I can pay to work ~10 hours a week for me and I essentially act as the product manager - I am comfortable reading and writing code, I just don't have enough time to make this app the way I want to, though I know someone out there can.

Has anyone been in this situation before? Any advice?

WalterSear 6 years ago |

I haven't, but...

I'm (currently) a freelance web developer. I've worked at and with y-combinator companies (including one as the first employee), and am currently working to get my own project off the ground, and would like to extend my run rate a bit.

I may not be able to compete with Upwork in regards to hourly rate, but I'm at the top of my game developing MVPs and solving tricky web development problems. My last corporate job was developing the world's first IDE for DNA programming.

If you are interested in talking further, checking out my github/linkedin bio, recent work etc, let me know, and we can set up a time to talk about your project, and the specific problem you are having. You can reach me at jon at elbizri dot com

techwithpoppy 6 years ago |

Hi,

I've been on both sides of the table. I've worked as a freelancer, and currently, I'm a part of an agency that offers remote webdevelopment services. Whenever you plan to hire a freelancer or an agency, take a good look at their credentials, reviews, past work and most importantly if they are a good culture fit. Do as many calls, video chats to see if their is a synergy. Hiring is a time consuming process, don't let anyone pressure you into speeding things up. If you require a remote developer, PM me, lets take it further from there.

Jack000 6 years ago |

I've hired a lot of developers on upwork and my success rate is close to 0, even when paying $50-80/hr

- 6/10 just can't code to the mockup. I think they use a fixed library of components or something and get it as close as possible as quickly as possible, but there would be major visual issues (ie. things would be functionally broken) and I have to go back and forth 5+ times to get it right. At that point it's just a waste of time.

4 others I had some limited success with:

- freelancer 1 could code html/css to spec, but it was very clear that he specialized in "psd to html" work and couldn't handle a more complex vue component. He then ghosted me in the middle of work.

- freelancer 2 was amazingly good, implemented the component without problems, did not require any hand holding and everything looked great the first try. Surprisingly he was also the cheapest of the 10. I expressed that he did a great job and wanted to continue, but a week later he said he had some personal problems to deal with and couldn't continue. I offer more money, to be ghosted again..

- at this point I was tired of looking and just wanted someone experienced, if more expensive. freelancer 3 had a great upwork track record, relevant experience and a good portfolio. He worked on my project for several days before telling me that my api was broken and he was trying to debug it for CORS issues. I was confused because the api only took a few standard POST form variables. After trying to figure out the problem myself, I realized that he didn't know what a post variable was - he assumed all POST requests were json blobs in the form of {postvar:value} and didn't know sending it in a different way was possible. Instead of communicating this to me he assumed it was a CORS issue and spent several days trying to fix it without result.

- I then decided that experience was not a great filter and hired freelancer 4, who seemed smart and curious based on github projects. This person did pretty well overall, but had trouble with English communication. He would frequently come back to me to tell me X was impossible because he had never seen it before, and I would have to tell him that X was indeed possible, then walk them through the implementation step-by-step.

anyways, the search continues..

Porthos9K 6 years ago |

40 hours a week is full time. 70 hours a week is suicidal.

googleisevil6 6 years ago |

I don't really have an advice but if you can explain your problem in an email hnewscontractor@outlook.com - I can work for free for 10 hours and give you the work. Any further work is paid (including a fee for the first 10 hours).

Thinking about it- that is the advice, establish the freelancer's credentials first.