Ask HN: How do you find affordable but capable remote developers?

2 points by JFitzDela 11 years ago | 5 comments

Hello!

I've finally gotten my business to the point that I NEED to hire on at least one subcontractor to take over some of the development work on my plate.

My first thought was to hire out of the Philippines, as I'd heard from a couple of online business bloggers I know that there are a lot of very capable folk willing to work for what amounts to a large sum for them but a small one for me.

I'm just concerned, I guess, about hiring anyone, much less a foreign worker, for no other reason than I'm scared to "let go" as it were and trust ANYONE.

To that end, I need to find someone capable in PHP -- most of my projects are currently built on a "custom" codebase (all my spaghetti code from 10 years of work) as I'd gotten too busy to keep up with the latest frameworks and such. I would LIKE, however, to get someone who can work with me to transition to Laravel/Symfony (I'm not ready to go to Rails/Node, I don't think).

Anyone have advice for where/how to find quality developers that fit the bill? I can't quite afford to hire at American full-time rates, but I need full-time work. May be crappy of me, but there it is -- I'm in that weird limbo that I MUST get out of.

Thanks a million!

edoceo 11 years ago |

I find mine on oDesk. Rates vary widely; good talent is always worth it. I'm paying between $12 and $38/hr.

I post a small gig, with well defined deliverable. Then I have like 100+ applicants. I use a tool I created to filter this down to four or five.

I'll do a quick interview, ask for code or something and then hire two of them for the same gig.

I evaluate their work over this short period (10-20h).

I pick the "winner"

The cost of this hiring via experimental gig is very low and I've had good results thus far.

JFitzDela 11 years ago | |

Thanks! I'll give oDesk another look.

I'd just always heard about the difficulty finding an actually talented contractor, but I like your approach.

badri 11 years ago |

Toptal(http://www.toptal.com/) could fit your bill. The average quality of developers is much higher there.

gus_massa 11 years ago |

> How do you find affordable but capable remote developers?

You pay them more.

JFitzDela 11 years ago | |

Not entirely helpful, but I'll bite.

I'm more than willing to pay higher than "standard" rates, I just can't afford to do so here. The numbers I hard from the Philippines, for instance, meant that I could pay a yearly salary of between $5000 and $10000 (USD) and that would be an amazing wage (I haven't verified that, however).

The issue is not necessarily how MUCH to pay, but how to find the developers in a place I can afford to begin with.