What is the best way to find an honest and solid coder/developer?

[WildspitzE]

I'm posting this here, because I'm not sure where else.

Given that sometimes it seems that many of you are in the tech / software business, I figure I pick your brain.

I'm looking for an honest and solid/creative software developer (website(s) and mobile apps that would interface with each other). What is the best way to find one? Any of you have experience with this process (for your own businesses)? PM if you prefer.

Tired of dealing with the folks that google spits up.

[jpatter666]

Re: What is the best way to find an honest and solid coder/developer?

Ah....shame ThePythonicCow no longer seems to be with us.

I'm in the business, and I'd start by asking some questions:

1 ) Do you know exactly what you are wanting (and have specifications) or just a general idea?
2 ) Fast, cheap, correct -- pick two
3 ) Are you willing to work with someone remote, or would you prefer to have someone local. If local, I suggest you contact a local user group and ask them for a reference

Thoughts from the top of my head, worth what you paid.... ;-)

[WildspitzE]

Re: What is the best way to find an honest and solid coder/developer?

I thought the same thing.

Thanks for your thoughts, much appreciated.
1) I know exactly what I want, not sure if I have the tech background to come up with complete specs.
2) C&C
3) Remote is fine, as long as the person is honest and does good work.

[aaron]

Re: What is the best way to find an honest and solid coder/developer?

I used rentacoder in the past. You can find some good programmers there, but it will cost you. If you go that route, I recommend you first get bids on a small portion of your project. That way you can try a few people out. As I recall, they had a system like Ebay/Amazon where everybody rates you. Pick highly rated people. (If they have done a huge number projects, know that they probably have people working for them).

Local programmers would probably be better. I am sure you can find some cheap labor around the colleges. It will be correct because you know where they live.

[jpatter666]

Re: What is the best way to find an honest and solid coder/developer?

I used rentacoder in the past. You can find some good programmers there, but it will cost you. If you go that route, I recommend you first get bids on a small portion of your project. That way you can try a few people out. As I recall, they had a system like Ebay/Amazon where everybody rates you. Pick highly rated people. (If they have done a huge number projects, know that they probably have people working for them).

Local programmers would probably be better. I am sure you can find some cheap labor around the colleges. It will be correct because you know where they live.

If money is an issue and also speed/scalability (i.e. this is a web-based application) pay the money for an architect to develop the basic design and specs. Then get your cheap local code junkie to build it.

If the design won't work properly (lots of stuff I saw worked *fine* for 1-10 users and was completely inoperable for more than 100) then too often you have to trash the whole thing.

[WildspitzE]

Re: What is the best way to find an honest and solid coder/developer?

Thanks gents, all of this is very useful ....aside from what I asked, "heads ups" are always appreciated from this crew. Cheers.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: What is the best way to find an honest and solid coder/developer?

I've hired a little such work with mixed results.
I like the larger groups and product development firms. Higher priced, but more likely to actually finish with a good result.
On one project I hired cheaper individual programmers twice who could not deliver before I bit the bullet and hired a real firm - unfinished code has about zero value.

[touchring]

Re: What is the best way to find an honest and solid coder/developer?

I've hired a little such work with mixed results.
I like the larger groups and product development firms. Higher priced, but more likely to actually finish with a good result.
On one project I hired cheaper individual programmers twice who could not deliver before I bit the bullet and hired a real firm - unfinished code has about zero value.

it can be done, but you'll have to be your own project manager or hire a project manager.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: What is the best way to find an honest and solid coder/developer?

it can be done, but you'll have to be your own project manager or hire a project manager.

Sadly, I AM a professional project manager for product development (general engineering, not software) and have still arranged to fail at it twice. I've worked years in product development for mechanical and electronic devices, including devices with custom embedded firmware, but pure software development was my hardest challenge.

All technical work can be opaque to people outside that trade. It's especially true for software, because discussions of the work are pure gibberish to an outsider.

My two failed coders were optimistic chaps who couldn't deliver, and it took several missed milestones and a couple failed get-well plans before I fired them.

[c1ue]

Re: What is the best way to find an honest and solid coder/developer?

The first questions you have to ask are: what exactly do you want and how much time and/or money you're willing to spend.

The first question has to do with the specification.

An idea in your head doesn't translate necessarily into an actual code specification. If, on the other hand, there is a public product which performs the same function (if not with the same data, not in the same field, etc etc), you can use that as a reference.

If on the other hand you have something which is not being done anywhere else, then you really have to bear down on details. Hardware may not do what you think. OS' may not support the functionality consistently across different platforms. Infrastructure may not perform in the consistent and reliable manner you think. etc etc.

As part of the above, you need to really put together a strong set of testing patterns. Without testing, anyone and everyone you hire can only give you untested product - i.e. unusable.

The next step is hiring. Again your business model and specification come into play.

Is your product one off? i.e. it is so simple and complete and straightforward that you'll never have to monkey with it once it is done. Rare, but possible.

If it isn't one off, then this more or less removes all possibility of using non-professionals.

Code of any complexity is cheaper to re-create than it is for some new person to understand what happened before, especially without the previous coder being available for consultation. People you hire off Craigslist or the street (so to speak) will not necessarily be responsive or even around when you come back with some modification or bug fix.

Whether it is one off or not, timing is the next factor.

A full time employee via a consulting agency in India will cost you around $2600/month. A part time person in India through an agency will cost you around $25/hour.

Comparable costs for on-shore will be 4x (more or less depending on area).

For example: developing a mobile app via an India outsourcing consultancy will cost you around $6K to $10K depending on complexity. The same app via a top line professional firm will be $25K or more, plus 10% to 20% annual maintenance costs.

The top line firm will quote you a time line and will meet it. The part time people will not. The full time employee might meet it if your spec is good, and if you get a good one, and if they are supervised well.

A last note: if what you're doing is fairly simple and straightforward - i.e. collect data and display data, minimal 2 way interaction, no or low user fees - I'd look at the various DIY app code packages. They work fine for simple stuff, though they won't necessarily give you a pretty product.

You can, however, hire people to 'prettify'.

[Sharky]

Re: What is the best way to find an honest and solid coder/developer?

I'm looking for an honest and solid/creative software developer (website(s) and mobile apps that would interface with each other). What is the best way to find one? Any of you have experience with this process (for your own businesses)?

I've been a software developer for 30+ yrs, including running my own business. My two cents:

Replace "software developer" with "author" or "building architect," and it might give you some perspective. Many people claim to be software developers, but know amazingly little about what they're doing.

Something else that might provide insight is the idea that "it takes one to know one." If you don't have extensive software development experience yourself, it's very difficult to recognize it in others.

If you only need a single developer, odds are that you will be better off working with a development firm/agency of some kind. The idea is that the agency will take responsibility for the schedule, quality and cost. Finding a good agency is difficult, but not as much as finding good individuals, because the people running the agencies are more likely to speak your language.

In either case, working directly with developers or through an agency, your best chances for finding honest and solid/creative people is through referrals. The problem, of course, is that those types of people also tend to be the busiest, and they are often considered "protected assets." Finding well-known open source developers and book authors both used to be viable approaches for finding leads; neither works as well as well as it used to.

It's also possible to use an independent third party to help you screen people. Ideally, this should be an experienced developer who also understands the nature of the constraints of cost, schedule and quality, and who knows the right questions to ask references to discover possible weaknesses. For example, I've been doing this for a while for some of my clients, and they've found it to be a valuable thing.