Coder rental

[Slime101]

Once again i'm in the market for a coder, i have several projects that need completing and they could be in php, perl, asp or somthing else!!

Can anyone reccomend or give advise over these "rentacoder" sites??

I've found a few:

www.rentacoder.com
www.getacoder.com

But am weary of using such a site.....

 

[Slime101]

You could also try a local uni and see of they have any final year students looking for projects (although they are not that good at completing them in my experience)

HT

Not a chance of that - its already months behind schedule due to let downs, dont want to be anywhere near the hands of students!!

Adz - i understand that, but are there good coders out there on these sites?

 

[Slime101]

Most of the people on Rent a Coder are Indians/Eastern Europeans who can, I guess, afford to work for next to nothing on projects. It's a shame really, I've missed out on quite a bit of work due to them charging ridiculously low prices.

You have also missed out on a lot of work by letting me down and failing to even have the courtesy of letting me know why....

 

[Slime101]

The problems with Rob are way in the past - i'd still like an explaination but he decided to stop commicating long before i looked else where for another coder, not very professional at all, and for reference i was paying £20/hour - not bad for a student whose other potential income is generally tescos @ 5.05/hr!!!

Regardless of that, the project is important but i believe in giving everyone a chance, rob did a much smaller project for me very well so i went back to him. I'm not fussed if the person is 15 or 50 as long as they do the work agreed, on time and in budget (within reason!) - i'm buying a persons skills, nothing to do with who they are or where they are from.

So the bottom line is once again i'm looking for a GOOD coder, in fact an excellent coder and yes i'm willing to pay because experience tells me that a pro @ £40/hr will probably take half the time to complete the project, and do it neater/better than an amateur who charges £20/hr but takes double the time!

 

[Slime101]

£20/hour is peanuts for this kind of work, student or not. £40/hour is still rather cheap - I'm not exactly a 'pro' but I recently charged one of our hosting clients £1000 + VAT for a project that took 5 hours. Their original developer at the same price couldn't come up with a working system.

What you need to pay really depends on the complexity of the project and the skillset required .

£1K+vat is a bloody ripoff for 5 hours work.

A pro coder shouldnt be charging much mor than £40/hour, and £20/hour for a student is bloody loads. Their alternative income is tesco or similar @ £5 a hour - i'd say 4x that is perfectly reasonable!

I dont think youll find many people in ANY industry earning more than about £25/hour whether they are saleried or freelance, yes freelancers gfet more per hour but more than that is just extortion and i shant be paying it. There are plenty of people out there that will do the just just as well for a reasonable rate.

 

[Slime101]

Fixed price is fixed price, doesnt matter if it takes 10 hours or 100.

However if i'm paying by the hour then i wont be paying anything like £50 or more, specially not £200+vat!!

 

[Slime101]

If it's ASP/VBScript/JavaScript/HTML/SQL you need a Web Developer who knows how to design databases and how to code propery. Going rates are from £15 to £35 I'd say, I would suggest finding somewhere in the middle, depending on your location.

Which is where i am aiming - i think £25/hour is very respectable for all but the top london based people.

Most of the setting out is already done, the brief has had months of work and input in it and is heading on for pseudo code in some areas now so all that we need is someone to convert it into a working prog/site.

We know our business very well, thats why we are no1 in the uk for this product and produce tens of thousands every year (which considering the product it is a massive number) and this has allowed us to buid a good spec, i've also got previous spec writing experience from my engineering background, and to top it off we have a working prog already, all we want is a bunch of new features added and things tweaked but it seems to be better to start from scratch for this one.

 

[Slime101]

Perhaps you should give an idea of the skillset required? If it's to modify an existing system then what language is it in, etc?

Its not modifying an existing system - its for a new one.

Possibly php, if it is then some perl in there too. Othwise asp, asp.net, coldfusion, java and others are all posibilities.

 

[Slime101]

Without sounding arrogant (and just a general comment), why on earth would the age of the employee be the main factor in deciding said employee's earnings? If a 15 year old can do exactly the same job as a 30 year old (which, in this business, is certainly possible) then why do they deserve less money? It doesn't detract from their work's quality if their apparent "alternative income" is a totally unskilled job that pays £5 an hour.

Because age is a massive factor in income all around the world. Simple as that.

Also i dont think you are in any position to comment about being able to complete work, or do exactly the same job as a 30yr old for example, as you clearly failed to do that when i was employing you, and didnt posess the maturity to even talk to me when you screwed up.

 

[Slime101]

From my experience of contract management I always go for fixed price for the whole contract, and a realistic schedule for completion/delivery, and call me old fashioned but i also like to meet the contractor and build some sort of communication with them.

I agree on all points, however meeting can be tricky, although i am more centrally situated now in staffordshire rather than down on the south coast.