The key is that you will still need to write specifications if you want anything good. And that takes time and effort too. People in general are lousy at reading your mind.
In my experience, writing a 'good' specification is as much, if not more, work as writing the code. If you write it at too high a level of abstraction, the programmers will probably not implement what you really wanted.
I strongly disagree. Find a good programmer that will do a good job out of love and money, and will help you with more than just being a code-writing monkey.
Hi imasr, it's not that I don't want to hire someone who's talented, smart and motivated to help me with my project(s). It's just.. I'm a student. I can't hire a programmer on a full-time basis for obvious reasons.
My situation is that I hope to save money as often as I can and from time to time maybe outsource a part of my project every so often when it's more beneficial to review and integrate outsourced code than it is to write it myself.
It's not like I'm going to put out a request for something like "build me an invoicing system." I think it's agreeable that it's too much for one inexperienced developer to try to build large, complex and robust systems. And, I don't want to be one of those guys who pays you in equity or IOUs. This is the closest I can get to what you're telling me to do.
That's perfectly fine. It happened to me before of someone offering a job that wasn't for me but for a more Jr. developer and I ended-up passing it on to someone I knew and trusted.
I'm from Argentina, and down here you have the leverage of currency being 1 to 4. Is not that you'll be paying cents an hour, but you'll be paying less and will pay someone above his/her local rate. Win-win.
You're right; I had never thought about that. If I can afford it personally, I'd much prefer to contract out jobs this way. (Why I'm asking! :)
Any tips on finding developers for freelance/contract work in Argentina? I'm sure I could find a few outlets, but a native might be aware of some things that'd take me a while to catch on to.
Comments
Derek Sivers wrote good article on this topic few days ago: http://sivers.org/how2hire
And check these out too: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1445500 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1455670
The key is that you will still need to write specifications if you want anything good. And that takes time and effort too. People in general are lousy at reading your mind.
In my experience, writing a 'good' specification is as much, if not more, work as writing the code. If you write it at too high a level of abstraction, the programmers will probably not implement what you really wanted.
I strongly disagree. Find a good programmer that will do a good job out of love and money, and will help you with more than just being a code-writing monkey.
Hi imasr, it's not that I don't want to hire someone who's talented, smart and motivated to help me with my project(s). It's just.. I'm a student. I can't hire a programmer on a full-time basis for obvious reasons.
My situation is that I hope to save money as often as I can and from time to time maybe outsource a part of my project every so often when it's more beneficial to review and integrate outsourced code than it is to write it myself.
It's not like I'm going to put out a request for something like "build me an invoicing system." I think it's agreeable that it's too much for one inexperienced developer to try to build large, complex and robust systems. And, I don't want to be one of those guys who pays you in equity or IOUs. This is the closest I can get to what you're telling me to do.
That's perfectly fine. It happened to me before of someone offering a job that wasn't for me but for a more Jr. developer and I ended-up passing it on to someone I knew and trusted. I'm from Argentina, and down here you have the leverage of currency being 1 to 4. Is not that you'll be paying cents an hour, but you'll be paying less and will pay someone above his/her local rate. Win-win.
You're right; I had never thought about that. If I can afford it personally, I'd much prefer to contract out jobs this way. (Why I'm asking! :)
Any tips on finding developers for freelance/contract work in Argentina? I'm sure I could find a few outlets, but a native might be aware of some things that'd take me a while to catch on to.
Drop me a line at rafael_imas@yahoo.com.
Thanks! I always enjoy reading Derek's pieces.