Does anyone know any good local coders (php/MySQL) in the area or have any guidance which college / university might be able to refer me to a 4th year student or recent grad? This is a one-off project, but may turn into more work if I can find the right individual. Thanks LW
A college degree means nothing for ability to code. You are better off looking at Elance and Odesk. This is a better channel as you can find someone with a bit more experience and comfortable with the process from hire to delivery. You may think that communicating your needs is easier in person than over remote channels, but I don't think that's the case. Either way, you will need to be excruciatingly detailed in your spec so there is no room for misunderstanding. By going remote, you might actually get better results by making more of an effort to provide good details. Of course, there are strong devs who don't need a lot of hand holding, but they charge a lot more also. I had a buddy here doing a web start-up as well as contract work and he went through a bunch of tech graduates. They were legit hires with a legit business (as opposed to paying contractors under the table.) He gave them all the time they needed to learn on the job (again, a degree means nothing for being able to code) but none of them worked out. The one guy who did kick @ss ended up moving on to another job because a small business can't compare to getting that coveted big company lanyard, especially with the parents riding on him to get a "real job" for the money they spent on the education. I have done some work with a U.S. based dev shop which has an office in Manila. I guess a couple of their devs decided they wanted to move to the Philippines, so the company branched out. Today they have more U.S. developers there than locals. When they needed more help to do a site they didn't have enough manpower for, who did they hire? Me, another U.S. developer. Good luck!
I own and operate a business administration outsourcing company here in Dumaguete; Global OfficeWorks I have a coder who is just finishing a project with me. I would be happy to refer to him you. He has been working from my office with a supervised management team and it has worked well. I could offer you our service, or send him to you directly. You will find out (the hard way) that Odesk & Elance are very unreliable and don't work. Nor do most home based workers. They need organized structure. If you do hire him directly, at least he is here in Dumaguete so you can have regular face to face meetings. Let me know how I can help. Rodney.
totally agree, locals are not exactly what one would call rocket-scientists of coding and one ends up spending way more time, nerves and eventually money to get the same result compared to hire a professional. not Philippines, Bangladesh, etc I followed the advertising -link in the second answer. If that website is made by a coder of promoted company, I can only say I would not advertise for that company here without having the website halfway sorted, you don't do yourself a favour. A WP template, some plugins, bad formatting, the perfect example why to hire a real developer, give him the exact and detailed what you want and get good results. With all respect, did you work in the IT business before, or it is just one of that "great ideas" expats in the Philippines come up with, to run a business in the Philippines before getting too bored
Rodneyemr, I get that you are selling a service, so I understand the used car salesman pitch, but your logic is off here. First off, you don't hire Odesk or Elance, they simply act as a middleman connecting buyers and sellers. Since anyone can join these services, there is a large range of quality of service offerings. For web developers, there is anywhere from 3rd world developers who charge $5 / hour or less to world class developers who charge $100 / hour or more. There are people on there who are simply the best there is, but you will have to pay well to get them. That's not because they are charging inflated rates, but because market demand has allowed them to reach those levels. Either you don't know how these platforms work, or in bashing them you are also bashing your own business model. You provide a service for virtual assistants with an office and management. Did you know that Elance and Odesk allow company accounts as well as individual accounts? There are a lot of web agencies on these platforms which have employees, a management structure and an office location, just like Global OfficeWorks! We already discussed why that's a jacked up quote. It's pointing the finger at the wrong direction and it's a generalization. So let's change that quote. That's better. I agree that remote developers can be unreliable. But I feel the following quote is equally true. And this one is a bit personal since I work from home. Are you inferring that all things being equal, you would be more effective than someone working from home? You personally might be more effective working outside your home, but that's not what you said. What provides structure for you? The management probably helps, but if you are the boss then you have to direct the management. Is it the office? A filing cabinet? A secretary? I have my ups and downs but I'm effective at what I do working from home. I have been doing so for over six years. Some of the businesses I have the highest respect for such as Github and 37Signals (creators of Basecamp) have mostly remote work forces. This quote is from Gass Right. I can at times underbid third world developers because I'm bidding on something that I'm a specialist at while the other developers have no idea on what's required for the job and throw out a huge quote. Usually in these cases I just set my quote to the average rather than underbid everyone. I have also had cases where I have been passed over for cheaper developers only to have those clients come back because I ended up being the cheaper option. In other cases I have been hired to clean up a mess left by cheaper developers. The rate a developer charges isn't everything though. What I like about Odesk and Elance is that the larger developer market (relative to the local market) often allows for you to find diamonds in the rough. There are a lot of great developers on these platforms who are just getting started and charge much less than what they should be charging. That doesn't last long though. Once they get discovered, they quickly adjust.
I'm a coder I work online for several California and Europe based companies, but I live here. Currently I have some time for side projects. My rate is higher than local average, but lower than western average - 19$ per hour. If my rate is too high for you, I can consult you on how to create a better project description/specification, what technologies is it better to use, how and where to find cheaper developers. Also, you can check freelancer.com.
