Finding a good, full-time PHP developer = FAIL so far

Man, I feel your pain!!!

Programmers are just hard to keep on board, at least in my experience. They just seem to disappear after a big project is completed, even after treating them well, giving bonuses, etc...

Not sure, haha.

-Christian

I've been developing software for 33 years and I can tell you that finding a good developer at the going rate (a lot more than $1k/m here in the UK) is and allways has been a very difficult job. If you are trying to get a good one for the kind of money you are offering then good luck to you.

Sorry but low reward was one of the reasons I don't sell that skill anymore.

I use scriptlance. Read the feedback of the bidders and make sure you hire someone with good feedback and look at the type of projects that are listed in their feedback to make sure they have the skills you need.

Hello khtm,

I would suggest to hire a firm or a company instead of a freelancer who are working from home. Direct individual hiring usually means they can accept jobs from others too which could compromise their time management and your projects. If you hire from a company, you can be sure that there is a supervisor looking over their work that's making sure they get the job done.

If you haven't found someone, we're willing to take this up.
Just let me know. Thanks!

Well, at least you know what the problem is.

The real "solid, full-time, PHP developers" outside the developed countries are going to be employed, probably doing the jobs of formerly employed US based "solid, full-time, PHP developers". While they're paid considerably less than their US counterparts were, it is a lot more than a paltry $6.25/hr. You'll be looking at $25/hr+ to start getting into truly competent, full time, programmers and away from part-timers, students and hackers.

i would love to help you out but now i am only working for my A$$ anyway a tip for you go to vWorker (The new Rentacoder) you can find good guys there

I have had numerous bad experiences with hiring Indians, i won't hire anyone from Pakistan or India anymore.

If you want good programmers for cheap try programmers from Eastern Europe. They work hard and do their best to satisfy you, they're also loyal. Disadvantage are communication skills and work standard. But if your budget is low then this is your best option. I have found mine through Vworker. Check out their positive ratings and how fast they reply to your questions.

First of all, $1000/month IS a very good wage in india, from what I understand. You SHOULD realize that a good programmer with DECENT english in the US CAN make much more, so it may frustrate your efforts.

Frankly, you should NEVER trust resumes. I rarely even read them. Of course, I am the last point of contact for new hires, and the first 1-2 contacts DO read resumes.

Do what *I* do. I turn down about 80%, it USED to be over 98% because my standards were higher. I had to lower my standards because we need people. To tell you the truth, I have even thought of raising them a bit higher again. Hey, I have interviewed THOUSANDS of people! SERIOUSLY!

If you have a guy that knows PHP, has programmed applications before, and has done some phone biased debugging or helped out a technically challenged person over the phone, ask for THEIR help here. If possible, get THEM to do it FOR you!

1. Ask questions about each area you want to cover.... PHP, UNIX, SQL, etc...
2. Ask some open ended questions like "What was your most challenging problem at a prior engagement, and how did you solve it?
3. BTW you might want to spend at least 15 minutes per area.
4. Jump around on questions. It frustrates cheating attempts, and shows you better how they think.

I THOUGHT about automating things, but it is TOO EASY TO CHEAT! They try to cheat even with ORAL questions!

REMEMBER, you are NOT really grading the answers. Answering an OBSCURE question with an efficient solution will count as more than answering a common one with an inefficient solution, and clearly missing an EASY question may mean LOOK ELSEWHERE!

ALSO, remember, that there IS a communication gap. Come back to questionable questions and maybe ask them a different way.

ALSO, don't give them TOO much time to answer and listen for silence or sounds like they are talking with someone. They COULD be a plant, or taking cues from one.

Follow this advice, and you will know that AT LEAST they aren't incompetent, and can communicate OK.

Steve

Steve, that's some great advice, much appreciated. I definitely realize that my candidate selection process has lots of room for improvement.

Looking for a "Full Time" PHP Web Developer for $1,000 is not gonna work as others have kinda brought to your attention.

So... start looking for a candidate who can actually live on $1,000 per month and whether he works 10 hours a week or 40 he is happy with the money vs. work involved.

My advice would be to target a 'younger' candidate who might be attending college courses or a technical college for a related career path in IT or web development.

I also second or third a suggestion to look for a company who can supply you with the end result that you require for $1,000 and not worry so much if they are at your beckon call. The end point is are they completing the work you need within the deadlines you set and their work is at your required level of quality.

As I said in another post here on WF... Fast, Cheap and Quality ... Pick 2 of the 3 because you can't EVER get all 3.

Fast and Cheap = Low Quality
Cheap and Quality = Not Fast
Quality and Fast = Not Cheap

^ Abel, just curious...do you have experience with overseas development outsourcing?

Where did you find your contractors?

You must weed through them fast. Post an ad on onlinejobs.ph and contact the resumes, after you get 30 candidates, then narrow it down to just a handful, then have them complete a complicated hard task right off the bat, have them all do this and offer them a set price to do it ($50 or whatever you think is fair) let them know that this is their audition and if they get done first before the other guys then they are hired.

But either way they will get paid for their work on that task. It will speed up your hiring and firing process by 10 fold doing it this way.

I have 15 years of programming experience and thought I'd put a different spin on your problem.

IMO, the problem is that you're looking for a PHP developer and that will always be a weak-link. PHP is open source with a lot of free "tools" out there. It's very easy for someone to not really understand programming principles, pick up a cheap PHP tutorial online and feel like, "hey, I'm a great developer! People should hire me!". They see your ad and reply to it because they just finished making a web page that displays the current time and date and have declared themselves to have "solid" skills.

You need to invest your time in people who have invested their time in learning a real programming language. For the web, it makes sense to look for ASP.NET (C#) developers or Java developers. It's fairly easy to fake being a PHP programmer, it's almost impossible to fake being a C# developer.

Get away from the script languages and start investing in things like ASP.NET. Might not be cheaper than what you want to spend now, but the quality of work is much higher.

$1K/month is a decent wage in India. I know of several very smart people (code whiz) working for $500-600 per month. The problem is, you won't find them on these sites. They are working for big companies with a lot of security and all that. They are not going to find work online full-time. People whom you do find are *usually* the people who were left over. There are a few exceptions, of course, but they are far and few in between.

Having said that, you can find very good programmers if your testing and qualification is a little better. On oDesk, have you tried approaching the programmers yourself, instead of just letting them come to you? You can send them invites and they may see your project which otherwise they might not.

Give them a hard sample task to start off with. That will weed out those who are not hard workers, don't pay attention to details and a lot more. You'll be left with the ones who should be decent. Many of them will disappear once they see the task, heh!

Those who complete the job - you can see who did it the best, in what time, and the communication, etc. :-)

It's not impossible... just a little tough.

Somebody mentioned reantacoder (its called vworker now)

I have had GREAT success there. You may need to try a few - I would put up some small projects and try them out. Once you find one offer him/her a full-time gig....

Simon

Been in the biz for years and been a coder for years. PHP is my core. I have hired flat price work, I have also hired college student to work as an employee starting at $10.

For years it always bugged me that I had a hard time getting contractors to do what I wanted the way I wanted. That was until one day I visited my mother at work. See she works for the Government, and she is a project manager. We got talking about how they hire contractors, and the rule was simple, cheapest wins. There was no rule of too cheap, of you don't like them. It did not matter if someone had to build a trillion dollar satellite and placed an offer for $1 to do it, they Government would hire them and that was that.

My response to her was that they must have all types of messed up stuff. She told me no they did not. They used RFPs that was line-by-line what they wanted. So if they want someone to make a website they would say; we want a website, that does x, y,and z. If they wanted email accounts setup, they would not just tell the contract we want emails setup for our staff, they would say we want x number of emails and they need to be named like so, and here is the list of the people you need to make them for.

I know that sounds dump, it it is really that simple. Some days we forget that we see things within our heads and when you explain something to someone they do not always see it the same as you. So give them a list that covers each thing that you want, and what each thing must do, or look like.

After I started using RFPs, things turned around 100%, guys from India started doing what I wanted right the first time and if they did not... the RFP clearly covered I would not pay them till it was done they want it was request in the RFP.

But really 1k is way to low, you need to step up to around 2k a month to get someone who is not drooling on themselves.

Try agents of value - agentsofvalue.com... I have a great php developer that worked for me for 3 years from them... Make sure you get a web developer - not a webmaster... And also, test them out early and if you dont like them, you can fire them and get another when someone opens up... A lot of guys you have heard of use AOV... Good luck...

Dude, I have a friend that outsources all his stuff to a pure php nerd. He has been made redundant last month and works for £20 an hour which is dirt cheap. He has no idea what he's worth but he's very good. He's in London so may not be for you but I can put you in touch if needed. He's a normal UK guy, worked for Lloyds TSB for a long time and like I say, is a total nerd. I pay him approx 100 times less than what he makes me.

Your best bet is this site:

www.virtualemployee.com

It's technically outsourcing, but the individual you hire is managed by Virtual Employee. The indivudual actually works in the Virtual Employee offices and they are supervised. Even screening and interviews can be done for you, and then you can interview the best of the bunch.

Basically, there's a lot of information about it all on the site, and it seems like an incredibly beneficial service. Check it out, hope it helps.

I wonder if anyone has looked at the idea of establishing more permanent relationships abroad rather than working with freelancers? I have experience working in the knowledge process outsourcing sector in India, and I can safely say that all the smarter people want to work full time secure jobs, even if this means working longer hours with no overtime pay. It is a cultural thing--your social standing is in terms of "what company" you work for rather than "what you do". Gen X&Y in India wants a fixed amount per month to spend on fashion, food and wine. Quality freelancers are few and loaded with work. If I had a steady business volume with a big concern for quality and turn around times; I would look at a more stable relationship--perhaps with a partner that has some amount of infrastructure and is capable of a quick time to market. This would mean a shared vision, stable revenue stream, greater control and less last minute surprises---eventually translating into more repeat business.