Dear Reader, Being the CEO of the outsourcing company Infotrex Services (http://www.infotrex.com/), I have very good experience of hiring many programmers by myself & I would like to share some tips so that you can hire the best programmer. Developers are easy to find, but people who understand what you're trying to do and are fanatically committed to do things better isn't. Every few days, I talk to clients who outsourced development work and they are not happy with their programmers or the company they deal with.
So when we work with these kind of clients, I make sure that the communication channel is always live and our developers are super sharp to understand the requirements & work on it. Our focus isn't on technology as much as it is on our problem solving attitude. We're not the biggest, we're not the cheapest, and we aren't rocket scientists - we just get things done by pushing ourselves to get the best solution for our clients. Anyway, long story short here - hiring developers when you outsource the project is a headache.
Here are some tips for you: 1. Define the Job description, skill-set & approximate years of experience of a desired programmer To accomplish this, you need to have someone expert who can define this for you. Do not ask to your friends or try to answer by yourself. Get professional help. You can ask this directly to CEOs of outsource companies(like us!!!). Many of our clients don't really ask and we suggest that they ask this to us and get real answer.
2. Ask for a brief resume of the programmer After finishing this first criteria, next best step is to ask for some relevant experience. This part is tricky one. Some programmers are smart enough and try to fool you by saying that they can provide you everything which you want and even show you some fake projects work. Again, get some professional help to get out of this trap. Remember the old saying - All glitter is not gold.
3. Have Some problem sets for testing It is better to have a small problem sets available, which you can give it to the programmer. Ask for the logic to solve the problem and if time permits, ask the programmer to even implement the logic and give you test solution. This is the most difficult part and requires lots of preparation beforehand.
4. Solve the problem for long-term, not short-term If you are not a fly by night person or a company, and then go for a long term solution. It means - for your programming needs, do all 3 activities mentioned here and try to establish the relationship with a programmer or a company for long term. 5. Hourly rate is an illusion game when you keep bargaining For example, there are 2 programmers.
Programmer A is having 2 years of experience and hourly rate is: 20$ per hour. Programmer B is having 1 year of experience and the rate is: 10$ per hour. If you just look for the hourly rate, then choosing the lower is not always good for you.
Now, for particular project work, programmer A will give you 1 hour estimate and for same work programmer B will give you estimate of 3 hours. Just do the math and you will know that programmer A will be cost effective eventually. Another case: If you bargain with programmer A and tell him to lower the rate, for example 15$ per hour. Once the programmer agree for it, and for same work of 1 hour, if he estimate 2 hours of work at 15$ rate. Again, same thing. Don't bargain too much.
You always have to pay higher for more experience. 6. Seek some genuine advice & research experience if you have short listed candidates by following all above points; try to find a real genius.
It's always good to work with genuine people who really love to add value to their client's business by giving some neutral advice & by doing little research. Ask some dumb questions to programmers and see how they answer you. This point will make a long term impact on your business. So, don't neglect to check this point. 7. Help Programmers to get best out of them Programmers are people too.
Sometimes they have very limited business knowledge or industry specific knowledge. Sometimes, what is common-sense to you is not really a common-sense to them. Help the programmer to teach some of the business knowledge of your industry and then see what magic will happen. Next time you hire the programmer, make sure to follow all 7 points mentioned above.
I would be happy to hear your story. Please get in touch for any other help for your outsourcing project or programmer needs.
I'm your host-Ankur Patel-your outsourcing partner based in India. For my day job, I run Infotrex Services(Managing Information 4 U) - http://www.infotrex.com and work with a small team of smart developers for supporting clients based in USA, Canada, UK, Italy, Ireland, Australia etc. We help all clients to succeed in their online business by SEO(Internet marketing), online support & intelligent Web application solutions.
