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Programming Technology

Freelance Programming Sites? 50

Posted by Cliff from the when-you-are-too-busy-to-DIY dept.
CarrotLord asks: "I have some small, fairly well-defined programming projects that I need done, but I don't have time to do them myself. So, I've been looking into sites like Get a Freelancer and ScriptLance. Does anybody have any experience of these types of sites? Specifically, I'd like to hear your recommendations and advice, as well as your experiences. My concerns include: getting very poor quality work; communication and language barriers and also losing control over the work that I've paid for -- if I'm paying for some work, I want it licensed on my own terms."
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Freelance Programming Sites? More

Freelance Programming Sites?

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  • No teeth... No reins. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dark Coder ( 66759 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @05:14PM (#13097983)
    Unless this "coder" resides in the same juris-dick-tion as you do, he ain't going to be reined in to observing your conditions upon completion and delivery.

    Stick to the locals, at least you have more business rights that way.

    • Stick to the locals, at least you have more business rights that way.

      Doing this you also support local businesses and people. Keeping currency in the area thus helps the local economy.

      Falcon

  • RentACoder (Score:5, Informative)

    by BandwidthHog ( 257320 ) <inactive.slashdo ... icallyenough.com> on Monday July 18, 2005 @05:17PM (#13098005) Homepage Journal
    I've used RentACoder in the past. Only small stuff, but it was dirt cheap to have some guy out in Colorado implement some fixes for an amount comprable to the time I burned defining the scope of the job and communicating with him.

    Didn't have any problems, so I can't speak to their dispute resolution system. Got what I paid for first time around, perfectly smooth, etc.

    Hi, Chris!
  • To prevent someone taking your work, have someone build the common libraries first, and then have someone else use that compiled library (obscurificated and with expiration date built in). You could also let them compile the code on your server and use remote desktop so you can see them working with the code, and then block the ports to make it harder for them to remove information from the computer. Good Luck...
    • You're going to block ports to stop a developer from extracting code from your location?

      Any developer worth his salt would have no problem overcoming any such restriction.

      It the strictest sense, you may be correct. It will be harder to get a copy of the code. Harder in the sense that it may be harder to make a left turn by taking 3 rights, but in no way is it difficult.
    • I've worked as a contractor in this situation. My client had a machine dedicated as the build machine which I would connect to with vnc over ssh.

      One HUGE advantage of this is that the client can easily build the project himself. If I decided to use a new library I have to set it up on the build machine for them. If I got hit by a bus tomorrow while carrying my workstation the client would have everything that they need to continue on with the project (minus one software developer).

      Jon

    • You could also let them compile the code on your server and use remote desktop so you can see them working with the code, and then block the ports to make it harder for them to remove information from the computer.

      I'm not a good programmer but I know that even if you compile code on a server the source can still be local so all you'd need was a compiler of your own to compile it own on your own machine. As for any sort of remote desktop there's no way I'd install anything like it on my own computer so

  • sitepoint.com (Score:5, Informative)

    by Nos. ( 179609 ) <andrew@th[ ]rrs.ca ['eke' in gap]> on Monday July 18, 2005 @05:26PM (#13098069) Homepage
    I've done some work for people through sitepoint. Basically, it involves a lot of trust on both parties, which in a lot of cases, will leave somebody screwed. I've almost always done the work in advance and trusted that the party involved would pay me when the work was completed. So far this has worked out well for me, but in time, I'm sure I'll get burned. Generally speaking, searching the history of that user in the forums will give me some idea of my likelihood of getting paid. For larger jobs, there are a variety of escrow services out there.

  • Elance (Score:3, Informative)

    by JeffHunt ( 129508 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @05:28PM (#13098089) Homepage
    I recommend looking for programmers at Elance. The programmers that subscribe to Elance are typically of better quality.

    One thing to keep in mind is that you /shouldn't/ be looking for a bargain. You may already know, but you're going to get what you're paying for. Just a heads-up.

  • Big Mistake (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18, 2005 @05:31PM (#13098106)
    I hired someone on scriptlance a year or so ago to improve a web based game I had written. Was a nightmare. First the guy did a horrible job, then he demanded more money to do it correctly, after I gave in and paid him more to fix it he ended up selling/giving away the code which completely ruined the market for my sites.
    Never agian ...

  • Craigslist (Score:4, Informative)

    by JeffHunt ( 129508 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @05:31PM (#13098108) Homepage
    I forgot to mention in my last comment... post an ad on craigslist. It's a great place to find programmers for a project, in my experience.

    • Yes - but beware of generic responses. I posted an ad for a Ruby on Rails programmer, and got 20-30 responses from generic web design companies (most of which had never even heard of Ruby on Rails), and 1 response from an actual Rails programmer. About half of the responses were from large companies (many of them off-shore) and about half were from smaller or independent programmers.

      craigslist is a great tool. Just be really specific about what you're looking for so you avoid the junk responses.

      • You're correct about "generic responses". I posted a couple of ads for a subcontracting position, using PHP/perl/MySQL/PostgreSQL, and I got a bunch of responses.

        "Hello sir, my name is [xyz] and I am a .Net programmer"

        "We offer cheap logo design services"

        etc.
    • And also a great place to find work. With good RSS support, which makes the listings a lot easier to browse.

      Bit of a spam problem, alas. But not nearly as bad as Monster or ComputerCareers.

  • Rentacoder (Score:5, Informative)

    by prostoalex ( 308614 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @05:32PM (#13098116) Homepage Journal
    Rentacoder has pretty good environment for negotiating such projects - bidders have a chance to ask you questions, you can specify the ballpark of what you're willing to pay, and then you can exactly outline your requirements.

    The only drawback of the site was a whole bunch of bids from places like Romania and India, which did not even bother to read the project description (e.g. project required a specific PHP module, and the letter said "If you're looking for a great ASP/ASP.NET team, you've found one!")

    But those are easy to ignore.

  • Cake and eat it too? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Programming is a technical skill. You're asking for a product here. Don't go to a programmer asking for a product cause you ain't gonna get it. You're gonna get a technical solution. Something like a huge mass of C files and maybe a Makefile. Wow, look at that red-black tree he used. What you need is a freelance project manager who can manage the product you want and the technical people who can provide that product.

    • Actually, no. I want the mass of code (not C, but that's beside the point). I'm capable of project managing it myself, and wouldn't entrust that to anyone else. I've even done the design work myself, because I know what I want, and I happen to be a better designer than coder. What I want is someone cheaper than me to do the gruntwork.

  • Be specific (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kawika ( 87069 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @05:50PM (#13098250)
    You are already on the right track if the projects are "well defined." I have had several experiences on eLance [elance.com] and the best results happen when you know exactly what you want. I mean, exactly. If you need something in ATL or MFC with specific dependencies (or lack of them), say so. The more specific the better.

    Also specify how the project will be tested before being delivered to you. The end of the project can be the most frustrating. I have decided it's often easier to take ownership of the whole thing and do the little items (spelling and grammar in the UI) rather than trying to pass it back to them.

    Finally, think about IP issues. If you think the project (or your whole company) will ever be bought by any large company, they will ask questions about where the code came from in due diligence. Get some assurances that the code they created "for you" is not yanked from some open source project.

  • rentacoder.com (Score:4, Informative)

    by bergeron76 ( 176351 ) * on Monday July 18, 2005 @05:54PM (#13098281) Homepage
    I use rentacoder.com. The "buyer" gets all rights to the software that the "coder" developed, since the work is work-for-hire.

    They have a safe escrow system in place for the projects, and their arbitration system is good (I actually had to use it once when a coder didn't do the work I paid for). I got my money back, and all was well.

  • The way it usually works is:

    1) I bid the cost of doing well written, documented, and supported code in a reasonable amount of time.

    2) Watch as Indian companies bid ridiculously low development costs, and time using exceptionally poor English (even by ./ standards).

    3) Watch as a "ebay clone" goes to the shop bidding 2 days and $200.

    4) Wait a month.

    5) See the poster of the original project looking for some one else.

    Honestly your best bet would just watch the comments for people like me. I'm in Eastern C
    • *nods in agreement* I tried getting work at a freelance site, specifically scriptlance, for a few months and gave up.

      Quite a few of the projects I found that I could do didn't pick anyone. Just about every listing had several people that would bid $10 on a $100 project saying they could do it for $500, or something along that line. There were also tons of responses that simply said "See PMB" (Private Message Board) which left me thinking "What's so special about your bid that you can't say it in front of t
      • "See PMB" (Private Message Board) which left me thinking "What's so special about your bid that you can't say it in front of the rest of us?"

        I can't speak for others, but often I will give contact infomation for past clients, and a semi-detailed overview of how I would do what they want.

  • Experience (Score:5, Insightful)

    by natmsincome.com ( 528791 ) <adinobro@gmail.com> on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:36PM (#13098604) Homepage
    It all depends on how big the projects are. If you want something between notepad and say wordpad then you shouldn't have a problem. If you want something like more complicated (a project that will take more than a month) then it is fairly complicated and it will be easier if you are in the same room.

    My Dad sells stuff on line and a few of his products are things that people have asked for that only cost $200 from a freelancer then he has sold about 20 copies and made the money back.

    That being said his main product took about 6 months to make and other people keep on asking for resale rights (he does commission). He says no and they chuck a fit saying we'll just get a freelancer to make it and wipe you off the market. They get freelancers and say copy this. They always fail because 80% of the product is the little things that are done automatically to make it nice and easy to use.

    Now there are also a couple of things to watch out for:
    * Lots of freelancers don't care about copyright. They use other projects in your and your in other projects.
    * Start of with a small contact and if your happy then get the same person to do the bigger one.
    * Freelancers come and go. They might not be interested next time.
    * Use an escrow service the first few times. It good for them and for you.

    • Re:Experience (Score:3, Insightful)

      by HeyLaughingBoy ( 182206 )

      Freelancers come and go. They might not be interested next time.

      I've done some work on RentACoder for fun when the project was interesting and could be done easily in my spare time.

      The parent is right. I'm in the US with a good job as a developer and I do freelancing as a way to get experience or just do different stuff than I do at work. Don't expect that the same person will be available the next time you need work done. It's different for someone who relies on it for a living (but I doubt any skill

  • Stay in "the network." (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:44PM (#13098659)
    Surely you have a sizeable inventory of tech-savvy friends. Some of these people are either good coders themselves, or they know some kick-ass people you could use.

    Why use some big, impersonal job aggregator, never even meeting the programmer in person, when you could just go down to a coffee shop and meet with a friend-of-a-friend? Keep the money local, and help build "the network." The network is how those who know what they are doing leverage the abilities of other skilled people. Massive aggregator sites break down the network and overly corporatize it, leading to impersonal interactions and lack of accountability.

    • Specifically because I live and work in a high-income area, and all the coders I know here would normally charge upwards (often well upwards) of $US40 an hour. I'd also rather give each project to a different person, as the sum of the parts is expected to be worth far more than the individual parts, and to be honest, I want to keep the sum for myself at the present :-)
  • "I have some small, fairly well-defined
    programming projects that I need done,
    but I don't have time to do them myself."

    So, what is scratching your itch worth?

    "So, I've been looking into sites like
    Get a Freelancer and
    ScriptLance.

    Does anybody have any experience of these
    types of sites?"

    We've had a look at GetAFreeLancer.com &
    got the impression, from prices observed,
    that much of the work might go to places
    like India.

    "Specifically, I'd like to hear your rec's
    and advice, a
  • I'm sure there's a temp agency in your area, why not call them up and see what they've got? That way you can have somebody come in and work on your equipment, etc, and maintain the control you seem so concerned about.

  • Like some others have said, it seems like a great idea, being able to do coding from home and getting paid for it. Unforunately though in my experience most of the jobs get taken by people in India for ridiculously low prices. I don't know if the buyers get poor work for this price, or if the standard of living is just so much lower in some of these places.

    Regardless, I'd love to see how the "facebook clone" that got sold for $50 ended up.

  • itmoonlighter/guru (Score:2, Informative)

    by speculatrix ( 678524 )
    A few months ago I took a good look around to see what was available for this sort of thing, and the best I found was "IT Moonlighter", which has changed its name to http://www.guru.com/ [guru.com]

    The thing that struck me most was that it was well thought out; the way you can register a profile, search for work packages, and the escrow service to get paid - particularly valuable to me as I am in the UK and the things I was looking for were mainly in the USA.

    Having said all that, my day job suddenly got better and I
  • In my experience, sites like RentACoder don't really work. I've only been there as a coder, not as an 'employer'.

    When I had some spare time I'd sometimes bid on a project. I never actually got one though. The employers usually want a lot of work done for very little money.

    I see a project and think about it. To do a real good job, would require about 10 hours. Max bid: $100. That's $10 an hour (7 euro?) BEFORE taxes. I'd make more working in a supermarket. In the end, you see someone getting this job f
    • I can confirm this. The problem with these sort of sites are that the employers have unrealistic expectations of what they can get for a dollar.

      What really gets me are the plain out lies people put just to get a contract (ie asking 30 dollars when it just isn't humanly possible to get a job done in less then 10 hours).

      If you're a freelance programmer looking for real jobs (ie, jobs that allow you to actually eat once in a while) you have to know real people. Also if you're an employer, beware. Don't go fo
  • I'm currently on a freelance project for a small consulting firm. My NDA prohibits me from getting any more into it, but I thought I would share my experience and philosophy on the whole shebang. My biggest problem so far is that I don't have any sort of structured documentation to work from. If I had been given a business requirements doc, or an SRS (lord halleleujah), I could have knocked it out no problem. Quite the opposite, he is relinquishing a lot of control and decision making to me, and I have
    • Addendum:

      I'm currently (as I've said) on a project, but depending on the size and timeline of your project I could possibly fit you in. I do quality work and am good at communicating my needs to implement your project in a non-local environment.
  • I'm wondering, what about sysadmins? There are people with a dedicated server that want to have a knowledgeable sysadmin look at it for one or two hours each week. Do these freelance programmer sites also include gigs for sysadmins? Or are there specific sites for those jobs?

  • get to know your hired guns (Score:3, Informative)

    by museumpeace ( 735109 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @10:27AM (#13103192) Journal
    lots of good programmers don't have enough $ [who does?] or enough interesting work to keep them from reading slashdot. But they are NOT all unemployed. When you are in touch with a coder, be clear that you are NOT interested in tangling with the legal department of any other employer with whom that coder may have signed non-compete and assignment of copyrights and patents agreements. Require signed releases to this effect.

  • Portfolio Building (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @11:42AM (#13103925)
    In my experience these websites are not useful to the serious freelance programmer who wants to pay the bills. However, they are vaulable as a way for students or those lacking in experience/qualifications as a way to find jobs with which to build up a portfolio. Bidding very low or offering to do jobs for free and explaining your situation will win contracts from small companies or individual sole-traders. As an employer, If someone offers to send you a free prototype, you have nothing to lose. I've been doing PHP/SQL freelance work in this manner for about 3 years while doing crap temporary Admin jobs and looking for a proper programming role, seen virtually no money whatsoever from it but have landed a permanent C# software development job largely on the strength of this (mostly unpaid) experience.

  • Freelance Sites aren't all bad (Score:3, Interesting)

    by spektre1 ( 901164 ) on Wednesday July 20, 2005 @03:06AM (#13111292) Homepage
    I've been working on Rent A Coder for the last couple months, and just finished a large project on it, that took 2 months. I agree that generally the site would work best for small projects. I think I got lucky, and managed to establish a good working relationship with the buyer. What helped most was being very clear about what was in the contract, and finding out what exactly was expected of me. The best advice I can offer is to discuss with any potential coders every point of the contract, and what's expected in the project. As further colloquial evidence that there are some good experiences on the freelance front, I have a further contract with the same buyer coming up. Apparantly, he was rather pleased with how the first project turned out.
  • http://www.projectbids.co.uk/ [projectbids.co.uk] is a site we run which performs this function. You'll find that you get a very mixed bag of responses but some are very good, especially if you give a good definition of your project. We try to aim for varied types of projects rather than just all technical and we could always do with a few more just to keep folk interested!

    Rentacoder is also fairly good and we've had a few small projects completed by coders from there too.
  • I recently used http://www.wizbids.com/ [wizbids.com] and must say that I hope this is a trend. Unlike similar sites, they don't have a million rules in place prohibiting you from getting work. It's a refreshing change for those of us doing freelance work and I hope the other sites follow suit. Oh, and their fees are the best I've found.

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