What are some examples of sites I could use to post programming contracts? If you had a project you needed done in programming language X, and wanted to pay someone else to do it for you, where would you start? Or on the other side of things, where do you go to look for programming contracts?
+4
A:
Well I have done about 30 projects for clients on RentACoder.com. It isn't great, but with a little consideration you can get a job done fairly well.
Personally I find that most of the sites out there have been overrun with low ball bidders and people that are not qualified and still bid and try to do it. Granted that is a over generalization, but it seems to be that way.
I got out of those types of sites about a year ago, and have not looked back. I find that for both looking for jobs, and looking for contractors building a network of people gets better quality results.
Mitchel Sellers
2008-12-12 19:47:53
RentACoder is pretty good, although takes a real chunk (15%) of the bid. It is _really_ hard to get past the low-ball and bogus bids to win a project, and then you're pretty much stuck with a fixed price!
Ken Gentle
2008-12-12 19:58:35
Bingo! But it does work as a great place to start establishing references as a developer if you are just starting your consulting gig....
Mitchel Sellers
2008-12-13 00:37:27
A:
I have given out programming contracts to freelancers through this site, and think I have done one freelance programming job through this site. Overall it seems to be well organized and work well, but you will wind up competing with cheap programmers from India and Ukraine on most jobs.
JohnFx
2008-12-12 19:51:25
+3
A:
None that aren't filled with unqualified contractors trying to bid extremely small amounts of money to build unrealistically large projects for companies/people with similarly unrealistic perceptions trying to pay next to nothing for the sky.
Stephane Grenier
2008-12-12 20:18:45
@Paul: I laughed pretty hard at that one! But I'll tell you what, I had a buddy who tried to build a system that was similar to ebay in terms of features for $5000 and it didn't work. He was severely underpricing (thinking it was possible) and the contractor did the same.
Stephane Grenier
2008-12-12 22:09:54
@Paul: And what he ended up with was a mismash of existing open source tools that didn't work together. And the whole thing couldn't handle a load of more than 1-2 users. But he wasn't the only one, it happens every day!
Stephane Grenier
2008-12-12 22:10:39
+1
A:
In a word, no.
As already mentioned, the sites out there are overrun with bidders who will offer to sell you the moon for a song, which screws the buyers because most of them can't deliver for the promised budget (if at all) and screws the competent developers because we can't charge decent rates. ("We" because I did spend some time in late 2007/early 2008 doing RentACoder gigs when I needed to get going again after a hiatus and none of my previous clients had any projects available. As soon as I got a non-RAC gig going, I was out of there so that I wouldn't have to deal with buyers bitching about me wanting $300 to build them a site offering a service that they were going to charge their customers $750 a piece for.)
Your best bet, on either side of the deal, is to network and get to know some potential clients/contractors so that, when you need them, you know who to talk to. (Feel free to check my profile and contact me if you're looking for a good freelance developer, by the way...)
Dave Sherohman
2009-01-04 15:04:17