What is the best place to find good freelance/contract developers?

Question

I was wondering if managers/developers out there had any opinions on the best places to find freelance/contract developers?

Over the years my company has utilized contractors and freelance developers (both in the U.S. and offshore) for many projects. We've tried sites like rentacoder (horrible experience), and also utilized our own networks.

In general though, we haven't been able to find many decent developers. The only time we've been happy was when we used a huge consulting company, but the average rate for the smallish project worked out to over $200/hour which we just cannot afford for an upcoming large-scale web application.

I've read the flip side of the question (Where to find freelance contract coding) and will check out odesk.com and some of the others listed. I'd love to hear other thoughts though.

Answer 1

Craigslist.com > Computers > Gigs

Answer 2

elance.com

Answer 3

I'm a bit biased (I work for a smallish consulting firm), but finding a good team of developers by recruiting from sites like those listed is probably not a great idea, unless you have a really good set of project management skills inside your company. A good consulting firm can give you a solid team of developers, along with the project management expertise to help drive your development from start to finish.

Considering that you want to build out a large-scale web application, you'd do well to get a solid team together - and that's probably not your core competency.

Note: I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm fairly certain that the return on investment from hiring a good consulting firm will be better than what you'll get by patching together freelance or contract developers. I'm also not going to try and sell you on my firm - though developing scalable web applications that truly meet business needs is our core competency.

Answer 4

Try googling stackoverflow for your city

Google "location toronto site:stackoverflow.com". Replace Toronto with your own city.

Then browse through different users you feel are smart, check out thier websites and ask if they do independent projects.

Good luck.