Re: elance

On 2012-07-21 05:11, Richard Howells wrote:
> In getting this done I was definitely acquiring expertise I do not have
> myself.  I'm not sure that I would get programming work done this way.  I
> train programmers as part of my living.  From what I have seen in my
> classrooms - and these are from organizations enlightened enough to pay for
> training - I want *much* better that industry average quality.  I'm worried
> I might be disappointed.

I'm faced with this problem all the time. Either programmers suck or
else they're too busy getting paid a fortune somewhere else. What is a
small technology company to do?

I guess the most obvious and simple answer is just focus on making
yourself as awesome, intelligent and productive as you possibly can so
that you can get all the work done yourself, but there are hard limits
you run into if you try that approach.

One thing I did which had an unexpected benefit was to start a club for
programmers. That creates a real bar. First someone has to be interested
enough in their profession to want to be involved in something like a
programming club. Then they have to be competent enough to actually
demonstrate that they can contribute at the club. And along the way they
kind of develop a level of respect for you as the founder and operator
of the club so they begin to be interested in the possibility of working
with you.

So I've just sort of found myself in this position where I have
qualified programming talent just sort of making itself available to me
without me having had to do much more than set up a webserver and get a
few mailing lists operational. It's a tiny niche little club (getting
engagement on the internet is really hard I've discovered) but I've just
started the process of negotiating an employment contract with a member
of my club. If you're a small development company and you think you can
be cool enough to get away with it (you'll need to be appealing enough
that people actually, you know, join your club) then starting a club is
a pretty good way to begin grooming programming talent for your
organisation. (Not sure I should have just told everybody that. :P)