Tag Archives: Hiring Programmers

Don’t choose a programmer, choose a team!

June 30, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Software Development | Tagged | Leave a comment

Choosing Programmers is Hard
Many small companies have a huge dilemma choosing programmers. Most programmers are busy and unreliable, especially to new clients. But you need good programmers for your site to function, so what to do? It is a common mistake for a company to choose “a” programming company only to be let down. Smarter companies might test companies or freelancers out before hiring. But, in real life, companies and freelancers get busy, quit, or become incompetent the minute a task gets complicated. You need more than one entity helping you out with your programming no matter how small your operation is.

Hire More Than One
So, the key in hiring programmers seems to be pairing. If you want a programmer who is smart enough to handle difficult tasks, but fast enough to handle quick fixes, you might need more than one person. You could ideally hire a fast programmer who might not be that sophisticated to handle last minute problems, but also hire a more refined programmer with a tighter schedule to handle more critical yet less time sensitive tasks.

Which Programmer; Which Task?
I like to have overseas companies work on less critical tasks as a rule. I’ll often have a company in India working on a new project whose outcome is not tied to my income while my regular programmers work on existing projects. It is good to test programmers out on less critical tasks to see how they do and how fast they finish. Critical tasks should be reserved for programmers who have stood the test of time and who have proven themselves.

Wine Pairing vs. Programmer Pairing
Pairing programmers with different attributes is a great idea. Have fun with it. If you get really bored, think of it as something like wine and food pairing! Pair an advanced programmer with a less experienced programmer. Pair a fast & limited programmer with a slow but good programmer. Pair an overseas programmer with a domestic one. That way you can work at night with the Indian programmer and during the day with the American one. There are many ways to pair programmers, and I strongly suggest having backups for your pair as well. Good luck!

Hiring Programmers? How to spot a reclusive geek!

February 24, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Semi-Popular, Software Development | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Many of us hire programmers from time to time. But, learning how to understand these bizarre personality types requires training. They are not like the rest of us unless they are in a management position of some sort.

There are many types of personality traits common to programmers.
Some are gentle, others are hostile, a few are brilliant, many are actually mentally impaired or behave that way (how can they write code if they can’t think?) The one trait that the majority have in common is that they are anti-social. Programmers normally lack the skill to interact with others. But, the worst part from a management perspective is that they lack the desire to interact positively with others.

Many Programmers Many Cultures
I’ve hired programmers (or tried to) in a variety of cultures ranging from American, Latin, Indian, Filipino and Eastern European. The cultures are all different, but the traits of programmers maintain a similar theme. The Americans are better at communicating although they typically choose not to. They often will complete a task, but fail to inform you of that fact unless you harrass them many times asking, “What’s going on?” The Indians are generally more friendly which is a cultural reality, but often lack the skills to answer simple English questions. I always ask them what they would do if they won a million dollars. The answers are typically no more than eight words which is not very detailed. My Costa Ricans offered to do a test project for free, but went on vacation in the middle of the 2 hour project and never came back. Eastern Europe was more polite as a destination, but bizarre. When I asked the million dollar question I was informed that it was a complicated quesiton and that he needed to think for a very long time to answer it. All I wanted was a quick answer to verify that he was able and willing to communicate in simple English sentences.

Big Trouble Awaits if your Programmer Refuses to Communicate
Please be informed that hiring someone unwilling to communicate can undermine very expensive software projects. You might be paying $50,000 to get some coding done, and the programmer will refuse to answer calls, will never even email you back, and doesn’t want you around. What if there is a problem with the project and you are forced to interact with them and they won’t? Or what if they are so anti-social and irresponsible that they quit in the middle of a project? Finding a programmer with semi-decent social skills is critical for your survival, so pay attention to this during the interview process.

Telltale signs to identify an anti-social geek.

(1) Sitting silently at the interview
Have you ever gone to a programming interview where the programmer and the project manager are both there? The project manager by nature wants to dominate the conversation and impress you while the programmer might be sitting silently for hours. This is something you might ignore, but it is a serious warning sign. If you are going to have any serious dealings with the programmer, you might be in for some real trouble. At the critical moment, he might just dump your project or refuse to communicate. This happened to me.

(2) Having the receptionist always be your point of contact (avoidance)
You interview the company and you are impressed that they answer the phone whenever you call them which is only true of about 20% of programming companies. Most programming companies avoid their customers (and humans in general) and don’t want to answer their phone. I found a company that always answered the phone. The problem was that the “go-between” assured me that she would be able to give me all pertinent information about the progress of my project and not to worry. The programmer was “busy” and couldn’t be interrupted… ever. The problem here was that the programmer was UNWILLING to talk to me, and that the go-between receptionist was cut off from accurate information about the project since the programmer didn’t record any records of what he had actually done (or not done.) Yes, it is true that programmers like to lock themselves in a dimly lit room and write code. Yes, it is true that they should not be interrupted all the time. But, if they are never willing to talk to clients, that is a serious problem that can sabotage your working relationships which can be expensive if you gave them a hefty deposit.

(3) Failure to answer emails
Sure, we know that programmers don’t like to talk on the phone. But, if they just never get backto you even by email to give you a head’s up confirmation of what’s going on, that can be a serious problem. If a programmer just doesn’t get back to you, and you always have to chase them down, that is a sign that they are not responsible, anti-social, and that they don’t care that much about your project.

(4) Unwillingness to answer the phone
Is your programmer always at lunch or in the bathroom when you call? They are avoiding you. Perhaps they hate their job, their life, their boss, or you. Perhaps all of the above. This happened to me, and my project took forever to finish. I had to call eight times to get through to this person once. If a programmer you’ve worked with for years develops a bad attitude, it is time to try someone new.

(5) Failure to coordinate at the critical moment
I was visiting programmers in Northern California. I went to Yosemite to relax for a few days when they went away on a quick business trip. They were supposed to tell me when they would be back, and when they would be ready to show my their last bit of work. I never heard from them and didn’t know if should start driving back or not. They left me high and dry.

(6) Missed deadlines
If you hire a programmer on a critical time-sensitive project, you will find that 90% of programmers who don’t work for huge companies on multi-person projects just ignore deadlines. They couldn’t care less if they inconvenience your schedule. They might keep you waiting for months, or just quit in the middle of the project without even telling you they are unwillling to complete it. If you deal with programmers you need air-tight contracts that will penalize them severely if they don’t finish their work correctly and on time. It is best to test a programmer out on a project that takes about 12 hours with a written deadline. You will lose $1000 or more, but you will know if they honor deadlines. Most programmers never honor any deadline and just don’t care if they lose their customer. Customers grow on trees these days, and if you drop out, someone else will give them a deposit who they can string along. If a programmer misses a deadline, see how much longer it takes them to finish work. If getting the work done depends on your initiative, it is time to sift through many more programmers until you find one who actually takes responsibility for their commitments.

(7) Inability to answer simple questions
If you hire foreign programmers, this is a much more serious problem. If you can’t answer simple logic or small-talk type questions, how can you possibly write code? The answer is that those types of programmers are the ones that create shipwrecks for American companies who try outsourcing for the first time. They are left with a mess of broken code and often have to throw the entire mess out and start all over again. If you can’t communicate, you can’t code properly. If your communication is a mess, your code is probably a mess that nobody else will be able to work with. If you communicate sloppily, your commenting on your code will be unintelligible to the next programmer who works on it which means you created a dead-end for your client.

Advice: Interview the programmers first, THEN the project managers and salespeople.
If you hire programmers, there is an order of people at the company who you should talk to first. The sales and technical managers will always insist on talking to you first, middle and last, leaving the programmers completely out of the picture. That is what is in their interests, but not yours. The programmers are the ones who actually do the work, and if they cannot function as intelligent human beings, your code will come out a disaster. Interview the programmers first. Typically at Indian companies, they hire people who can’t even function at coding and can’t function in a conversation. See if you are impressed by one or more of their programmers. If you are impressed by all of their programmers you might be in business. 80% of programmers I interviewed in India who were fluent in English could not answer simple questions that an American ten year old could probably answer.

Test companies out
Test people out to see if the programmer initiates communication and answers email
Test the programmers out to see if they answer the phone. If you only call them at the time of the interview, that is not an indication that they will answer the phone during normal times of business.
Test the programmers out to see if they are sloppy. Give them a small task that involves following directions
Test the programmers out to see if they miss deadlines. Give them a 12 hour project with a deadline. See if they finish by the deadline with correct work.

Good luck hiring programmers. Most of these people avoid contact with humans. But, if you can find one who is relatively responsible and considerate, you might be in luck.

10 Mistakes I made hiring programmers that you should avoid

February 18, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Semi-Popular, Software Development | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Here are some of the biggest mistakes I made hiring programmers. To an average person, they might not look like mistakes. But, once you get a little experience in this domain, you will understand why what I did wrong was so wrong!

(1) Initiative (or the lack of it thereof) The Los Angeles Programmer
The first programmer I hired was actually the best I have ever hired. However, he lacked a desire to get things done for me. I had to crack the whip, and visit with him regularly to coerce him to finish work. My mistake here was that I didn’t shop around to see if there was anyone else who had comparative skills accompanied by a little more initiative.

(2) Interviewing without testing: The North Coast Programmer
Many years went by and then my first programmer quit, and his helper got fired. I was left high and dry. No programmers, and no way to find good ones in a world-wide situation where there was an acute shortage of programmers. I interiewed several companies I liked. I tried to decide which company to hire purely based on an interview which was a huge mistake. The interview only tells you one dimension about a person — how they communicate when they are trying to impress you. It doesn’t tell you how they work, or if they get things done on time. The company I hired disrespected all deadlines, and even tried to cheat me several times. After that I learned that you have to try companies out with small inconsequential test projects before giving them the passwords to your main sites. Additionally, they tried to get me to communicate with the “project manager” instead of the programmer. But, the project manager didn’t make sure anything got done and was completely useless. So, when anyone tries to block critical channels of communication — fire them.

(3) Knowing the boss, but not getting to know the programmers: An India programming nightmare
I had a bad feeling about this, but I had no choice. I needed my site to be in someone’s hands who I trusted. I had known Deepak for years. So, I offshored my project to India. The first programmer he gave me was very acceptable and did good work. So, I handed my project over to Deepak. Little did I know that his programmers had gone far down hill in the last few years because the big companies worldwide had been poaching quality programmers. So, I started out with a programmer who just couldn’t function, and then fired him and moved on to another one of Deepak’s programmers who was better. She left on maternity leave and then I got a third one who was somewhat capable of doing my assignments. Had I interviewed these programmers by phone individually, and tested them on small test projects before allowing them to work for me, I could have avoided the dysfunctional results given to me. Now I know.

(4) Communication seemed open, but was blocked: The Arizona dry spell
I gave assignments to a number of other programmers who all went on strike until I found a company who seemed promising. First of all, they answered their phone. I was happy that they kept their channels of communication open as closed channels can ruin projects and have become a deal breaker for me. The trick was that they changed their willingness to communicate the minute I put my reliance in them. I could talk to the receptionist who assured me that she could relay any critical information to me. The problem was that they forbade me from talking to the programmer in critical situations and the contact person was never given any critical information unless I harassed them many times. The result was that the programmer either didn’t finish work correctly or at all, or made some serious blunders which never would have happened if he would just double check his steps with me. But, his attitude was that I didn’t know anything so I should just stay out of it. The reality is that he doesn’t know a lot of things about my site that I do know that he could have found out if he would just answer is damn phone! This was one of many deceptive things programming companies have done to me.

A quick note – Open Channels of Communication are imperative
I have a rule that all channels of communication need to be open. I need to be able to reach the programmer, the boss and the project manager if there is one. If one of these channels is blocked, then I fire the company immediately. However, if the programmer is busy and doesn’t want to be bothered — I don’t mind communicating with an intermediary some of the time if it will make it easier for them providing that they don’t cut me off completely from communicating with the programmers. Most companies don’t want you talking with their programmers, so this is a constant issue. I just tell them I’ll fire them if they don’t cooperate on this front, or that I won’t hire them for any serious work if they block communication even once. You have to stand your ground or they will keep you behind a barrier nine times out of ten.

(5) Silence at an interview: The beach programmers
The boss said that none of his seven programmers were willing to show up at an office. Later on I suspected that there were no seven programmers, just the one who showed up at the interview and sat silently for three hours while the sales manager chatted me up. I didn’t realize that someone who sits silently for so long is a huge risk. Such people do not like humans and don’t care to interact with my species either. They are dangerous if you put them on a project. Here’s what happened. We did a little test job and looked at the site at a cafe. I drove down to see them. After he had agreed to take my project and give me 20 hours a week, he delayed finishing the test project, and after I spent $800 on hotel rooms he uttered the words, “Another project” and just quit altogether. Antisocial people do antisocial irresponsible inconsiderate things. Beware. Nobody is perfect, but antisocial people are much more dangerous than the average person. Additionally, these programmers went on vacation all the time and “brought their work with them.” I don’t know if their vacation schedule caused a problem, or just their attitude of doing whatever they felt like, but too many vacations could be a warning sign.

(6) Giving the code without a deadline in Orange County
I met a nice guy in Orange County. I really liked him and he really liked coding. He described himself as a cracker jack of coding. He seemed like the gentleman of the business. Sociable, smart, nice and trustworthy. After waiting six weeks he informed me that he couldn’t start my assignment because it was in PHP and he didn’t know PHP. The code was in ASP Classic, and he had not even looked at it because he had, “Another Project.” Now, where have I heard this before. If I had given him a 20 day deadline to fix some code which only would take a few hours, then I would have been able to give the job to the next guy in line without such a long delay while my website wasn’t functioning correctly.

Another Quick Note – “Another Project”
The biggest reason why a programming company will not finish work for you, or talk to you is because there is, “Another Project.” If you test programming companies out, see how well they get your work done if they have, “Another Project.” Otherwise you will be on the back burner until you dump them for another company who does the same thing.

(7) Not getting a bid
There was yet another programmer who I really liked. He was decent to me for the most part. He had done several small projects for me. They weren’t necessarily done on time, but they got done. So, I gave him another slightly more complicated project. It took twice as long as I thought necessary and was done wrong. If I had had him give me a formal estimate for the project, I would be able to hold him responsible for fixing it and getting it done according to specifications by a certain date. yet another mistake on my part because I had developed trust in someone. Even if you trust a programmer, for well defined tasks that take more than 10 or 20 hours, get a formal bid.

(8) Testing them on easy stuff only
I learned the hard way that you have to test companies out before using them. So, I tried yet another California company out. I really liked the boss. They got 100% on my project and finished it quickly. Then, I gave them a complicated assignment and asked them to bid on it. Their bid was double or triple what I thought a top-notch programmer would charge. Were they cheating me? Were they just being careful? Or was their programmer not as senior as they portrayed him to be? A junior programmer would realistically require as many hours as they bid. The problem was that I tested the company out on easy work, but didn’t test them out on complicated tasks before hiring them. It is good to have a comprehensive score sheet on any company you hire that covers communication, meeting deadlines, efficiency, cleanliness of code, and how they function on different levels of complexity. I made exactly the same mistake with another company in India who did exactly the same thing. They did great on my test project, but then bid 800 hours on a 100 hour project that was slightly complicated. Once again, I fell into a pitfall and learned the hard way.

(9) Not having backups
I hired programming companies without having qualified backups. The result was that when they started being irresponsible I couldn’t just fire them because I had nobody else to dump my project on. I had already run through my supply of people I thought were my backups. They wouldn’t call me back or cooperate. A backup is not a backup unless you know they are going to perform reasonably. Otherwise it is like walking on a frozen pond. You put your foot on the ice and it breaks. Then you step to the left to your backup spot on the ice which also breaks, then you go back one foot and it yet again breaks. You need to find ice that doesn’t break even when you pound on it — then, you have a back up. If Warren Buffet were hiring programmers, he would probably have at least four meticulously tested backups at all times for security if he had a serious project as an entrepreneur.

(10) Giving deposits without a contract in the Bay Area
I have given many people deposits. One company in the Bay Area took my deposit and left me high and dry. I couldn’t get the programmer to return calls. I had to keep calling his boss just to get him to get back to me. What is the problem? I finally gave up. I let them keep the deposit. But, honestly, you have no leg to stand on if you give an unreputable company your deposit. And you have no way to know if the company is reputable unless you work with them. Most companies don’t have that many reviews on the internet, and those are not always trustable interviews in any case. If you have a contract that stipulates that work must be done to specifications by a certain date otherwise you not only give the deposit back, but pay a penalty for wasting my time, then it is easier to sue them when they screw up. Getting them to sign such a contract might be close to impossible, but you need some device to ensure your safety, otherwise you are gambling. Programmers are so busy these days that if you don’t pay up front, perhaps none of them will work with you! So, you are not in much of a bargaining position. So, having a contract is just a thought.

Why you should hire a Bug Tester, a PM, and 5 programmers for a single job.

January 23, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Management, Software Development | Tagged | Leave a comment

I just read an article that sums up my thoughts, but sums them up more eloquently than I ever could.

How to get the most out of outsourced programmers
http://www.forbes.com/sites/entrepreneursorganization/2014/10/27/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-outsourced-programmers/

I didn’t get it — at first
When I first started hiring programmers, I would interview, and then hire whomever sounded good. I was unaware that most programmers don’t follow directions, don’t finish anything on time, and don’t give a damn. The author of the above referenced author gets it.

The trick is not to hire “a” programmer.
You have to test them out and verify how good their work is. The trick is easy. You hire a project manager to watch the entire operation. How you hire a PM is not something I know anything around, but they exist. Next, you divide your task into small pieces. That way you can see if the programming companies you hire get anything done before committing to a large quantity of work. Divide the programming into pieces and hire separate companies to do the graphic work or other niche tasks.

Hiring a separate bug tester
That sounds like an intriguing job. “So, what exactly do you do?” “I’m a bug tester.” If you hire overseas programmers, most of them do sloppy work. I cannot imagine any of them doing clean programming work with great commenting. There is always a huge lack in refinement as well as high turnover. A programmer who is a piece of work will produce a piece of work. The next programmer who has to work on it will have to figure out what the commenting means and will have to spend hours trying to figure out how to adapt the code to remove bugs or add features. The first programmer will undoubtedly quit, and then the second who is hired to fix the first programmer’s work will quit in the middle of the project leaving you with a girl named Sandhia who will patiently work on the project until she gets pregnant and elects to stay home. You will play musical chairs with multiple programmers and end up with sloppy code. However — if you hire a separate bug tester or code evaluator from a separate company — preferably someone high paid who has a very good sense of what quality code looks like, you can see which company is giving you good coders (until the good coder quits or gets pregnant and is replaced by a bad coder.) There are companies in India that actually do have standards, but they are a small percentage.

Testing programmers out
You can give programmers small test projects and have the bug tester see if their work is up to snuff. If not, then don’t use them. The problem as I stated before is that programming houses often replace workers on a whim. If Rahul gets busy, then Vikesh might take over your project. Rahul has been tested, but Vikesh (who nobody informed you would be taking over) just screws everything up and doesn’t communicate.

Having a contract
If you deal with Indian or other overseas software houses, you have to realize that the quality of coding is generally very sloppy and could be referred to as “spaghetti code.” If your contract states that the company doesn’t get paid if they do a bait and switch with their programmers, or if the commenting on the code is not up to snuff, or if there are any bugs or serious issues, the company will be less likely to play tricks on you. Having deadlines that you enforce is critical too. In real life, you might have to kiss many frogs (who find that spaghetti laden ponds are their most well-suited environment) before you find your prince. You will have to fire a lot of the companies who work for you. So, make sure that they pay the bill for screwing up, not you! You will still be wasting your time working with irresponsible people, but let them pay for screwing up. After all, they are portraying themselves as “professionals.”

My advice
Don’t hire companies that charge $5-12 per hour for programmers unless it is standardized work like blog creation or shopping cart set up. Have contracts that state that you don’t pay until a project or part of a project is completed up to whatever your specifications are. Include specifications as to the “quality” of the code to get some assurance that the code won’t be a complete mess. Personally, I would not pay less than $22 for an Indian programmer in 2015. $20 is too much of a standard wage, and those who charge $15-20 are very run of the mill and often mediocre or sub-standard. I would not hire someone who can’t communicate intelligently over the phone in English. I would not hire someone with less than 10 years of experience, but experience alone is not good enough as many lie about how many years of experience they have. Others really do have the experience, but are incompetent in many ways. I would test people out with a few easy math problems over the phone to see if they can think. I would ask a few personality questions to see if they can talk (or mumble well.) And finally, make sure you give two test projects before giving any serious work. The first should be about three hours long and the second should be about fourteen hours long with a tight deadline or no pay! Compare bids on these projects and quality of the coding, how long it took, and how responsive they were. Really test these guys out because most of them are not worth their salt or their “ghee” as the case may be.

Weekly check ups
You absolutely have to check up on your programmers once or twice a week. Ideally, they should send you updates on schedule to let you know what is going on. The minute they start keeping secrets or not getting back to you, that is when you fire them. A programmer who stops being willing to communicate is one who will almost definitely screw up or not finish your project — or worse. You might get in a very bad verbal or legal fight with such programmers. Constant communication is a requirement that should be in your contract. The minute they try to convince you that regular communication is a “waste of time” or “not necessary” or that you should “just trust them” — just fire them! Immediately! No matter what!

Hiring programmers is like dating a guy if you’re a straight guy!

December 27, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: Semi-Popular, Software Development | Tagged | Leave a comment

What a bizarre title!
But, it’s kind of true. After working with different programmers who were all men (there was one woman, but she didn’t return my calls) I came to this ghastly realization. I began to feel sorry for women as a gender for having to put up with us. Men are rough, gruff, uncommunicative, make decisions without consulting others, don’t get back to you on time, do whatever they want, and don’t always care much if at all about your general welfare.

As a straight guy…
I never thought about what it would be like to date a guy. I don’t date much, but if I do, I assure you it would be with a female member of my species. For a woman or a male client of programmers it is hard. You are completely at the mercy of this guy who does whatever he wants and doesn’t care about your opinion. If they screw up, modules of your site could be dysfunctional, unusable, or just entirely down. I began to think like a woman after a few failed relationships with programmers. (BTW, I have nice programmers now [2014] who do not cause trouble)

Why can’t they just LISTEN?
First of all, the main complain that women have about men, is that we don’t listen. I don’t necessarily need these programmers to make suggestions — I just want them to listen. Many programmers take offense if you have an opinion, because after all, what could YOU possibly know about programming. The answer is that I don’t know anything. However, I do know what the long term consequences to my business are for programming strategies that are not sound. If a programmer does too much on a huge project without letting me check anything step by step, for all I know, they could be handing me a pile of useless broken code. I like to go step by step and make sure everything is working before moving on. I want my opinions to be considered — and I am happy to hear the opinion of the programmer too, so long as my comfort level oriented considerations are integrated into the project without a fuss.

Can’t they be a little more like James Bond?
Most girls want a guy who is like James Bond. He dresses well, smells good, always is confident and has perfect manners. In real life, guys are not like this, especially not programmers who are more like inverse-James un-Bond. How they dress is a smaller consideration. But, how they are often unwilling to interact, be friendly or personable makes me uncomfortable. In my experience workers who don’t like to communicate like to avoid their clients and never do very good work simply because they don’t like you and they don’t care. How people answer the phone is another indication of professional behavior. If people answer saying, “Hello,” or have an answering machine which doesn’t state their name or company name, that makes me very uncomfortable. For girls it is more about the image of a James Bond type guy that they like. For me it is more about the indication of a seasoned professional who will be helpful and trustworthy in all actions — which is a purely practical concern. After all, I am not a girl even if I have learned to think like one.

How can I manipulate guys like girls do.
I am a guy. For me when I see other guys, I chat with them. I am not intimidated by them if they are huge and muscular, or if they are way out of my class and drive a Bentley. For me guys are guys, and unless they are outwardly hostile or offensive, I feel comfortable with guys from any culture, class or background. I am less conscious of them in terms of their “level” as I don’t size them up like women do. Women know how to size up a guy, know what his strengths and flaws are before he opens his mouth, and they know how to manipulate them too. If you hire programmers, you need to know how to keep them under control, because they have a way of going their own direction the minute you are not watching them. Girls are experts at this. Why can’t I learn to be a professional at thinking like a girl? Do you kill them with kindness? Do you flatter them and bat your eyelashes? They you threaten them and make demands? Or do you simply act polite, tell them what you want, and tolerate exactly the right amount of nonsense. After all everyone will give you some amount of nonsense, the key is to know how much is too much!

Summary
To make it short, if you are in a profession that involves hiring others who are more powerful than you are — and by more powerful I do not mean richer, smarter, or more powerful in general — I mean more powerful in how critical they are to your project, then you need to learn to think like a girl. They are in this position their entire lives having their means for survival dependent on the guy they date or marry (unless they have a considerable income on their own merits.) Having a relationship with a programmer is the closest a straight guy will ever come to anything that resembles dating a guy.

Jokes
To end a software development relationship, you could use the Seinfeld approach or these other crazy lines:

“It’s not you, it’s me”
“The commenting in the code didn’t let me comment back. Are my comments not important too?”
“Why can’t your style of coding be more like Andy’s — his is so efficient with all of those multicolored lines!”
“I think we should see other developers.”
“I love you, it’s just that I need a PHP developer who understands me better.”

A programming company that charges $25,000 per week?

October 20, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: Popular Posts, Software Development | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

OMG! I can’t believe they charge so much. Why is this?

I interviewed a company in Florida. They seemed like the best programming company in the world. They assign you a team of four members, and they will prepare the specifications ahead of time of what they are going to do for you. Then, they will work for a week or more and get your huge project done with a bang.

My worry was that if they needed me in the middle of the project and I was not available, what would happen? At $4000 a day, if there is any small problem with the server, you are out $500 per hour while you wait for solutions. What if, what if. I think that if I were a larger company, and knew these guys better, the arrangement might make great sense. I asked if there was any other way to proceed, but they said that was their business model. It is an interesting business model, but scary for me.

When hiring programmers, be aware that there are many programmers out there with different levels of expertise, caution, care, and styles of getting work done. You need to find someone who works on your speed and who gets along well with you. Personally, I prefer to do between two and fifteen hours of programming per week. That way I can be involved in the process and make sure everything goes right. But, your style might be completely different. Good luck, and start saving up for your $25,000 week today!