if you wish to be spamed(?) by hundreds of unqualified users, sure, but make sure you have enough time to dig for the good enough candidates, you'll probably have more luck here.
my clients complain about the lack of order when they post jobs and how time consuming it is to come up with a short list of real candidates...
I haven't had that experience on oDesk at all. If you post generic Delphi you'll usually get ~20 candidates. If you post really specific Delphi version numbers like XE7/XE8 etc you'll get less. Even when I do a wide job posting for content writers etc. I always get plenty of qualified candidates (30-40) and usually hire one or two. That being said there are all kinds of things to be aware of when hiring like cultural differences, time zones, the feedback on the candidate, if they are new to oDesk, if they are independent or part of an agency, hourly vs. per project, etc.
This isn't overly complex and nothing we couldn't do, but it is slighty tangential and we are busy at the moment.
I have used GetACoder a few times and that's been positive (mostly). I have had a look at oDesk and it seems the management side of it is better than GetACoder. One of the advantages of those type of sites is that you get to see feedback from previous customers, which is a help (although not always). I'll put together an outline requirements. I won't post it here, but if you are interested I'll send you the doc when it is done.
I signed up on ODesk a long time ago and started going through their so-called "skills test". It seemed to me to be a collection of "stupid programmer tricks", few of which related to legitimate needs. I aborted after wasting time on several, as I realized that if the people there were being filtered based on those questions, the quality of programmers would be all over the map. Since then, I've tried to login several times and have never been able to.
The biggest challenge I've encountered in working with programmers from other countries is ensuring they understand what I asked them, not the code they write. If they misunderstand the requirements, they can write impeccable code that's totally useless.
I ran into this recently trying to get something fairly simple built by some overseas programmers. It was a simple caching thing written php. I had to go through three different people. The first one took a month to finally admit that he had overestimated his skill level (actually, I think he simply over-committed himself).
The second turned it into a major (and unnecessary) research project, then started arguing with me about why I insisted on the approach I wanted him to take; he then accused me of wasting his time by insisting on an oversimplified solution and felt I was giving him "busy-work" to test his competence. He wanted to give me something I wasn't asking for, and I finally just cut him loose.
A third guy was finally able to deliver something close to what I wanted, but this guy never asked any questions. He'd give me some code; I'd tell him it was off here and there; he'd go away and make some changes, then deliver something that fixed that parts I identified and break some others. He would have saved both of us a LOT of time if he'd been willing to ask questions to clarify things, but he simply didn't.
After six months of this silliness, I never got exactly what I wanted.
None of these problems had anything to do with "coding", and there are no amount of coding tests that would have addressed any of them.
I think outsourcing services that attempt to measure programming skills should start with ways to show: (1) how well they understand a requirement; (2) how they go about resolving ambiguities and missing details in the specs; and, (3) how they'd structure their solution.
This approach is much more relevant than how well they can take a silly coding problem and translate it into code syntax in a particular language. A perfectly expressed code example that doesn't do what it was intended is not helpful for anybody. It also highlights the fallacy of looking for "coders" rather than (shall we say) "designers".
Construct tests that are deliberately vague or missing important details and measure the process they use to arrive at a correct solution. If they don't ask questions, whatever code they write will be virtually useless (unless they've seen the problem before).
The public at large already has no distinction between "design" vs. "coding" skills, and sites that focus almost exclusively on the "coding" side are not doing anybody a service when the people they're catering to are also poorly skilled designers. Coding is where you translate a design into some language that can be compiled and run to simulate the intention of the design. When there's no design, who's to say what the code is doing?
It should be no surprize that people who outsource work to "coders" run into such widely varying time-frames, delivery schedules, and quality issues.
I am available to work on a Rest service but what are the requirements?
ReplyDeleteif you wish to be spamed(?) by hundreds of unqualified users, sure, but make sure you have enough time to dig for the good enough candidates, you'll probably have more luck here.
ReplyDeletemy clients complain about the lack of order when they post jobs and how time consuming it is to come up with a short list of real candidates...
I haven't had that experience on oDesk at all. If you post generic Delphi you'll usually get ~20 candidates. If you post really specific Delphi version numbers like XE7/XE8 etc you'll get less. Even when I do a wide job posting for content writers etc. I always get plenty of qualified candidates (30-40) and usually hire one or two. That being said there are all kinds of things to be aware of when hiring like cultural differences, time zones, the feedback on the candidate, if they are new to oDesk, if they are independent or part of an agency, hourly vs. per project, etc.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't overly complex and nothing we couldn't do, but it is slighty tangential and we are busy at the moment.
ReplyDeleteI have used GetACoder a few times and that's been positive (mostly). I have had a look at oDesk and it seems the management side of it is better than GetACoder. One of the advantages of those type of sites is that you get to see feedback from previous customers, which is a help (although not always). I'll put together an outline requirements. I won't post it here, but if you are interested I'll send you the doc when it is done.
Russell Weetch Please send over the document that has the specifications, time line and requirements for review.
ReplyDeleteMalcolm Kudra Many thanks. That is sage advice.
ReplyDeleteI signed up on ODesk a long time ago and started going through their so-called "skills test". It seemed to me to be a collection of "stupid programmer tricks", few of which related to legitimate needs. I aborted after wasting time on several, as I realized that if the people there were being filtered based on those questions, the quality of programmers would be all over the map. Since then, I've tried to login several times and have never been able to.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest challenge I've encountered in working with programmers from other countries is ensuring they understand what I asked them, not the code they write. If they misunderstand the requirements, they can write impeccable code that's totally useless.
I ran into this recently trying to get something fairly simple built by some overseas programmers. It was a simple caching thing written php. I had to go through three different people. The first one took a month to finally admit that he had overestimated his skill level (actually, I think he simply over-committed himself).
The second turned it into a major (and unnecessary) research project, then started arguing with me about why I insisted on the approach I wanted him to take; he then accused me of wasting his time by insisting on an oversimplified solution and felt I was giving him "busy-work" to test his competence. He wanted to give me something I wasn't asking for, and I finally just cut him loose.
A third guy was finally able to deliver something close to what I wanted, but this guy never asked any questions. He'd give me some code; I'd tell him it was off here and there; he'd go away and make some changes, then deliver something that fixed that parts I identified and break some others. He would have saved both of us a LOT of time if he'd been willing to ask questions to clarify things, but he simply didn't.
After six months of this silliness, I never got exactly what I wanted.
None of these problems had anything to do with "coding", and there are no amount of coding tests that would have addressed any of them.
I think outsourcing services that attempt to measure programming skills should start with ways to show: (1) how well they understand a requirement; (2) how they go about resolving ambiguities and missing details in the specs; and, (3) how they'd structure their solution.
This approach is much more relevant than how well they can take a silly coding problem and translate it into code syntax in a particular language. A perfectly expressed code example that doesn't do what it was intended is not helpful for anybody. It also highlights the fallacy of looking for "coders" rather than (shall we say) "designers".
Construct tests that are deliberately vague or missing important details and measure the process they use to arrive at a correct solution. If they don't ask questions, whatever code they write will be virtually useless (unless they've seen the problem before).
The public at large already has no distinction between "design" vs. "coding" skills, and sites that focus almost exclusively on the "coding" side are not doing anybody a service when the people they're catering to are also poorly skilled designers. Coding is where you translate a design into some language that can be compiled and run to simulate the intention of the design. When there's no design, who's to say what the code is doing?
It should be no surprize that people who outsource work to "coders" run into such widely varying time-frames, delivery schedules, and quality issues.