regrets? for those who want things programmed you should ask on a mailing list or stackoverflow how to do this or that. I wouldn't be surprised that you could get everything needed. In your eyes the program is complex but more than likely it's trivial. The cost is that people cannot explain what they wantThanks, guys. I decided to let them get the job.
The developer ain't THAT good and there has been some frustration on my end, but it gets done in the end. So, for the cost, I think I should be satisfied.
Any experience hiring a programmer? Where should I look?
- Thread starter Howard
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Couldn't agree more. Coding is not expensive. Dealing with non-technical client is very frustrating and time draining. I bet if you can post detailed spec of what you need, you'd get a fair offer on upwork or anywhere else.
I second that, my programmers know the space we work in so we can give them a rough explanation of a problem and they come back with a better solution than we could have specific in a fraction of the hours it took our previous offshore team. I can literally afford to pay them 5 times more and still come out ahead in monetary terms counting our saved spec, test, and rework time and their hourly time. That doesn't even count the decrease in frustration for us and our clients and the reputational benefit of getting a bug free product out on schedule.
It's not an automated program or algorithm, but merely a set of tools that help me automate cumbersome processes I already do manually. The logic is written for me and it's easy for me to check if things are accurate, although it is of course time consuming initially to make sure things are correct.
It's not an indicator in Ninjatrader or anything. The mathematics involved aren't complex, but it's a rather large set of calculations which in sum are complex.
You're right that it's complex in my eyes, but that's simply because I'm not a programmer. The time I'd spend learning programming now is better utilized in other ways for the time being. But, I do want to learn programming long term of course.
Hi,
Thanks.
Are you a programmer yourself? You mentioned using a programmer on Upwork...?
I prefer not to discuss details publicly, but in summary it's an application which calculates various statistics and metrics according to my discretion and code. It's written in C# and uses Excel.
Seems like there's mixed opinions on this (i.e., coding being expensive or not).
Do you have any experiences using people on Upwork?
The thing is that when I first designed this using programmers from Guru, I didn't have a clear vision, but actually got massive help from this company just starting out. I was getting great service.
Now, I have a clear vision, but a programmer who seems to be sub-par, has poor english skills and offer zero ideas on his own. Of course, I don't expect him to be very clever, but it would be great to actually discuss a solution and not just give out orders.
Who's your programmers, may I ask?
You seemed to have mixed opinions with regards to Upwork on page 1.
Yes...I am a programmer. I hired a programmer on UpWork to help with a platform I was not familiar with. He got the project going but he was overlooking some bugs so I terminated the project before completion and finished the job myself. Send me a PM with some more info on the project. If I cannot help because of budgetary concerns or for any other reasons, I would be happy to help screen some candidates for you on UpWork.
I only tried once, so take it for what it's worth. I got an impression that they want a cookie-cutter type of jobs - something they might have done already and now can easily re-use for other clients (cut-and-paste). When I explained to the guy what I need and that I myself am a developer, I never heard back from him again. It's very nice of fan27 to offer help with screening the candidates, but I suspect they will be immediately turned off by this.
Unfortunately, I don't have a solution for you. Someone suggested talking to local college professors, which I think is a great idea as the students may need experience and references to put on a resume.
BTW, when I say coding is not expensive, I mean the process of taking detailed spec and converting it to code. Understanding what customer needs (often completely different from what he/she asks for), figuring out the best way to accomplish it (keeping client's long term interests in mind), and translating it to technical requirements, is the expensive part. Not much different from other professions, including yours I presume.
If you do find a solution, being it upwork or whatever, please share your experience. Good luck.