How to Hire (and keep!) a Programmer

[J. Falcon]

That was a great write-up, thanks.

[Varius]

Wow

Generally speaking, a quality in-house programmer should start somewhere in the range of $70,000 USD per annum. Anything less and you face a number of obstacles:


Do mainstream programmers even make that much?

I know a few who work for mainstream US and CA companies and they all earn $100K+ per year (of course they have to pay taxes on that...) even after only being there a year or so. Of course, if you take someone less experienced or desperate for a job, you can easily get them for less than half of that, but then you may run into losing them or the other hazards I outline above.

[datatank]

However, I remember years ago when I worked on someone's code where every variable was named after their girlfriend, their pet's names, what they were watching on tv at the time, etc... What a mess!

LOL oh man what a nightmare.

[datatank]

one thing I suggest also is ALWAYS use a good version control software/ repository thingie.
Not sure the fancy name of it but it can save you alot of frustrations

[Ditosta]

Great post, and this comes just in time!

[Varius]

one thing I suggest also is ALWAYS use a good version control software/ repository thingie.
Not sure the fancy name of it but it can save you alot of frustrations

SVN is probably the one most people are familiar with these days.

I think, if you have a large team, then yes this is a necessary solution; however unless it's perfectly setup and managed/maintained, it can lead to more problems, delays, hassle.

Personally, I hate every version control system I have ever used/tried out; I found bugs and issues in all of them and they slowed down production

[CaptainHowdy]

Great read!

[FreeHugeMovies]

Very nice post!

[Jack OAT]

Very well done. A lot of this advice can apply to other aspects of web development like designers too.

[quantum-x]

SVN is probably the one most people are familiar with these days.

I think, if you have a large team, then yes this is a necessary solution; however unless it's perfectly setup and managed/maintained, it can lead to more problems, delays, hassle.

Personally, I hate every version control system I have ever used/tried out; I found bugs and issues in all of them and they slowed down production

Try http://git-scm.com/

[Varius]

Try http://git-scm.com/

GIT actually is pretty nice and simplistic, I just find as for years now I'm the only person touching my own code 99.9% of the time, it was unecessary.

For companies though, with multiple developers on the same project modules, it is definitely a useful tool.

[datatank]

GIT actually is pretty nice and simplistic, I just find as for years now I'm the only person touching my own code 99.9% of the time, it was unecessary.

For companies though, with multiple developers on the same project modules, it is definitely a useful tool

I do not want to come across as being negative but most of us who hire programmers are not in that position.

It might slow you down but if the programmer bails it can often save a project

[EscortBiz]

very solid info, this gfy educational thing is amazing so far thanks for this post

[Varius]

I do not want to come across as being negative but most of us who hire programmers are not in that position.

It might slow you down but if the programmer bails it can often save a project

Yeah, that's why I stressed the importance of it being properly setup and maintained though; I understand most have a serious need for control software.

I was just later expressing my own opinions of it, in that I personally hate them. Not trying to dissuade anyone from using one

[BradM]

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