Elance Programmers? Good or Bad?
 

So, unfortunately we are losing our developer who has been with us almost 7 years.

This whole situation sucks on quite a few levels. Loss off friend, valuable employee, etc etc.

I was told by a few people that they have had good success with programmers on Elance for Nats, PHP, Elevated x etc etc. Just wondering if anyone on here has used Elance, if so how was your experience? Want to recommend that person?

I am not looking to hire someone through this thread, more interested in people's personal experience before I invest a bunch of time into it.

Elance would be a temporary solution while we find someone to hire here in Minneapolis.

Any input is appreciated!

:pimp

Almost all of the software products in adult are written by people with amateur-level skill-sets. Some of the most famous ones aren't even object-oriented. :Oh crap

The trivial skill-sets required to extend these applications can absolutely be outsourced.

Building from scratch, however, is not recommended with outsourcing. You're better off paying a competent programmer to lay the groundwork, and then direct the outsourcers as the project grows .. or you'll pay a LOT more in the long run than you save in the short run. :thumbsup

Hope that helps!

Do you have any sites we can see that you coded? Not trying to put you on the spot - you post a lot of good info about programmers but I have no idea what projects you've coded in adult.

That helps a lot, I appreciate you taking the time to respond!

Currently, I am the VP of Engineering for LeadWrench. I write the code to extend the existing platform, as well develop the other avenues of business.

Previously, I coded Autoblogger Pro Stand Alone, Playboy's RSS morphing feeds (before anyone else had morphing feeds), and have done work for the following companies, among others: SexKey, GigaCash, Xbiz, Sex.com, PimpRoll, Pride Bucks/Pride Studios, MobBucks, SatanCash.

I'm best known, however, for my contributions to Python, the programming language Google was written in. I was the Vice President of Business Development for the critical transition from the restrictive CNRI license to the much more open one we developed at BeOpen (while releasing Python 2.0 and Python Labs). Quote from the press release (I'm Dom):

Sure, happy to help. I have considered writing a guide on how to hire programmers in the adult industry, if that's something that has a demand.

+1 answer, +5 agree

Google, coded in Python? haha

Correct. Although it was called "Backrub" at the time. Now it's not Python, obviously. Does it surprise you? Python is an excellent prototyping and glue language -- that's part of why it was selected.

I had a wicked mailer that was coded in Python back in the day. A developer I worked with back then swore by it.

We released MailMan to the general public. Barry (one of the coders on the core Python team) wrote it.

Really love to learn coding! I even enrolled with some universities here and I'm loving it!

I could talk for hours about elance. I spent 18 months trying to build a semi complicated porn network and cms with dev guys from elance. Eventually the mission was accomplished, but while I saved money in hourly dev spend, I lost my sanity many times

i think elance and odesk are combining here soon.

i think hiring from those places is just like hiring from anywhere else, you never really know what you are getting until you get it and use it. typically you get what you pay for, however dealing with certain cultural differences can create problems(ie; countries where IP theft isnt frowned upon and hard to prosecute, for instance). all of the Indians and Pakistanis i have worked with seemed to take forever, the Ukrainians/Romanians always build backdoors into everything, and both seem to steal source code. However all nationalities take off more then they can chew and disappear half way through projects. Likewise you could hire someone to come into your office and get the exact same results mentioned above.