Finding a Good PHP Programmer

Whether you’re a designer, developer, or IT guy, at some point you’re going to need to find a good php coder. I know, I know - I can hear you already saying it, because I also said it for so long - you don’t want to sub out work, you want to do it all yourself. Well, you can continue on that way for as long as you like, but I’m tellin’ you, eventually if you want to grow your business you’re going to need to get some help If you’re not convinced, don’t read any further…because you’ll be wasting your time!

OK…glad we cleared that up and you’re on board with me now. So - “how do I find someone I can trust” you ask? Well, lemme break it down for you. The overarching theme here is that you’re not going to get it just right the first time, so you need to start small, and focus on building the skills of finding, interviewing, and managing good programmers.

Finding the talent

I would suggest you go to Guru.com and craigslist - between those two you should be able to find someone solid. Here’s my process for each of them:

• Create a form - there are a number of cool form builder tools out there if you don’t know how to or want to do your own. I would include email, instant messenger, phone, name, and some 1-100 dropdowns for different key skill sets you’re looking for. I think its important to build a form for a number of reasons. For one, you’ll block all the spammers who automatically blast emails out when you create CL posts. And for two, you weed out the people who are only marginally interested. Whoever goes through the trouble of filling out that form is motivated and ready to work! You’re going to post a link to this form on guru.com and craigslist.
• Guru.com - you’ll need to first create a free membership account. Now, the next thing you think you want to do is post a project…wrong! Well at least I don’t like to do it that way, I’m cheap - and I’m pretty sure they still charge you to post a project. So the back door is to search for developers and then send them messages. I would send out a good 20 messages, that way you know you’ll get at least 5 responses, and then you can move into interviewing them. You can filter by lowest pay, or highest rank. On Guru.com I think you’ll tend to find larger dev firms, as opposed to individuals.
• Craigslist.com - by now, you probly are familiar with this site. All you gotta do is go ahead and post an ad. Again, post a link to your form and don’t list your email address at all. I would post this in a few different cities - but remember to word the title and body slightly different on each of them or else you’ll get slapped by craigslist. You’ll tend to find more individuals here than firms.

Interviewing the coder - how to know what to look for

Now don’t get too intimidated here. Even if you don’t know everything about coding, or if you do and you’re nervous about whether you’ll be able to find someone good, just relax. Here are two easy starting points for your interview.

• Portfolio. Take a peek at their portfolio. Oh and yes, they better have a portfolio. Go through each of the projects and ask them specifically what they did on each of them. This will hit a few birds with one stone. You can get a deeper understanding of their experience level, and also get a feel for how honest and forthcoming they are. If they are skimming over things and not very open about what they contributed, you should be able to tell. You want to find someone who is honest! That is probably the most important trait in a subcontractor.
• Ask between the lines. Now you want to take it to the next level. The key here is that you don’t have to understand all the details of the technology in order to be able to feel them out. Just come up with a handful of questions to kind of ask between the lines of what they are telling you and see how they react. If they answer the question in a way that you don’t understand at all that’s a red flag. Because they are going to have to explain many technical issues to you throughout the duration of your relationship with them, so you want to have someone who is relatively strong at communicating.
• Rinse and repeat. Again, you might not find a perfect fit the first go-round. So start them on something small and if it doesn’t work out, move on to someone else. No harm, no foul.

Managing the coder - how to build a good ongoing relationship.

Now that you have someone that you like working with, you want to try to give them as consistent a flow of work as possible. Remember that sometimes it’s important to keep them busy even if it isn’t 100% profitable for you at the moment. You might want to think about paying them for a fixed number of hours, as opposed to asking for a bid for every single project. There are pro’s and con’s to each, which I can get into later.

Your next challenge is how to effectively manage your developer to ensure that your deliverables are received on time, within budget, and at a good quality level, and that the subcontractor is happy with you and excited to continue working with you.

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