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Freelance Programming Sites?
CarrotLord asks: "I have some small, fairly well-defined programming projects that I need done, but I don't have time to do them myself. So, I've been looking into sites like Get a Freelancer and ScriptLance. Does anybody have any experience of these types of sites? Specifically, I'd like to hear your recommendations and advice, as well as your experiences. My concerns include: getting very poor quality work; communication and language barriers and also losing control over the work that I've paid for -- if I'm paying for some work, I want it licensed on my own terms."
I've used RentACoder in the past. Only small stuff, but it was dirt cheap to have some guy out in Colorado implement some fixes for an amount comprable to the time I burned defining the scope of the job and communicating with him.
Didn't have any problems, so I can't speak to their dispute resolution system. Got what I paid for first time around, perfectly smooth, etc.
Hi, Chris!
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
I've done some work for people through sitepoint. Basically, it involves a lot of trust on both parties, which in a lot of cases, will leave somebody screwed. I've almost always done the work in advance and trusted that the party involved would pay me when the work was completed. So far this has worked out well for me, but in time, I'm sure I'll get burned. Generally speaking, searching the history of that user in the forums will give me some idea of my likelihood of getting paid. For larger jobs, there are a variety of escrow services out there.
I forgot to mention in my last comment... post an ad on craigslist. It's a great place to find programmers for a project, in my experience.
"It was hell!" recalls former child.
Rentacoder has pretty good environment for negotiating such projects - bidders have a chance to ask you questions, you can specify the ballpark of what you're willing to pay, and then you can exactly outline your requirements.
The only drawback of the site was a whole bunch of bids from places like Romania and India, which did not even bother to read the project description (e.g. project required a specific PHP module, and the letter said "If you're looking for a great ASP/ASP.NET team, you've found one!")
But those are easy to ignore.