Finding Coding Work Through Placement Websites?

An anonymous reader asks: "Poking around the net, I found a site called RentACoder. As the name implies, it allows people who need a program/web app written to 'hire' a coder to do the work, for a certain amount of money (minus a 15% commission). I was wondering if anyone on Slashdot has written code for this (or a similar) service, and if it's worth the time and skills. I would've evaluated it sooner, however they ask you to provide a social security number at registration. Is the site worth it, or will it just make me bait for ID theives? Is there a similar service that's less intrusive?"

Comments

I wouldn't hold my breath

[Fished]

I haven't looked at this particular site, but the ones I looked at were dominated by foreign nationals working from foreign locales with absurdly low (by North American standards) bids. There is simply no coding project that I would be willing to undertake for $100--it would take more than that in my time just to get the environment setup. But on the sites I looked at some fairly non-trivial hacks were going for $10-20.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[flood6]

This has been my experience, too. You can try to take a few projects under your cost, build up some good feedback (think eBay), and then bill yourself as the quality alternative to the fast and cheap programmers of eastern Europe and India.

Nothing against Indians or Eastern Europeans, they just often take the "volume" approach to getting these projects done. They can afford to take these projects at a much lower fee than North Americans, Australians, etc. can.

These kinds of sites may be worth your time if you're selective and bid what you are worth, it might work out as occasional additional income using the approach I mentioned in the first paragraph, but I can't imagine most programmers in developed nations being able to make much of a living at it.

I'm worried this will sound racist or elitist. It's not meant to be. I'm just talking economics, here.

The little experience I've had with these kinds of sites have not raised any privacy issues for me. Just research the site, check the whois info, look for support phone numbers before you offer up your SSN or other sensitive information.

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[ibbey]

Don't worry about sounding racist, it's simple economics. The annual per capita income of India is $3,100. You're not likely to find many Americans-- except perhaps the occasional high school student-- who would be willing to compete with someone on that sort of a pay scale. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with being able to live on $260 a month

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[xgamer04]

There is simply no coding project that I would be willing to undertake for $100

Your loss is my gain:

public class Hello {
        public static void main(String[] args) {
                System.out.println("Hello, world!");
        }
}

Re:I wouldn't hold my breath

[jrockway]

By the time the VM actually executed your code, though, you'd only be making like $3 an hour. :)

It

[madstork2000]

I have done work for people and hired people for work through rent-a-coder. Both types of experiences when pretty smoothly. Like anything you have to be able to effectively communicate.

As a programmer you need to be able to communicate to the potential client what you can do. This is the hardest part in my opinion.

Overall communication is the biggest key. Do you understand what the bidder wants? Does the bid have enough information for you as the coder to accurately estimate the amount of time.

Bottom line is can you work with the person at the other end? The few times I have participated it went pretty well because as a coder I knew what they wanted, and if there was a question I come usuallly elicit a clearer response. As a buyer, it was easy for me to define metrics / milestones for the project. I also knew approximately how long and hard the task was because I have done a lot of coding (I just didn't have time to do it myself).

Anyway, I think rent-a-coder is a pretty good service,
-MS2k

University students use it...

[emacnabber]

I was a system administrator in the CS department at a large university. We had several students attempt to use the service to get their homework assignments done. Needless to say, it didn't go over well when the professors and T.A.'s found out. If something sounds like a homework assignment, it probably is.

Re:University students use it...

[Nightlily]

Yes, there are several homework assignments posted as projects. First, I feel that all students should write their own code, but most of the blame falls solely on the students' shoulders. Personally I would have problems being paid to write a homework assignment, but the coders are just trying to earn a little extra money. Cheating should be handled by universities. Hey if someone is dumb enough to get caught cheating, it's best to get him or her out of the program as quickly as possible.

Great for them.

[Inoshiro]

70% of your mark in any Comp Sci class here is usually 20% mid term and 50% final exam. Will rent-a-coder help there?

How about when you're on the job?

Maybe in a glorified technical college this would be useful, but at a real University, such slacking would be auto-corrected pretty quickly -- if not, I'm sure the job sites would deal with it :)

Re:Great for them.

[vbrtrmn]

Yeah, those kids who get their parents to pay to have their homework get done, usually are found out at their 'real' job really quick, then they get promotions to management.

Re:SSN

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you have to learn quickly -- it makes no sense to take a lowball bid that can't do the job; your money is tied up in escrow and you waste a lot of time and don't get the job done.

Accept a bid that impresses you as coming from someone who can finish it, or don't waste your time. There are other sites, craigslist, or other options -- if you can't find anyone to do it at all, you may just have to figure out how to do business without the product.

You are the flip side of the American coder who said they looked on there and thought they couldn't compete with the Asians on price, and so never bid on anything.

This is not ebay, you don't have to take the lowest bid.

Although in fairness, and without being too stereotypical, it's the Russians on rentacoder who have the most competance and the better skills. Argentina also seems to have more good coders than it's population would warrant. I would not advise selecting bids on nationality though -- get on IM and chat with the guy and figure out if he knows his stuff.

And if you have a bid that you guess is undercutting it, and the person does make good progress, you should re-offer it at a higher price or bonus them so they can finish it. Remember, this is capitalism -- if you want to keep a sustainable relationship, you can only both win, i.e. you get the project and they get enough money.

The usual pattern is that after 4 or 5 jobs though the site, for certain types of jobs you start going straight to the person you know will do it best.

Re:No its not worth much time

[anthony_dipierro]

The best advice I can give to you is to get your name out on forums (for job postings), check classifieds (like craigslist), check regular job sites (devbistro, etc.) and pursue every avenue to get your name and skillset in the public eye.

Then subcontract out all the work to people on rent-a-coder.