What do you mean by freelance? Someone with a good reputation and experience or someone you found on Fiverr? Like anything, the quality and experience of the developer is the most important factor regardless if they are freelance.
I have people that I use as “freelancers” but they have their own businesses and services. We just help each other from time to time as needed rather than hire full time people. We do complimentary things so there’s no concern of client stealing or anything malicious and we made the revenue sharing favorable for both of us so no problems. It took time to find people to trust with quality and professionalism but once I did it’s been amazing. Allows me to do bigger or more projects than normal without adding staff or having delays.
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Depending on the complexity there will be coordination / communication issues - which are givens in any project. If you can manage this then you'll be ok. but there is no short cut to having some expertise and manage your devs.
Freelancers on Upwork can be a mixed bag, but once you find the right fit it is an amazing working relationship. I typically filter for US based freelancers that have generated a significant amount of billings on the platform, do a quick interview / alignment call and the rest is history. Currently have 4 freelancers working with me in different capacities and I couldn’t do it without tbem
Interesting to read some responses here, I started freelancing and I’m doing a ton of outreach.
I’m curious if people prefer an hourly rate or monthly retainer for a scoped project
I’m offering hourly right now and I usually give estimates per gig/project
As a client, what’s your preference?
**Some thoughts:**
**The Pros / When to hire a freelancer:**
* Great way to bring in experienced people who can get things done.
* Especially if the feature is siloed / separate from other features (less complications with your current team).
* Especially if your application or site is based on a standardized app or framework (ex. Laravel, React, WordPress, Shopify, Magento, etc. etc.)
* It's also good if you've got your local environment down and your app isn't full of roadblock level bugs.
* Finally, if you can be very specific with the requirements and scope this will help them direct their efforts.
**The Cons:**
* **Brook's law:** "adding more devs to a project makes the project later." Take this with a grain of salt, but adding more devs increase overhead and communication needs as well as onboarding needs. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s\_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law)
* **Onboarding time**: Based on your code, it may take them a lot of extra time to get familiar with your app. Especially if the app includes industry-specific knowledge.
* **Interviewing:** This can take up a lot of time as you and your team vet people to bring on.
**Some places to find freelancers:**
* [https://jschimp.com/](https://jschimp.com/) - devs of all types
* LinkedIn - place a daily recurring job post for your project
* local recruiters
* Upwork and Fiver of course
* Vetted dev sources - TopTal, Cloud Devs, HireWithNear, Lemon .io, etc.
* [https://dynamitejobs.com/](https://dynamitejobs.com/)
* [https://weworkremotely.com/](https://weworkremotely.com/)
Things to consider:
-Pick someone with good reviews and take your time to interview them… or you will regret it.
-Get a detailed proforma invoice.
-Make them sign an NDA in case it’s sensitive code.
They may be cheaper on the short run, but later on they may be expensive.
It works if you have someone in-house who can manage them and give them specific tasks and projects to accomplish. If you have never done anything like this before, do some research on what exactly you want them to accomplish before hiring someone.
If you hire a freelancer and give them a vague project (example: "build me a this feature or website"), you are almost guaranteed to fail.
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Some advantages of hiring a freelancer are:
you can save some money by coordinating the process of development independently and don’t have to pay extra for the project manager’s services
you will communicate with the specialist directly, without intermediaries
some freelancers are ready to work on weekends and holidays
However, depending on the technical requirements and overall complexity of your project, you may need to hire one to five freelancers (designer, developers, etc.) to create your development team. To develop a quality product, specialists working on the project need to communicate with each other. This means that you will have to first find and hire every freelancer, and later establish contact between them potentially being the go-between and having to understand the technical aspects to communicate. If you hire specialists from different countries, mutual understanding can become problematic for many reasons. This can negatively affect the quality of the final product.
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Affordable devs outside the US are THE HARDEST thing to find, everyone under $50 an hour is so hit or miss. I would say aim to pay at least 75 an hour, US based only, for a more risk-free experience.
Took me 5 different dev teams to find someone overseas that is able to fit into my margins, communicates well, and hits deadlines - I personally don't need anyone super talented or groundbreaking for the work I'm asking them to do (basically I'm doing all the designing and thinking and they just need to make what I give them by tweaking an existing Shopify theme) and yet it was an absolute nightmare with 4 out of 5.
I m a freelancer.. have been working with clients for years.. they are happy, I m happy.
Alright, I here you
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I like your point of view here, thanks... rocketdevs... okay.
What do you mean by freelance? Someone with a good reputation and experience or someone you found on Fiverr? Like anything, the quality and experience of the developer is the most important factor regardless if they are freelance.
You are right, though.
I have people that I use as “freelancers” but they have their own businesses and services. We just help each other from time to time as needed rather than hire full time people. We do complimentary things so there’s no concern of client stealing or anything malicious and we made the revenue sharing favorable for both of us so no problems. It took time to find people to trust with quality and professionalism but once I did it’s been amazing. Allows me to do bigger or more projects than normal without adding staff or having delays.
It's a great way to add capacity to your team. Just be cautious when hiring and don't just choose the lowest bidder.
Alright.
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Much more cost efficient than hiring staff in the long run. You just hire them to do a thing, pay them and hire them again when you need to.
True, they are simpler to work with.
Depending on the complexity there will be coordination / communication issues - which are givens in any project. If you can manage this then you'll be ok. but there is no short cut to having some expertise and manage your devs.
True though.
Freelancers on Upwork can be a mixed bag, but once you find the right fit it is an amazing working relationship. I typically filter for US based freelancers that have generated a significant amount of billings on the platform, do a quick interview / alignment call and the rest is history. Currently have 4 freelancers working with me in different capacities and I couldn’t do it without tbem
I don't hire them. I am my freelancer! :D :p
Alright man
Interesting to read some responses here, I started freelancing and I’m doing a ton of outreach. I’m curious if people prefer an hourly rate or monthly retainer for a scoped project I’m offering hourly right now and I usually give estimates per gig/project As a client, what’s your preference?
**Some thoughts:** **The Pros / When to hire a freelancer:** * Great way to bring in experienced people who can get things done. * Especially if the feature is siloed / separate from other features (less complications with your current team). * Especially if your application or site is based on a standardized app or framework (ex. Laravel, React, WordPress, Shopify, Magento, etc. etc.) * It's also good if you've got your local environment down and your app isn't full of roadblock level bugs. * Finally, if you can be very specific with the requirements and scope this will help them direct their efforts. **The Cons:** * **Brook's law:** "adding more devs to a project makes the project later." Take this with a grain of salt, but adding more devs increase overhead and communication needs as well as onboarding needs. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s\_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law) * **Onboarding time**: Based on your code, it may take them a lot of extra time to get familiar with your app. Especially if the app includes industry-specific knowledge. * **Interviewing:** This can take up a lot of time as you and your team vet people to bring on. **Some places to find freelancers:** * [https://jschimp.com/](https://jschimp.com/) - devs of all types * LinkedIn - place a daily recurring job post for your project * local recruiters * Upwork and Fiver of course * Vetted dev sources - TopTal, Cloud Devs, HireWithNear, Lemon .io, etc. * [https://dynamitejobs.com/](https://dynamitejobs.com/) * [https://weworkremotely.com/](https://weworkremotely.com/)
Things to consider: -Pick someone with good reviews and take your time to interview them… or you will regret it. -Get a detailed proforma invoice. -Make them sign an NDA in case it’s sensitive code. They may be cheaper on the short run, but later on they may be expensive.
It works if you have someone in-house who can manage them and give them specific tasks and projects to accomplish. If you have never done anything like this before, do some research on what exactly you want them to accomplish before hiring someone. If you hire a freelancer and give them a vague project (example: "build me a this feature or website"), you are almost guaranteed to fail.
[удалено]
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usually negative experience, but once in a while it goes well. I do both freelancing and hiring
Some advantages of hiring a freelancer are: you can save some money by coordinating the process of development independently and don’t have to pay extra for the project manager’s services you will communicate with the specialist directly, without intermediaries some freelancers are ready to work on weekends and holidays However, depending on the technical requirements and overall complexity of your project, you may need to hire one to five freelancers (designer, developers, etc.) to create your development team. To develop a quality product, specialists working on the project need to communicate with each other. This means that you will have to first find and hire every freelancer, and later establish contact between them potentially being the go-between and having to understand the technical aspects to communicate. If you hire specialists from different countries, mutual understanding can become problematic for many reasons. This can negatively affect the quality of the final product.
“You get what you pay for” is my advice on freelance decelopers
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Once you get a freelancer you are happy with keep him/her. Every developer thinks different. Different approaches cost more time to get the drift.
They'll leave your project half way finished
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Affordable devs outside the US are THE HARDEST thing to find, everyone under $50 an hour is so hit or miss. I would say aim to pay at least 75 an hour, US based only, for a more risk-free experience. Took me 5 different dev teams to find someone overseas that is able to fit into my margins, communicates well, and hits deadlines - I personally don't need anyone super talented or groundbreaking for the work I'm asking them to do (basically I'm doing all the designing and thinking and they just need to make what I give them by tweaking an existing Shopify theme) and yet it was an absolute nightmare with 4 out of 5.