Indian programmers. I'm done.
 

Can't take it any more. They are worthless! And getting worse!

I can't afford to pay a US programmer $100 an hour for my various projects, either. With that in mind, who are you guys using? Ukrainians? Pakistanis?

You get what you pay for. There are good Indian programmers and there are crappy ones, just like there are good American programmers and crappy ones.

The problem with hiring good, cheap, coders is they quickly become good, more-expensive, coders - for someone else.

My pal is using Lithuanians for apps programming.

If I had a need, I'd look for computer science college kids needing a side gig.

G

Yup. A buddy of mine has used an MIT kid more than once. But not for major corporate type stuff.

What type of programming? JAVA and Javascript both go for between $40 and $50 per hour in this area.

Generic web designers start at $14/hour as well.

Yes, this will only work for a small project, which I think Motion probably has. Of course you will have to manage and control the project yourself and only have the kids do the coding. At work I have had very good luck employing kids as contractors for mechanical design. Of course there has to be very well defined request ...

G

Philippines? Buddy of mine has a couple dedicated programmers he relies on. They are happy with 1/2 of what a senior .net developer makes in the states.

What skill set are you looking for?

The hourly rate thing can get awkward as a benchmark. i.e. $50/hour taking three times as long as a $100/hour.

Rails and php developers usually around 40 to 75. Back end Web stuff. I usually go for local freelancers

Could contact some local code bootcamps.

I have various needs. I hired a guy to do HTML5 stuff for me. He quoted the project as taking 6 days. Its been 5 months of daily emailing with him now. Getting close, but not done. I've burned thousands of dollars in my time dealing with him.

I have another team working on an app. We're coming up on 6 months and they are probably half done. If I could find the right person, it would be a 2 week job.

I also need guys for basic CSS HTML stuff, but that's been tough to find. They all claim to know how to do it, but the work they do is pretty worthless.

I have another team that I've been using for about 9 years. They do eventually finish the work, but everything takes 2X what they quote me for, so I end up paying double. And, i get to argue with them constantly and of course, I am the one to blame for everything.

I'll check into the Lithuanians and Philipinos, thanks. I steer clear of American programmers because I don't want the IRS hassles. If I 1099 them and they don't pay, I'm on the hook.

You will not be on the hook if they don't pay. You job is to send them a 1099, that is all you are require to do.

But you can afford to pay someone overseas to get nothing done?

I think it's time to start paying more and save some money.

Motion, do you have friends that are programmers? Maybe they know of a jr. programmer they work with that will take on a project on the side. This depends on the size of the the job, of course

I have a guy here.

He won't cost you $100 an hour.

He's brilliant and fast.

Also shares my philosophy that the client should never be held hostage by the work provided.

Meaning anything he produces is commented and there is no weird proprietary voodoo meaning you can get anyone with the requisite skill set t make changes / updates if you chose.

One of his biggest clients is The Economist. They love him.

PM me if you want his contact info.

^^^^This is so true.
Our guys are good and fast. At $100 they produce at three times the speed and 3 times the quality as what you can get overseas. PM if you are interested in more details.

For the application front end and database back end, there is nothing already made you could buy and use? Even if you have to modify what and how you do things a little, off the shelf software is generally a better deal over time. For example if you pay a programmer $50 an hour for 50 hours a week for a year, the cost is $125,000 a person and there might be several required? Whoa, that is a lot of $$$$$$ but you get up and running in a week or three and then how much is that worth?

Before I retired as a senior DBA I worked for a company named Avexus (went out of business finally) and their product was $150,000 for a 25 user license and ran on Oracle and we provided support 24/7. A company in Rio Brazil had worked on the same program/database for 2 years and was about 30% finished but the IT manager talked the CEO into believing it could be finished in 6 months! 2 years later it was still not done.......

I just sold an Active Diretory design project to a client. They went with the 20% higher bid, from the firm out of CT.

Couple decision making points:
Keep the dollars here.
They speak English
Don't propose conference calls at midnight...

Richard, sent you a message on Facebook.. May have a guy who can help you out.