In a perfect world the first thing you do when going into business is get a divorce. The settlement would make sure all family stragglers go with the other party. Then you fire the rest of your family and all your friends!

Now you’ve got a good start and more time to think straight, You might even finally have the presence of mind to be who you already are! Logical awesome enablement.

what languages are you looking for?

What type of programmer I mean.. I might be able to help.
I was a marketer before a programmer, so I will understand things that other programmers wouldn’t.

Sincerely,

Cody Goodman

Man, that’s quite common, especially with coders from South Asia (India and Pakistan). These people have a different time concept then we have in the West. Time means nothing for them. They say they’ll complete the work in 2 months, but if they deliver with a 20 months delay there’s no problem for them, because the work is done.

I hired a programmer from an unnamed site last year and he did a very good job. However, just before the software was completed, he disappeared! I lost all contact with him. He didn’t yet give me the source code, so the whole project was worthless. I had to start over. A lot of the service sites are great, but the real goal there is to find a programmer that has lots of positive reviews (30+). Once you finish a successful project with him/her, try a second. If that works, you’re well on your way to having a long term programmer you can trust.

@ Deep – Yes, I agree with you.

@ James – Thanks for that insightful and helpful tips. Yes, I can tell you’d studied programming from the words you used, like “UML”. I failed miserably in programming back in college.

@ tkada – Glad this post helped you.

This was a project with NASA reporting and contract standards: much more stringent than any commercial project.

Let’s boil it down:
1) design specs. That the customer and the programmer understand. It is best if you learn enough of a standard language (UML) to keep the programmer honest. It’s not too hard, and you don’t have to learn too much of it — just make sure the programmer does not put anything in there that you can’t understand.

2) The UML will break the project into large chunks. Get an estimate for each chunk and when each will be delivered and what chunks need to be done first.

3) agree on a pay per chunk scheme. Note that some parts may need be done simultaneously.

4) try to get ‘stub-enabled’ code: where the hooks for later work is clearly ‘stubbed-out’ and with some simulated (test driven) code to mimic the code to be written in the future.

There is more, but it should be a start. It will give you very much leverage and visibility over your programming staff.

One more thing: especially with outsourcing. There is often a desire to speed up the process by adding more programmers. Unless you have your project broken up into these reasonably independent chunks, it won’t work. It’s like trying to have a baby in 1 month by using 9 women! one chunk per programmer.