I’ve been introduced to a world of freelance developers in a whole new way via a website called oDesk. In it, you can either be a freelancer and search out contract jobs which match your skills, or post a job, big or small, for developers and freelancers to bid on. Because it is not tied down to a geographic location, it is a great opportunity to expand your pool of potential candidates (or jobs) worldwide.
I’ve been actively using it for a few months and some days at work, it can take up most of my day. I also decided to use it to move ahead with the Cleeve Horne website: It was a site I had starting building but it was a big enough task that I got 90% of the way there and burned myself out on it. It’s hard to create quality work while sitting on a TTC bus riding to work.
So it sat for a few months, eating away at me that I wasn’t going to get it done. Finally, I started breaking off pieces of what was left and gave it to some “oDeskers”. It’s not done, but as long as I can get some intrepid contractors to bravely traverse my spaghetti code, I can see the end in sight.
From this I have a few tips for effectively managing your oDeskers. Some obvious, some not so much.
Patience
You’ll be dealing with contractors who may have a different mother tongue and have to figure out possibly fairly complicated stuff based on your instructions. Make things as easy as possible for them by explaining very clearly (ideally with screen captures or other examples) of what you need. Be kindly persistent if they don’t seem to be getting it right away.
Get on DropBox (or Box.com), Skype, Team Viewer
Since your contractors will be working remotely (sometimes very remotely, think overseas) you want basically a virtual communication and sharing arsenal that you can trade documents and coordinate. Team Viewer is useful if some kind of troubleshooting actually has to be done in your environment and you don’t want them to have your passwords.
Close when done
For a time, you may give your contractors access to your DropBox, or even password-related stuff (avoid the latter if you can). Do yourself a favour and close off their access when they are done the job, just to tie up loose ends.
Find your ‘diamonds in the rough’
The default, especially when starting out to hire, is to engage someone who has 1000+ oDesk hours and at least a 4.5 star rating. That’s a good strategy, but they are hot and priced accordingly. Alternately, you can track down hidden gems who are new to oDesk. They will be cheaper because they are just breaking in, and they will be eager to please to get some good ratings right at the outset. You can usually spot them by a strong portfolio and a believably strong C.V. Keep an eye out for bidders who fit that profile because people like that can really pay off. I recently found one for some SQL server work and he completely ninja-ed it faster than the other developers I had working in parallel to him.
Happy oDesking!
