Hi all, I often have work to give out to coders who charge reasonable rates, but am I alone in finding the mainstream freelancing websites are full of coders that are not as good as they say they are and/or they’re not able to communicate with me properly in English, and so projects get much more confusing and long-winded than they need to be?
Are there any similar websites where the charges are reasonable and they can communicate easily in English?
I think upwork and toptal are your best bet. In upwork you can restrict freelancers to us only. Its also important to provide clear requirements and have a face to face (skype) before hiring.
There was a short period while I was looking for work and I highly considered starting by own business going freelance. I found upwork about 4 months back and I think since then the quality of jobs on there has really gone down hill. I think within the last few months its really been over run by low quality clients and freelance farms out of third world/poor countries. I think there is value and opportunity for both clients and freelancers if you know where to look and what to ask. I’m some what surprised you have been unable to find anyone your happy with. I guess though it would depend on your budget and job requirements in the past. I’m always very surprised to see how little people work for on that site. I would be interested in knowing the completion rate of projects based on various compensation ranges and project term. I have a hunch that most of the projects on there have a very low rate of completion and customer satisfaction. I’m constantly seeing ads for projects that were started and never completed. You always have to remember that the people working for very little are like factory workers. Unless your able to guide them and tell them exactly what to do they are going to be like chickens with their heads cut off. I think the best combination of value and skill if you can find it is a fluent english speaking student. Problem solving skills are always more important than knowledge of any one language or framework.
You can check Freelancer, Upwork and sites like Guru to assign work to Coders. Also, you can always filter out the non-english speaking guys while placing the project.
The only one I have tried is Fiverr.com
Just recently this year they have introduced Pro Gigs where professional people can apply for (they don’t accept everyone), they charge higher price and deliver custom work (at least in the animation category I can say). Note that some categories don’t have Pro Gigs, just they normal ones ($5 plus).
Check the Programming & Tech category here: https://www.fiverr.com/categories/programming-tech
And make sure to sort by Show PRO Gigs first on the left panel.
I do understand that you can’t compare Fiverr to other Freelance websites, but you might find what you looking for.