Last week's article included some recommendations on how to find a graphic designer if you want a unique template. This week, we will have a look at a successful process to find excellent Joomla developers.
There has been a lot of debate on the pros and cons of outsourcing and my experience has been mixed. The approach you are about to learn takes more time and is not be suitable for all tasks. The site I am having the most success with at the moment is oDesk. Employers can post job requests and freelancers from around the world can respond with a bid. This does however raise several challenges including wading through a massive amount of responses.
A better approach is to list the job as "Invitation-Only" and then become a headhunter. This gives you more control over which candidates apply. You might find someone good who isn't actively looking for jobs and would therefore not see your posting if you listed it generally. They are likely to respond if you formally invite them.
Finding suitable candidates is easy. oDesk provides an excellent filtering system that allows you to search by region, hourly rate, feedback score and more. Also, be sure to have a look through their dedicated Joomla Group.
Beware of low bids. As enticing as it might be to accept the lowest price, have a good look at the candidates feedback first. It is often better to find someone at double the price who can do the job in less than half the time. And that brings us to the project we're currently working on. It will incorporate a membership area that will be handled using JomSocial. It will require a unique add-on to be developed and we used the process described above to find a suitable programmer. He was twice the price of any other bidder but was the only one who provided us with enough confidence that he could do the job.
