Before we dive into answering the question “How”, let us understand why we should outsource the programming tasks. Learning how to outsource programming is not easy, but the reason is simple: outsourcing any kind of IT service without having the computing background can land your company into grave troubles if you make the wrong decisions.
The way to getting the value for money; we need to describe the project concisely, have in mind the required skills a programmer must have to deliver a final product and have a fairly good idea what’s it gonna cost you so as to get a fair price for your effort without compromising on the quality. Consumers have always benefitted when the prices of goods and services are low. From a business perspective, it makes a perfect sense to deliver the product or service at the lowest cost and highest of quality.
While making a case of “why” we should outsource, it can be summarized into three points:
- Outsourcing the non-core functions can actually free up time for more core-jobs at hand to focus upon: marketing and business development that impacts on the bottom line of earning for a business.
- We are all aware of the salary or cost differentials between countries that have existed for centuries. A service that is costly in the home country can be cheaper overseas. For example, the software programmers in US are some of the highly paid professionals in the world as compared to the programmers in the asian countries.
- Global talent pools in under low cost, which is the ideal requirement for many IT companies.
- Take the headache out of hiring programmers and end up paying more than the outsourcing cost.
Now that we have understood “why” outsourcing is important, let’s answer the question “how” which is the sole purpose of writing this article.
How to Outsource
There are a number of ways to outsource web development programming:
Freelance Websites
There are a number of websites that can provide you with programmers who are highly skilled and that too at dirt cheap rates. But identifying a good programmer, and which is very important, can also be a daunting task.
Wait, why?
For a number of reasons. Firstly, a fake freelancer can easily fake a portfolio and even ‘cook’ some references or some can claim other programmers work.
Secondly, sometimes freelancers can claim sub-contracting work and you later to get to know that the work was actually done by some third or fourth programmer known to the freelancer hired. So you have to be careful and if you still think that you are up for the task, then these are websites that you should look for getting the programmers.
Upwork
This is the leading online marketplace where you can look for programmers of your desired skill set. Here the span is unlimited for the pool of programmers and you can find good programmers from around the world.
The facts say that over two million companies outsource their work on upwork and there is a huge pool of 8 million freelance workers registered at the site and the combined fee paid by companies in 2013 was approximately $750 million.
Freelancer.com
Facts suggest that freelancer.com is listed on the Australian stock exchange and is termed as second in terms of revenue and usage. Having only been established in 2009, freelancer.com has seen a tremendous growth in a short span of time. In matter of time they have acquired a lot of competitor companies that include Scriptlance, vWorker(formerly known as RentACoder.com) and digital and internet marketing community and marketplace Warrior Forum.
Want to know more about upwork Vs Freelancer.com, read here .
PeoplePerHour
PeoplePerHour.com is another company that saw success in a short span of time. Based out of UK, one of the reasons for its tremendous growth is that it let’s people post about their service that they can offer in a specified period of time and fee.
This way a buyer can easily look for a particular service that they require to get the job done at hand.
Direct Recruitment
Another way of outsourcing the programming is to recruit directly. For this purpose a company can place its advertisement on sites like Craiglist or the local newspaper. Generally, responses are received in hundreds and you may put someone from your company for sifting down the applications. Alternatively, you can outsource this job to a recruitment agency-but you must have enough budget for it.
Tips For Selecting The Right Worker
As stated above, hiring people or notorious workers can become a tedious job and sometimes even may backfire on you. In order to avoid this, hire people who have experience in the field and have been given a good feedback and ratings by other companies. For example, if we are hiring for a complex job, then we look at giving the job to someone who never has worked on less than 30 completed jobs and they must have a rating of 90% or higher.
Hope this article should kickstart your search for talent and give a clarity on whether you should outsource a particular job or not.