Finding skilled pythonistas for micro-jobs?

[darran]

I'm a partner in a design and technology studio that creates
large-scale interactive exhibits for museums. We are agile - by
choice. For big 6-12 month projects, we try and secure exceptional
python talent on contract. The python job board addresses this need.

Every few weeks though I run up against a bite-sized programming
problem begging to be farmed out by our small company. The tasks
themselves span the gamut from data wrangling (format conversions) to
SWIG wrappers to Twisted to pyOpenGL. Often the task is 1 or 2 days of
work. Not really big enough to warrant a job search, a contract, or
even someone's full-time attention. The type of problem that is
perfectly suited to a CS student or daytime programmer looking to make
some extra money. Presently, when one of these jobs pops up, I just
add 8-16 hours to my work week - much to the dismay of my 3-year old
daughter who'd rather I pay someone and go to the park. The nice thing
though about our bite-sized jobs is that the goals are perfectly clear
because we are religious in our use of unit testing and test-driven
development.

Any suggestions then for locating skilled Python/C++ programmers for
these small (micro) jobs?

Cheers,
Darran.

 

[Paul Rubin]

Any suggestions then for locating skilled Python/C++ programmers for
these small (micro) jobs?

I've taken a number of these and always regretted it. They've been
far more hassle than they're worth. But maybe that's just me.

 

[Beliavsky]

I have gotten some Python tasks done at http://www.rentacoder.com.
Progammers are cheaper outside the U.S. and Western Europe, and you can
get a lot done for even $100.

 

[Chuck Rhode]

Paul Rubin wrote this on Sat, Nov 18, 2006 at 04:39:47PM -0800. My
reply is below.

I've taken a number of these and always regretted it. They've been
far more hassle than they're worth. But maybe that's just me.

I've never seen the point of trying to compete for the kind of
work-at-home programming jobs you see posted on Internet clearing
houses. A number of reservations have always stopped me:

o The problem descriptions are nebulous or incoherent or both.

o No background scope is provided.

o No performance criteria are set forth.

o No pay rate is specified.

o No due date is mentioned.

Obviously, it would take longer to draw these things together than it
would to do the job itself, at least in the posters' opinions. I
can't help wondering, though, if they're serious, because, if they
need the job completed successfully, however trivial it may be,
sooner or later somebody is going to have to do their homework, and,
yes, it's going to take at least twice as long as they're willing to
spend when they get around to it.

I think there's a case to be made for hiring a another full-time
programmer if these small jobs keep cropping up. Part of his job
description can be to prepare needs assessments and impact analyses
and to prioritize requests before he even thinks about beginning a
task. It's difficult to outsource these things, and they are time
consuming.

 

[Nick Vatamaniuc]

If you are agile it means that the developer is in constant
communication with the user/client often changing and updating the
requirements. The typical work that you specify though is not of that
nature because it a list of specifications and then the coder
implements it, and when done gets back to you.

In other words, you will pay for not having a relationship with the
programmer. Theoretically just having the requirements and a set of
unit tests should do it, but in practice it might not work, stuff
_always_ comes up when you least expect it. Sometimes the clear goals
end up not being that clear to both you and a strange new programmer
you just met over email.

There are other things to consider what if the person doesn't come
through? They end up doing something else or forget -- you wait for 3
days, your company expects a result and the programmer you just asked
to work for you does not deliver. Or what if they are not satisfied
with the pay because it took longer than expected. Also, what would you
do about taxes, technically you are employing someone, a day job is
still a job. Theoretically one could run a company and never pay the
proper taxes because they pay their programmers per day through
Paypal...

However, you do mention CS students. I would suggest to find a local
university and befriend a professor. Then whenever you need a small job
ask him. He will know the students (who knows what, how well and so
on). Just based on a personal experience from my CS department you will
not have a shortage of candidates ( starving graduate students _will_
code for food ), and you get to meet the students in person if you so
desire, and then keep them on your contact list. An even better
advice -- get two students, you will get a true xp team, they'll have
to split the pay but in case one is busy, the other one will be there
for you. You can hire them as part time with no benefits and they can
put the work on their resume, which will be of great help for them.

Note: if your company is well known, you might even find students who
will help for free, just so they can put some work experience on their
resume...

Hope that helps,
Nick V.

 

[John Machin]

I'm a partner in a design and technology studio that creates
large-scale interactive exhibits for museums. We are agile - by
choice. For big 6-12 month projects, we try and secure exceptional
python talent on contract. The python job board addresses this need.

Every few weeks though I run up against a bite-sized programming
problem begging to be farmed out by our small company. The tasks
themselves span the gamut from data wrangling (format conversions) to
SWIG wrappers to Twisted to pyOpenGL. Often the task is 1 or 2 days of
work. Not really big enough to warrant a job search, a contract, or
even someone's full-time attention. The type of problem that is
perfectly suited to a CS student or daytime programmer looking to make
some extra money. Presently, when one of these jobs pops up, I just
add 8-16 hours to my work week - much to the dismay of my 3-year old
daughter who'd rather I pay someone and go to the park. The nice thing
though about our bite-sized jobs is that the goals are perfectly clear
because we are religious in our use of unit testing and test-driven
development.

Any suggestions then for locating skilled Python/C++ programmers for
these small (micro) jobs?

A few entries from my own cynic's dictionary:

Agile: the accounts dept displays fancy footwork when the bill is
submitted

Religious: Religions in IT come and go; the only tenets universally
held by customer management have always been the Divine Right of Kings
and Papal Infallibility, both applied of course only to themselves

Clear goals, unit testing as applied to "data wrangling" -- a nonsense.
Specs are prepared that are only tangentially relevant to the task and
have obviously not been derived from any inspection of the data.

Example (had allegedly been peer reviewed and mgt reviewed):
"Placenames [in Australia] shall be validated to contain only letters
and spaces" [or words to that effect] -- never mind no mention of case.
Never mind that a moment's armchair reflection would have indicated
that apostrophe and hyphen might be reasonable candidates. Australia is
not heavily populated. Then (and now) the full list of placenames and
postcodes needed for the application was printed at the back of
larger-city phone directories, as found on the desks of "business
analysts". It was available on floppy disk and in paper booklets from
the Post Office. I believe that it was even available in Braille, so
that the proverbial Blind Freddie would have been able to tell them
that the *first* entry was [then] "A1 MINE SETTLEMENT".

Cheers,
John

 

[darran]

Clear goals, unit testing as applied to "data wrangling" -- a nonsense.
Specs are prepared that are only tangentially relevant to the task and
have obviously not been derived from any inspection of the data.

No specs. Context and a full suite unit tests. Pass the test suite
(without,
of course, trying to circumvent the spirit of the tests) and you're
done. If
the tests don't span the actual dataset, that's my fault, not yours.

Cheers,
Darran.

 

[Stephen Eilert]

I have gotten some Python tasks done at http://www.rentacoder.com.
Progammers are cheaper outside the U.S. and Western Europe, and you can
get a lot done for even $100.

I've done a project on RentaCoder (as seller) even though it was not
Python-related. I needed to do quite a bit of search to find a suitable
project. As in, something quick, that I could do in my spare time. What
I found funny is that, with only one project, I've got a better ranking
than +90% of the site's registered coders. They're either not bothering
to get projects after registration or are not completing them
successfully.

There are many projects that do not have a clear scope or are underpaid
($50 for an Amazon-clone). And there are people taking those.

In Brazil, $100 is what programmers earn for two days worth of work, on
average. Even then, I don't even try to compete with Indians, as they
are basically asking for spare change.



Stephen