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This question is for the qualified CI devs, not the newbies that dont know what var_dump() is.

There are several of you in the forums, are you freelancers or hourly/salary employees?

If you are freelancers, where are you finding work? (PM please) and are you getting a decent wage?

It seems that there are lots of CI jobs in the many freelance job sites but they are all being awarded to offshore labor for 11.00/hr
and then the hired “programmers” come here to ask how to load a view from a controller so we are helping them do the jobs for free that they underbid in the first place and are being paid (barely) to do.

If you are a qualified CI developer and know of any place where there are jobs available for a decent wage, please PM the source. I promise I wont take all of the jobs 😊

If there are no jobs available at a decent wage then perhaps we should stop helping in the forums so the “programmers” fail faster and the jobs will get re-posted for a decent wage and the copy/paste bids will be ignored as they should be.

Again, please PM any decent freelance job sources if you know of any and feel free to reply to the post with your thoughts on the topic.

Why PM? Lets discuss this in the open. 😉

Strickly speaking I’m not a freelancer, I run an IT company that does (amongst other things) managed hosting and application development. And when I’m not busy with that, I wear the hats of application architect, project manager and finally I’m allowed to code, as lead developer.

In general i’d say that 80% of our work comes from repeat customers or word of mouth. In 20% of the projects in general people contact me because of my OSS activities, both with CI and “the other Framework”.

I don’t accept any project from clients that are not prepared to pay for quality. As I rely on word of mouth, quality is what builds our reputation. In general, not below 50 euro/hour, unless we’ve got some juniors on the project.

I’ve looked at different online systems that broker between clients and developers. Most of them are swamped with the “I work for beads” kind of people. Most of the clients on those sites are not willing to pay anything. The last one to contact me wanted an “expedia.com” clone, and was willing to pay $2000 (including backend, payment systems, and what have you).

As for developers, the best site sofar that I’ve came across is forrst.com. High quality, and by invitation only. And with every member it is displayed who has invited them. Very in the open, so people are very careful not to invite newbies or scam artists. It has a job section as well, with both fulltime and freelance jobs. I don’t see any rates mentioned, but most of them are from design agencies or development companies, and mention “competitive” rates…

It does seem like there have been a lot of “how do I load a view” questions in broken English lately, so you may be right about what is happening.  Obviously I can’t tell for sure and am not going to opine on that.

I HAVE stopped answering most questions on the forum because 1) they are no interest to me - I look for problems where I might learn something by answering - and, 2) I don’t answer anything that I think “a real programmer should be able to figure out how to debug that on their own”

To answer what you are really asking:

I am changing my efforts this year from being a “taker” to being a “giver”. Last year was my first real full year as a freelancer. It was a lot of scratching out customers every month, trying to build relationships with design firms & such for repeat business…you know the story. I spent a lot of time “taking” other people’s libraries, code examples, tutorials.

This year I am focusing on “giving”. The year has just started, and my time and efforts are still limited, but I am trying to contribute to the CI Core Issues; I joined with a couple of very good CI devs on a small open-source project; I am deciding on another similar project to get involved with; and I am toying with one or two ideas of my own to “recruit” a few people and push out.

How does this translate to bread on the table? I don’t know yet - just starting. But I hope that working with good programmers, and making a reputation for myself, people will start to think of me when they need an extra coder on a project. I bet if Derek Allard tweets “Having a dry spot. Anyone hiring for juicy projects?”, he wouldn’t have to wait long. I’m no Derek Allard, but I want to build something similar at my own ability level.

Then I can spend all that time I waste answering job posts that I get low-bid on and turn it into something creative (and be a happier programmer in doing so)

Why PM? Lets discuss this in the open.

PM because anything mentioned in the open will be immediately swamped by the offshore low ballers and ruined.

I come from years of being the primary third party developer for a specific e-commerce platform so the market was very niche however, the software vendor became very hard to work with in recent years so I migrated away from their platform and I have been competing in the open market while I develop my own codeigniter ecommerce platform.

This was fine initially but as the global economy worsens, it is harder and harder to find clients as they flock to the low cost/low quality freelancer sites that are overrun with offshore labor.

The logical solution is to get a freelancer account, take a few of the “skill tests”, get a few projects under the account with good ratings, become a “gold member” or whatever upper echelon account status they offer (paid, of course) and bid on the jobs that require all of these credentials, weeding out the vermin.

It is easy to buy the gold member status and take the skill tests but its hard to get jobs under the account with good ratings because they also record how well you are paid and the only way to get the jobs in the first place is to do them for free, or close to it.

I also thought that reputation building was the way to go so I answered questions in the code forum, made CI tutorial videos on youtube, etc to establish myself as a qualified resource but so far all it has accomplished has been to help the newbies complete the jobs that they shouldn’t have received in the first place.

I guess, I too, will follow suit and boycott answering questions for newbies while still answering the advanced questions and making videos for the advanced developer so that my CI reputation might find its way in front of the client that wants to swim through the river of low ballers in order to possibly find me.

I am interested in joining any advanced CI projects that would be beneficial to my CI reputation.

It might not be a bad idea to create a union of developers that are highly specialized in CI, and any new members must be “verified”.

Verification would include:

Telephone interview where a skill test is performed.
Physical address verification using snail mail confirmation.
etc.

If the union members release CI libraries/helpers/applications, offer forum help, etc then the union’s reputation would grow quickly.

If all union members knew that they were amongst their peers then they would not mind the reputation sharing.

Employers who seek senior level CI programmers can see a list of union members for a bid. Union members are not permitted to bid below X.00/hr

This would provide employers with quick access to qualified CI developers and the hourly rates are protected.

I know unionizing isn’t right for every situation but it might be right for this one.

You might think that sounds great but everybody and their mother will apply which means union dues to support overhead for new member verifications, etc.

What if it is done like the Masons where you must be sponsored by an existing member?

Here is an example, you want to be a member so you must attract the attention of the union members by:

answering forum questions
submitting an effective library/helper/etc

I know its not perfect but its a hell of a lot better than anything going on right now and the bugs could be ironed out.

It seems a shame that qualified developers have to look for jobs. The jobs should be looking for us!

Lets find a way to make that the reality.

This is basically what forrst.com is about, but then not restricted to CI (which I don’t think is a good idea), and without a marketplace. Forrst.com also allows you to discuss with your peers, share snippets of code, show off your skills.

As the people that place the jobs are members too, they are professionals, and will check out your activity, the quality of your code and your answers, who endorses you, what your ratings are, etc.

I don’t like the idea of a marketplace anyway. It forces clients to go for the lowest bidder, and it forces bidders to go lower and lower to get the contract. If you try to avoid that by defining a bottom rate, you lose the entire philosophy behind the bidding mechanism.

I just went there and I see what you mean. Invitation only, nice 😊

I will signup tonight.

Do you actually get any work from there directly?

I also want to say that I have had a great response to my recent posts via PM.

Thanks for your support in this effort to take back the jobs from the inept that are damaging the worldwide reputation of qualified software developers.

Note: I know that we were all noobs at one time and I am, in no way, trying to discourage noobs from learning and asking for help in the process. I am only saying, learn on personal projects and stay out of the job market until you know what you are doing. Then you will be qualified/valuable and you wont be willing to work for $10.00/hr and thus, you won’t be part of the problem but rather, part of the solution.

Thanks again to everyone for your PMs and public support.

If web development and design were my only jobs, I’d survive, but it would not be very luxurious. I do own a sewing machine store, which is where my primary income comes from. I do bill @ $50 USD an hour, and for long term jobs I am willing to accept less. I’ve had a long term job for the last year and I’ve been charging $40 an hour for that one.

It is hard to get nice web development jobs in my area. Many people who contact me are wanting an ebay-like site for $200.00. For every 10 or 20 people I talk to, I get 1 decent job. That could be changing though, as I am hoping that my current long term job will bring in new contacts and future jobs.

I really don’t like the idea of helping people learn php and CI to take away potential jobs, but since I only work with local clients, I really don’t believe I’m shooting myself in the foot. If people are stupid enough to hire somebody from half-way around the world, then they get what they pay for. Chances are they won’t get a fully functional website, and then they will come see me anyways.

A lot of the people I’ve built websites for have been burned by a “web designer” that thought they knew what they were doing. I build good websites, good relationships with my customers, and know any one of my customers would recommend me 100%.

I dont see the designer/developer being remote as being negative.

I am not a front end designer so I have outsourced design projects that resulted in good communication and excellent results. The difference is that I went with a designer that had a nice portfolio, good ratings, professional rates, and was in (not pretending to be in) a developed country.

I also have had many long term clients that I have worked with repeatedly as their developer and I have never met them face to face.

Many companies have also switched their business model to allow employees to work from home as telecommuters because of the reduction in cost overhead over that of providing everyone with space in a commercial real estate building.

Remote labor or telecommuting is not the problem. It is a major advantage of the computer age but people are taking it to extremes and trying to get technically advanced labor from countries that are not technically developed because of a bargain basement price tag and that is the problem.

Lets face it, if India was good at computer programming, their local infrastructure would reflect it. Have you ever seen the poverty conditions in India? Its very bad.

Is India globally recognized as a booming technically developing country the way that Dubai is for real estate growth? or any other “boomtown”? With a zillion programmers in India, if they were any good, they would have climbed the global market as the tech leader.

There is a reason why Cisco, Nortel, MacIntosh, Microsoft, etc do their training in the “technology corridor” in Richardson, Texas
and not in India.

India is not technically advanced just because they bid on every tech job on the web. They do that because $10.00/hr in India is a great wage and so they go after foreign high paying tech jobs at their domestic low rates.

Ask yourself how many jobs have you seen where the employer is in India and they are looking for Indian programmers? OK, lots. Now how many of those Indian employers are NOT contractors trying to fill foreign jobs with cheap domestic labor?

There are few programming jobs in India that are not foreign contractors. What does that say about the state of technology in India as it pertains to the advancement of the Indian technological infrastructure. Thats right, they dont have a solid tech infrastructure. Thats my whole point. If they dont have a solid tech infrastructure then why does anyone hire them for technical services? The answer is the problem… greed (and the current global economic crisis).

In summation, what I am saying here is that you are VERY unlikely to get the same quality of software and value for your labor hours from a $50+/hr programmer of a technically advanced country and from a $10-/hr programmer of a technically underdeveloped country. There needs to be a raise in awareness of the difference in the results so we can claim the market back.

This thread is a case in point.

I do recognize that there are some professional programmers in India. This is not directed at them but they are the exception to the rule. They should be more angry than anyone at the way the Indian market is exploiting substandard tech labor to foreign employers.

I have an interesting prospective.

I have paid for the development of as many applications as I have personally built.

The last project I produced was CI based. I paid a brilliantly-talented-twenty-something $50 an hour.  That said, my primary business is investment management. Thirteen years ago I received a bid to build a real estate site for $30,000. I had free time so I started coding classic ASP. Quickly I realized I quite enjoy programming. I guess I am a hobbyist-developer. I build things to make my job easier.

If I hire someone, it’s always a local talent preferably referral based -like most business. BUT more so because STILL how does the customer know if a programmer can actually do the job??

You imply that those less talented overseas developers are taking work. I don’t know any, but I’m guessing, there is no difference here or there. Many overseas are highly trained. Then there are others who don’t write so well, STAND OUT for their grammar and sentence construction.

I think at the core customers -as one- want talented programmers they trust, that can develop scalable apps in an elegant manner.  Cost? Well again, how does the customer measure cost?

You imply that those less talented overseas developers are taking work. I don’t know any, but I’m guessing, there is no difference here or there. Many overseas are highly trained. Then there are others who don’t write so well, STAND OUT for their grammar and sentence construction.

Yes, I agree that a bid from a developer in India that is well written, has code samples, references, etc is just as good as a bid from an equally qualified candidate from the U.S., Western Europe, etc.

My gripe is not with qualified developers from any country and my point is not restricted to the “taking of jobs”.

My gripe is with the gross underbidding of jobs and the copy/paste bids that flood any possible opportunity for qualified developers.

Qualified developers are that way because of dedication and long hours. The offense here is that opportunities are being run away from hard working, qualified developers buy those that bid by the dozens on jobs that explicitly say not to bid if you are from country x AND the underbidding that is so tempting to employers in a slow economy.

I think of it this way. I am not Chinese and I don’t speak Chinese. There are programming job opportunities in China but I leave them for the Chinese programmers rather than learning just enough Chines to write “I can do” and then bidding on every Chinese programming job on the web.

It would be out of line for me to do that, the Chinese employers would hate to see my posts and so they would offer fewer opportunities because of my annoying bids, Chinese programmers would lose jobs as a result of my actions, they would be angry with me about it, and THEY WOULD BE RIGHT!

It’s not a matter of QUALIFIED Indian programmers bidding on jobs. Its a matter of UNQUALIFIED Indian programmers bidding on EVERY job, even when the job posting respectfully requests otherwise.

No employer wants to weed through tens or hundreds of “I can do” bids and it drives them to look elsewhere and qualified freelance developers are the ones that lose in the scenario. That’s my gripe.

@vbsaltydog: I get what you mean, tho’ I personally think that there is one big flaw in your logic; some of guys before stated it as well.

I have had for 3 years software development company. Had at one point 8 programmers working in the office. I came across many different clients, different projects, wishes, demands, prices… It basically all comes down to this;

What is the amount of money that I consider to be truthfully honest for the tasks that I / my company can achieve? I also started on a ‘low budget’ premises, from around 12 euro’s per hour. Only thing I got from it were a bunch of ‘clients’ that wanted E-bay ‘look-a-like’ sites for money that could not even buy decent lunch for two persons. I have had not a single serious client with my asking price of 12 euro’s per hour.

Then I did some talking to other guys in the branch, done a lot of research and piked my price to 30 euro per hour. Some clients started showing. Among them I would say were about 60% legit clients and 40% of clients that you would rather not have as a client. Some time later I went up to 50 euro per hour and it was only then that I started getting serious clients who knew what they wanted and _had_ budget for it.

And let me tell you, in my personal and professional opinion - I would always rather do business with such clients who know what they want and who are well aware that such demands come with certain price (and indeed they are willing to pay for it).

Basically, start from your self; if you were in a need for a new car, you could buy cheapest car in the world, which is accidentally built in India. It would set you back only about 2,500 euro. But on the other hand, you know as well that designing, testing, development, research, material costs, personnel costs are way higher then the value of the car. So that car - must be rubbish. Would you then rather pay 15,000+ euro’s and get the car you really need / want, that is safe, reliable, well build - or not? If you really _need_ the car - you would also have 15k to buy it. If you do not need it, well then probably 2,500 euro car would do you as well.

Same is with programmers, freelancers and / or companies. If you are serious in what you are doing, then all those $8 per hour programmers are no threat to you at all - not on any bases. I have had clients (when I raised my price to 30 euro) that went away and took $8 per hour programmers. A lot of them came back after some time to me, almost bagging me to continue development of their project. I have only once made mistake and agreed to it - but never again.

Finally, it is not so known, but Indian business culture _does not_ allow them to say ‘No’. Meaning, whichever request client has, they must accept it - even when they very know it is (technically or project wise) not possible! This makes it really tricky. You can even test this, by setting an example project which with current standards can not be done. And they will accept it. As the project develops, they will start sending rubbish code, practically forcing you to abandon project.

Second thing is, that they are not really ‘flexible’ in thinking with their own heads. They have very rigid hierarchical structure which does not allow for the end programmers to think on their own. I have seen with my own eyes couple of example whereby client has had minor (logical) errors in the project documentation. For example, in the back-end only Admin should _not_ be able to log in. Of course, word ‘_not_’ is misplaced and does not belong there. However, Indian programmer may not raise his voice about this. Result is - everyone can log in the back-end - except admin. Brilliant! Lived up to the specs.

Anyway, to conclude - I do understand your anger and way of thinking. But again, just keep pushing in being good in what you do and such matters should not affect you, your business nor your financial existence on the longer run. And beside, client that is not willing to pay someone more then $100 for E-bay website, well I do not want him anyway. World is luckily large enough place for everyone to find what they are looking for.

PS. In my line of job I came across software development companies that charged immense amount of $250+ per hour! And crazy enough, they have had more then plenty clients. Those clients are then again multinationals that are doing business with them only on the premises that rest of the world may know, that they can afford such high prices! Again, for everybody - something.

Point blank! Word of Mouth and repeat customer…

Finally, it is not so known, but Indian business culture _does not_ allow them to say ‘No’. Meaning, whichever request client has, they must accept it - even when they very know it is (technically or project wise) not possible! This makes it really tricky. You can even test this, by setting an example project which with current standards can not be done. And they will accept it. As the project develops, they will start sending rubbish code, practically forcing you to abandon project.

It is the main reason why most of these off-shore deals fail. I see more and more european software houses either abandon off-shoring, bring the good guys local, or send experienced architects and project managers to the off-shore country to try to solve this issue. Not a lot of them succeed…

Lots of good info coming out that paints a clearer overall picture of the freelance marketplace.

Thanks to everyone for posting their personal experiences.