Is there a better
way of finding eager Drupal developers?
This is an interesting question. I offer some suggestions. They come from
my perspective as a successful full-time Drupal developer.
1. Contact the developers directly.
Yes; it may be fruitful to place a request on the paid work forum and I
certainly encourage that. But it may not be the place to get the best
results. I rarely respond to those requests any more, because it too
often leads to situations where I put in some hours of my time
understanding and scoping a proposal only to find that the requester
disappears into the darkness of the net without even a thank you for the
time I put into it. Coincidentally this often happens around the time I
mention that I am available to keep working on the specs or analysis or
investigation or begin coding for an agreed pre-payment for 2 or 3 hours
work. Even an email reply along the lines of "Sorry; we have
considered and are going an different route with this" is rare.
Usually it is just ambiguous silence. Naturally I would again consider
proposals from some of those people at a later date, but my hourly rate
may have increased to cover the risk of more such poor reliability and
etiquette. So that is advice item 1. Consider keeping good relationships
with even the developers you do not initially go with. (I am speaking
generally Neil - I do not imply that you personally are guilty of any of
this bad form).
Put your request on the forum and then become even more pro-active.
Contact good-looking ;-) developers via the Drupal Services page at
drupal.org. Use google to find drupal developers whose own sites are
prominent in search results. Perhaps search on "google developer
{your country}". Read the words on the sites that come up
prominently and gain an impression of trustworthiness or not. At the very
least gain an impression of their ability to get you good SEO results if
ever you need help with that.
Contact the one(s) who you think will offer a professional service to the
level you are prepared to pay for. Perhaps best to ring if they offer
that channel, otherwise email or use their contact form. Explain your
need and ask one or two short questions to gain an impression of their
capability and reliability. Perhaps ask their 'normal' hourly rate. If
you have a budget allocated, or are already considering proposals from
other developers, or will be doing so, or if your project go-ahead has
not yet been approved by the funders, or other constraints, now is the
time to honestly communicate that. Expect perhaps 15 minutes of their
time for this initial contact. 30 mins max. If the impression is not
good, politely end the conversation. If it is good perhaps see if the
developer will stretch to 1 hour free time or advice and then go onto
step 2.
In this way get yourself a short list of 2 or 3 developers.
2. Offer remuneration for their time, right from the beginning.
If you have written specs that are unambiguous and completely define the
job - preferably with succinct statements of deliverables that will be
used to sign-off against - send those specs to the potential
developer(s). Specs usually are numbered bullet points rather than
descriptive text. If the specs are precise enough, request a quote. If
they are semi-precise request an estimate. If you do not have specs other
than a general problem description give that to the developers on your
short list.
Now comes the bit where perhaps I will lose your attention..... and is
the core advice of this reply:
With your request be pro-active: make an offer to pre-pay x hours for the
developer to scope|tighten the specs|analyse|investigate| do the first
stage of your job.
'x' might be 1 or might be 10 or more - depends on the size of your job;
the precision of results you want in this initial stage; and whether or
not you are offering this preliminary stage to just one developer or 2 or
3. One outcome of this first stage will be an estimate or quote for the
remainder of the work. Another outcome would possibly be a documented
pathway towards problem-solution that could be utilised by the developer,
or another developer, to carry out your job. Naturally the more hours
that are in this initial agreement the more detailed such advice can be.
Make it clear that undertaking stage 1 is not yet a commitment from
either side to continue together into the bulk of the work.
The important thing here is that the offer for immediate remuneration for
time worked comes from you.
Some developers may make such a request of you early on before you can
make the offer. If so, respond positively to this invitation to ease your
way into their client books. Naturally continue to be on your guard
against shoddy operators. A pre-payment should be associated with a
clearly defined task list and statement of deliverable sign-off(s) for
that first stage. Write that statement if you are capable, or the
developer may write it. Expect that the pre-payment is invoiced legally
and correctly. Pay the invoice promptly. 1 hour is possible.
Developers can waste a lot of time researching problem solutions before
being in a position to make an estimate or quote. The time spent on that
is not always apparent on reading the estimate or quote. Some of us just
do not have the time or willingness to scope new work. We are constantly
dealing with work from existing clients. We are open to new interesting
gigs; but are not prepared to risk more than a short time before
commitment.
Those of us who have been doing Drupal for some time, and have the
ability to attend to details, and deliver results, do not need to get out
there looking for work - the work finds us.
Be prepared to accept that after the first 15 or 30 minutes (or 2 or 3
emails), developers become very interested when you raise the idea of an
immediate payment on receipt of their 'initial project scoping
pre-payment' invoice and deliverables statement for that first stage of
your project. Or they become increasingly short in their replies to your
requests for their 'advice'.
Even if your job is quite small you will get better results if you are
pro-active in the way I suggest. If your job is medium (10 to 100 hours
work) I think some form of step 2 is essential. If your job is large or
huge (above 100 hours work; above 1000 hours work) you will begin to
attract the attention of the larger agencies who perhaps have people
full-time managing proposal requests and perhaps at that level you can
wait a little more than 15 minutes before making it clear that the meter
can begin to tick over.
3. Never, ever, ever, say - "I imagine it will only be 30 seconds
work for the experienced developer". If it is that easy it will only
take you 5 minutes to learn to do it yourself. ;-)
These are my observations and my suggestions. Your Mileage May Vary. Many
will disagree with me, I am sure.
Many developers will submit a quote or estimate to a proposal as loosely
defined as "Build me a Drupal website". Perhaps they are the
eager ones you mention you would like to attract. Perhaps some of them -
as well - deliver results on budget. Perhaps though consider re-phrasing
your question to "Is there a better way of finding Drupal developers
who deliver results?".
Thanks, I hope you can find a developer to achieve the results you
describe. Contact me directly if you wish to discuss your project for 15
minutes or so ;-)
John
www.drupal.com.au
At 12:37 AM 5/03/2008, you wrote:
We are looking for
a developer mainly to:
- customise existing modules
- create 1 or 2 small new modules (one example:
http://drupal.org/node/228892
)
This post isn't meant to a "help wanted" plea,
more of a request for information as to how we can best find developers
in drupal. I've posted a couple of jobs on the .org forum Paid Work
section and not had much luck. I see people posting jobs there "for
around $50" and get replies! Maybe because I never mention our
budget, perhaps that's the problem. My thinking is that developers will
quote an hourly rate or a quote for the job and I can decide to pay it or
not. What do other people do in this respect?
Is there a better way of finding eager Drupal
developers?
Neil
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John Saward
www.drupal.com.au
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