PHP programmers

Good programmer needs to learn marketing as well as programming in this sort of environment. Flame me if you disagree but that is the responsible thing to do rather than complain about cheap competition.

 

I agree with 'minute', a good programmer needs to know how to market his / her services in order to succeed in this business.

As far as 'aras' comments, yes the market is completely saturated with wannabe programmers who have read a book or a few articles and think they are a programmer, but don't tar us all with the same brush.

I have no degree, I never made it past college, all of my knowledge comes from hard work based in my own home. I am self taught in every programming language that I develop with. Not only am I extremely professional in my work, I offer a very high quality level of service which I am actually well known for in certain circles and I make a good living out of it having been in the business for some 6 years.

All of my programming is tested to a high level, common guys seriously how can you expect to succeed and earn repeat business if you don't. I also offer guarantees to my clients that if they find a bug within 3-6 months of project completion then it will be fixed free of charge (Providing I find no evidence of another programmer having modified my original code, in which case it is the new programmers responsibility).

In this day and age it is all about level of service, quality of work and less about actual qualifications. I have yet to have a client ask me for my programming qualifications.

 

Of course it is possible to learn programming languages at home! I know there are a lot of freelancer that do not have a degree and are very good.

And I don't know whether i have to takes this personal or not, but if you think i'm a careless developer charging $5 an hour, please think again..

This is becoming a thread where freelancer have to defend themselve, I don't have time for this. I'm out.

Geez....

 

Let me tell you what is happening. The number of php programmers is very high, because of this, the price to hire one is very low, and good programmers don't want to waste their time working on a 100$ project, they will find it easy to start their own web projects, and they will get more money, or they are hired by big companies who are able to find them.

If you want to give a lot of money to a good programmer to make a very good job ( but this is very rarely happening because all of buyers search for programmers online because they want to pay less ), will be very hard for you. I think the best option for you is to contact a PHP Company to make your project. They have good php programmers because they probably made an interview, searched very well before starting the company, and if a php programmer is not too good, they get other.

 

yes you are right about that, but you can't say every online freelancing php programmer is bad. That's just not true.

I know a lot of programmers are frustrated about this, but let me tell you this:

I am 17 years old, started webdesign when I was 9 and PHP sincs my 15th. I can call myself an experienced php programmer and HTML/CSS expert. This has been told to me numerous times by various clients.

I don't need $3000 a month for a living. $500 is more than enough, therefore i can charge less. Around $20 an hour.

Quality is not the only factor of hourly rate you know.. and when people start flaming me, I get pissed of. Now this thread gave me one client and i have more work then i can handle. Talking about low quality....

 

SedNaX: just wanted to say, back on page 1, I think I was pretty justified in my initial reaction, after all it was you who said "so I won't test often as it costs a hell of a lot of time" (I assumed that you would have qualified the amount of testing that you did or did not do, but anyway...).

I guess it all comes down to needs, wants and so on. More power to you if you can live on the rate that you are charging, but can I make a suggestion? If you have more work than you can handle, then you should up your rate You may lose a few jobs, but you'll still be pretty busy, plus you'll total income should increase. On top of that, I find that the clients I attract with higher rates are *generally* better to work with as they actually understand 'business' more than those people that want 'the world, with the ability to add the rest of the solar system, for around the cost of a Mocha Latte Grande with Soy'.

Alternatively, start looking to outsource it yourself

 

for buyers: To find a good PHP programmer you need to be a good buyer.

 

I hate to break it to you, but good programmers in general aren't cheap. It takes a lot of talent to be a good programmer. You get what you pay for.

 

Exactly. Good anything is not cheap. If they good and cheap they just don't know how good they are yet. Soon they will find out.

 

I haven;t given up on them yet, but only use them in the rare times that I have no other work....I've found a few really good clients on scriptlance, and a few terrible ones that must be used to hiring people from asia and expect the world for a few dollars. I had one that refused to pay me for a job because it only took me an hour and a half. The job was set for $50 and he wanted me to take $10. in the ned he gave me $25 and I never responded to him again.

Exactly!!! I know I am worth what I get, just hard to convince people on the freelance sites of that.

Good thread...

 

I did not mean to flame anyone here. But remember if some one has a complaint or a problem with programmers, there are some non quality people out there, and those are statistically the cheap ones. That does not mean every cheap working person is a bad programmer, but there is a good ratio, believe it or not.

 

Since the topic was in PHP section and the thread started with shortage of php developers and other people posting above me saying thats its hard to find a good php programmers. So I replied thinkin he was looking for a PHP programmer.

Secondly coming to your post, rite now, where I come from, there's gr8 shortage for PHP developers. So a good programmer (Java, .Net) would certainly get paid less than a PHP developer with same level of expertise and exp. I am just not talking in the air, been there done.

We people come from different geographical locations and ground realities are very different, so there would alwayz be a difference.

I didnt feel offended like you but i thought i rather elaborate myself in detail so that u can see wats happening on the other side of the world and y i said so .

Peace!

 

There are a lot of decent PHP programmers at Project4hire.
Writing code is easy. Writing good code is more challenging as it takes experience, discipline and knowledge of good programming practices. A good programmer not only writes code to make things work, but also pays attention to the way he writes the code to make it more readable and maintainable.