Where to find great Drupal Developer/Designers?

By ariangreatzone on 17 May 2013 at 17:50 UTC

Hey fellows,
My company is trying to work with a freelancer to develop a professional Drupal website. I have tried Odesk but the candidates I have come across do not see to be professional. Do you know any websites which we could find more suitable candidates?
Here is the job description for your consideration:

Hourly Rate: $5.00 - $30.00 per hour

Title: Start-Up Marketing Website Development & Design

***** Marketing Corp is seeking a highly professional, knowledgeable, experienced, and creative individual who can be focused on our project and design it in a professional and timely manner while following our precise directions and getting ideas from sample websites provided to them. This website is one of a few websites which will be launched in the following weeks and the target audience of this particular website are professional recruits, and affiliate networks. Website needs to be mobile friendly as well. This website will be based on Wordpress or Drupal and employ modernizr/HTML5 possibly.
We are also looking for competitive individuals who could join our team permanently, so it is a great opportunity for you to shine.

Qualification:
- A complete portfolio of recent designs
- Highly Knowledgeable in Wordpress themes and plugins (Many Custom Requests)
- Complete Understanding of Modernizr java.
- Designing Mobile Versions
- Access to Skype and being responsive

Websites to be inspired by: (No Duplications)

http://directagents.com/ (most preferred)
https://www.standbuy.us/
http://www.whitesharkmedia.com/
http://www.reachlocal.com/
http://www.dealer.com/products/
http://www.orangesoda.com/

Comments

Part of the issue may be what

nevets commented 17 May 2013 at 18:54

Part of the issue may be what you are willing to pay, at least in the US I would consider even $30/hr low.

Well, we are choosing our

ariangreatzone commented 17 May 2013 at 19:37

Well, we are choosing our candidate from outside of US which should make it much cheaper. Ill reconsider that thank you.

The other day I was chatting

John_B commented 17 May 2013 at 20:37

The other day I was chatting with an IT recruitment specialist who told me that iOS app developers are in short supply. Therefore a UK company will hire someone in Vietnam to work remotely and will not kid themselves that the Vietnamese dev will be cheaper than someone from UK, because other UK companies will compete for that developer. Whist the shortage of Drupal people may be not so acute, it is still an international market with an undersupply of good developers. She did name countries where the devs are often good (including Vietnam) and countries where they are often cheap, no country where they are both good and cheap.

The problem is that companies hiring Drupal devs at $30 per hour can undercut in their bids and do get work. Therefore, by using more expensive developers, you will lose work. However the results of these competitive prices are poor quality Drupal sites which cause disappointment and problems to the client. I would not compete on price if that means working with $30 per hour developers because I do not need the stress of having disappointed customers. This is what I see. If you can tell me where to find reliably good Drupal devs at $30 per hour I will be running a large, lucrative, and largely problem-free Drupal shop within a year.

Digit Professionals specialising in Drupal, WordPress & CiviCRM support for publishers in non-profit and related sectors

Thank You for the reply, so

ariangreatzone commented 17 May 2013 at 22:22

Thank You for the reply, so you are saying that I need to raise the compensation? To how much?

To how much?This is tricky

John_B commented 18 May 2013 at 07:10

To how much?

This is tricky because it is so easy to get Drupal wrong and deliver a site which looks OK but lose the confidence of the client as things start to go wrong.

In the big company world world I guess hiring a full time dev in the developed world costs around $75k per year. What I am saying is that this is the rate, and I suspect the man cheap freelancers offering Drupal work are usually not very good. What I am saying is that by going to low-wage economies you may not save much if you want someone good enough to compete with an American (or British or German for example) candidiate. It is possible to undercut but usually quality suffers. People who have being doing Drupal for a few years have all seen sites where this has happened, I would think. I have been working with Drupal for three years and seen many sites built by people who lacked Drupal experience, and they have problems.

Drupal is a specialism, large companies will split site builder, developer and front end developer into separate professions.

My rates are over double that. I am not the greatest developer but I communicate well and I deliver solutions promptly and economically, without compromising on quality and using un-Drupal-like methods which could damage long-term maintainability or security. What I say to clients is that if they pay less than my rates they will be disappointed (I get customers who have learned that by experience) and if they pay between two and five times my rate, they will get someone quick enough and good enough for it to work out good value for money. I actually say that directly to my clients, and would have no hesitation to passing work on if that is good for the client, but would not think of passing work for my clients to someone at lower rates unless they have proved to me they are 'bucking the market' (if that is the right phrase) with quality work at low rates.

Digit Professionals specialising in Drupal, WordPress & CiviCRM support for publishers in non-profit and related sectors