Interviews with Digital Media Thought Leaders
Rent-a-Coder
Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on December 18, 2007
Summary: If you would like to learn how to find software programmers to take on a custom projects, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Ian Ippolito who is the CEO of Exhedra Solutions, (d/b/a Rent-a-Coder.com). His company provides an online marketplace where software programmers can sell their services like guild workers to buyers who need custom programming. In order to remain competitive, many of us are constantly discovering ways to improve our websites. However, even those of us with an internal IT staff sometimes discover that our people just simply don’t have the skills, or time, to take on all of the projects we would like to implement. Others of us work for small companies that don’t even have an internal IT staff.
Rent-a-Coder provides a solution. It is analogous to eBay in the sense that it is a website where buyers and sellers of programming services can match-up. Presently, about 200,000 programmers offer services on the exchange to about 100,000 buyers. Only about one-third of the programmers are in the United States, so many are available at low cost relative to domestic wage rates.
Phil’s Take. In many large companies it’s too darn hard to get the IT staff to take on projects for updating departmental websites. The situation is an echo an earlier IBM-mainframe era when the computer staff regarded themselves as an elite priesthood with a condescending attitude toward the operating departments that were generating the revenues required to pay everyone’s salary. Rent-a-Coder, and similar services, circumvents the problem. The concept is likely to gain popularity as software programming takes on the characteristics of a guild whereby skilled workers sell their services to the highest bidder, working as independent contractors instead of as employees.
Categories: Podcast Audio
Tags: Custom-Programming, digital-media, eLance, Guild, Ian-Ippolito, Internet, Phil-Leigh, Programming, Rent-a-Coder
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New resource on the subject: Outsourcing Through Rentacoder explains the proper way to outsource online before making mistakes via trial and error.
Access to a larger labor market guarantees heightened competitiveness amongst the coders, so any businessman or entrepreneur should be excited to have their project put on Rent-A-Coder. It will mean better quality work for lower prices without spending money on advertisements or having to interview programmers for long-term positions.