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View Full Version : Hiring a Developer . . . Figured I'd Check Here


Butch
06-28-2011, 09:06 PM
Hey Guys & Gals -

Been a while since I've been really active . . . still been lurking, though!

Anywho, I'm looking to hire a front-end developer (PHP/HTML/CSS) to help me build out the prototype for a company I started. I've been working on it full-time since finishing up at Columbia Business last year. The designs are done, and the back end is being taken care of by two Natural Language Processing PhDs.

According to one of the NLP guys, it would probably take about 300 hours of work to complete this job. I'm hoping to have it done around the end of the summer, but there's a bit of flexibility on that.

Ideally, I'm looking for someone based in NYC, but I'm open to other options.

Happy to pay cash, equity, mix, whatever is preferred.

If you're interested or think you might know somebody who could do it, shoot me a PM.

ALSO, I'm looking for someone who can come on-board full-time who has experience scaling a consumer-facing web service (ideally as a team leader), loves social media, and has a working knowledge of machine learning (can be a bit flexible on that last one). That person would definitely need to be NYC-based. If you know folks who could fit that and are even thinking about looking for something new in NYC, please let me know via PM.

Not sure if this is the best forum for this thread, but figured people probably wouldn't complain about a job offer in OT . . . mods can move if desired, though.

Thanks!
Butch
Jeffbx
06-29-2011, 04:27 AM
If I could offer a bit of unsolicited advice - you have the front-end design done already, but have you had anyone with User Interface experience take a crack at it?

You may not be budgeted for it, but it's kind of important to get someone with not only design, but UI experience in there to look it over before the tech guy takes a crack at it. Especially if this is a consumer facing site, the UI can make a big difference between a decent site and a great site.

In any case, good luck!
Butch
06-29-2011, 11:28 AM
I definitely appreciate the advice . . . I'm a huge proponent of UX/UI design. In the long run, the UI will be critical (especially since we'll be doing some new functional integrations). However, for the purposes of the prototype/proof-of-concept, the functionality will be pretty clearly defined and there already exist very strong best-practices to build off of . . . so there will be no reinventing the wheel in the early stages.

I know a couple good UI/UX folks in NYC, but if you've got any ideas for folks to chat with, I'd definitely take a referral!

Cheers!
Jeffbx
06-30-2011, 05:06 AM
I would if I had any - however, I got out of the web game a long time ago.

You may consider offshoring it to get the POC done - that'll save you time & money up front (but may be a hassle for whoever takes it over full-time)
Prngr44
06-30-2011, 08:43 AM
I can't offer much advice on building it, but I can certainly break it/help make it more scalable.
Butch
07-01-2011, 07:33 PM
I'll probably end up outsourcing the dev for the PoC (we've got very clear specs and the design is done), but my preference would be to find someone in NYC to build it . . .

Prngr . . . what exactly do you mean by being able to break it/help make it more scalable?

Cheers fellas!
Prngr44
07-05-2011, 08:42 AM
All I do at my current job is design & run load/performance/capacity tests on primarily n-tier web apps.

I can basically mimic hundreds or thousands of users hitting your site and show you where any bottlenecks are, or if you need to meet certain performance goals (response times) which areas of code could use tuning or how much back end power you need to add in order to meet those goals.
Napoleon54
07-05-2011, 08:36 PM
Just curious, semi-OT question... what's your company do?

Sounds like a pretty serious endeavor, good luck with it.
Butch
07-06-2011, 09:03 PM
All I do at my current job is design & run load/performance/capacity tests on primarily n-tier web apps.

I can basically mimic hundreds or thousands of users hitting your site and show you where any bottlenecks are, or if you need to meet certain performance goals (response times) which areas of code could use tuning or how much back end power you need to add in order to meet those goals.

Sounds pretty nifty! By design, though, it will be quite a while before we'd see anything like that kind of concurrent users. It's a positive and a negative that we'll be built that way! :-)


Just curious, semi-OT question... what's your company do?

Sounds like a pretty serious endeavor, good luck with it.

It's definitely an undertaking . . . the simplest way to describe it would be a network of interest-based social networks . . . not directly competing with FB, Twitter or G+, though.

Thanks for the luck . . . it's definitely a competitive space, but pretty darn positive we can carve out a pretty good niche and hopefully more. :-)
attgig
07-08-2011, 07:52 AM
Are you still looking? I may have a friend in atl that could be interested... though i don't know of his availability at the current time.
Butch
07-08-2011, 04:55 PM
Hey ATT . . . I think I'm going to test out an offshore dev shop that a buddy has used extensively . . . had a good conversation with them this morning.

Still looking for someone who can come on full-time, but that needs to be NYC-based and that person has gotta be a pretty badass dev. If you know anybody . . .