Help - How can I hire some software developers?

[la112651]

Good Evening,

I work for a company which supplies bespoke software applications to customers. These are supplied directly from a software developement company (We sell and support the products which they supply).

We are now in a position that we would like to take on two software developers and develope further applications in house. We would like to get a consultant in to advise us on the directions in which we should be heading so we know the job specifications (programming languages) we require. Currently the applications are developed in Delphi and are supplied using a client server setup but we dont know if this is the correct way forward for our business needs.

We need someone to advise us on the way forward.

Can any advise where I can find someone to guide us in the right direction?

 

[nickjohnston]

Welcome to the forums,

This sounds like it might be down my street. Could you provide more details of the type of applications you're looking to develop?

Please get in touch through my website to discuss.

http://www.nickjohnston.co.uk/

 

[la112651]

Thanks Nick, email sent.

Any one else?

 

[lww]

Delphi is very outdated, although client-server architectures are still fine and commonly used - but obviously it depends on what you are trying to do! I would suggest you need to find somebody with extensive experience of Windows-based architecture, design and development. Personally I would not consider a web developer to have anywhere near the depth of experience to make suitable recommendations (no offence Nick!) as it is quite different from traditional Windows development - for example, the constructions of GUIs (the windows display part), multi-threading, database interfacing, etc. You need somebody who can compare and contrast the relative merits of web services against C# remoting against n-tier VC++ against Java.

The sorts of questions they should be asking you are:

* What sort of applications are your customers buying (eg. internal stock control, ordering systems, HR systems, etc)

* How do you support and maintain these applications (eg. remote desktop, log files, code amendments, changes sent by post on CDs, changes automatically picked up on servers, etc)

* Database requirements

* Operating system requirements (yours *and* customers')

* Your staffing requirements - it's very important to understand who you need to hire and their availability in the market. I'm sure you know Delphi developers are harder to find than C++/C# developers who are harder to find than web developers.

* Your budget - it's no good deciding upon a particular skillset if they cost twice as much as another skillset.

Without all this sort of information you will be struggling to get an informed decision. In terms of the person you need to speak to, personally I would reocmmend you find somebody with:

* Extensive experience in architecture, design and development - I'd be looking for someone who has worked with multiple clients/companies, used various programming languages and databases, and preferably has experience of maintaining as well as developing systems.

As for your question of where to find them.... errr, that's not so easy! I guess the "traditional" answer to this is to phone around some local IT consultancy firms, and find ones who will come in and look at what you're doing and work on a recommendation. However these companies are going to charge quite a lot and will be primarily interested in getting further work from you (whatever they might say to the contrary!) - hence they end up recommending a way forward that, surprise surprise, they can help you out with as they have some developers free at the moment... etc!

Do you not have any existing contacts with senior IT professionals who would be able to help with this? You really need someone you can trust to point you in the right direction.

[My comments are based upon working in IT since 1985!]

 

[urisjerry]

I have to say, I know little about developing software. But I think you can find good software developers on this forum. Or in other spcial software forum. Good luck for you.

 

[la112651]

Thanks for the prompt responces. Can anyone help direct me to these software developement forums?

Iww - I'm going to generate a list of answers based opon your questions in your responce and approach some IT consultancy firms as suggested.

Any software developers like to comment further?

 

[matt.chatterley]

Thanks for the prompt responces. Can anyone help direct me to these software developement forums?

Iww - I'm going to generate a list of answers based opon your questions in your responce and approach some IT consultancy firms as suggested.

Any software developers like to comment further?

We develop bespoke software to specification (primarily MS .NET / C#, but some other options are available if more appropriate) - and you can always drop me some more info via PM.

I generally agree with lww though - and would need quite a bit more information to make "useful" comments!

 

[lww]

Hmmm, I wouldn't go asking around on software development forums! A lot (most) programmers are quite religious about their choice of programming language - if you ask a Java programmer which direction you should take, he will tell you "Java". Ask a web developer what to do, he'll recommend web interfaces. That's not going to help you much This is why you need to find people who have done more than one language and have worked on architecture and design... they consider more than the syntactical nature of the programming language.

The problem with software development is that there is no definitively "correct" solution - you can make anything work. The trick is to find what best meets your needs - it's like building a house, anyone can build a house really, but it's no good building a swanky 3-storey townhouse with gas-fired range cooker if your prospective tenants need wheelchair access and the area isn't on mains gas.

 

[alanc]

Here's a directory of software freelancers and development companies (maintained by the Professional Contractors Group). You have to play with the Search tab to get it to work.

http://www.pcg.org.uk/cms/index.php?option=com_pcg_directory&Itemid=1030

There are also websites like elancer and rentacoder, but the inhabitants vary in quality. Many are based overseas (and can be very cheap).

 

[DanHaynes]

"The problem with software development is that there is no definitively "correct" solution - you can make anything work."

This is absolutely true. You see a lot of people arguing almost religiously about the 'best' technical choices but the reality is what is far more important is how you use that technology once you have choosen it.

It is almost irrelevant whether you choose Java (where my experience is) or .Net. You can deliver first-rate or buggy and expensive products using both. Bottom line, it comes down to (in your case) your developers and how good they are.

If you can give some more information on what types of products you are hoping to build I can give you some more advice (from a Java perspective anyway).

One choice perhaps you can make is whether you can build your products with a web front end or not. A web front end generally means a single deployment for new releases with no updates to users machines (i.e. they access your application through a web browser).

 

[garyk]

Agreed lww Delphi is dated, although I still use it extensively in my work as I dont need to get involved in petty language debates, I deliver *solutions* not an application developed in X. With any software development the risk is in lack of knowledge in specific tools/frameworks. If you are looking to move from Delphi to a web architecture then make sure you hire people with demonstrable commercial experience. You could use services like odesk and guru to find people and try and get work done on a fixed price basis.

Gary