I need people's advice - Hiring Developers in Other Countries

[splishsplash]

Hey guys,

I don't often ask for help on here. I usually give more than I take, but I'm really in need of some good advice here.

I need to find out how I should be offering for monthly salaries to find developers in various countries.

Specifically right now I'm looking more for a frontend wordpress developer. Intermediate php/javascript. The ability to customize themes. Fluent English.

In the UK for someone like that I would pay around $2500 to $3200/month. Jr wordpress frontend developer. About 2 years experience kind of level.

That's pretty expensive since this is going to be for building pbns. I generally allocate about 1 full day per site since I like a good polished design. At a push 2 in a day, so assuming about 20 per month, $3k would be $150 per pbn design. Not hugely profitable, and on a $200 domain when you factor in content that's almost doubling my costs. Fine for a $700 domain, but $100-$400, no.

Upwork isn't a great place to look, as everyone seems to just put high hourly rates. The americans on there are listing like $100/hr+ in some cases. Only TOP developers are going to command that, and if you're that good, you aren't on upwork. Google's average dev salaries are $80k to $220k, average being $120k. $100/hr puts you at the high end of Google's salaries. Even the low-end guys on upwork are charging $10-$20/hr.

I found jobrack.eu which looks good.

I can see some jobs paying $700-$1000/mo for frontend developers.

I would really appreciate some advice about what I should actually be offering for a monthly salary for different countries. Ie, we have Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Latvia.

Advice on which countries are good/practical for finding developers and where I can find developers for different countries.

From my current research it seems that eastern europe is good for developers.

Also. I'm not hiring anyone from blackhatworld. I don't like to get my developers from places where people are learning to make money/seo. I want someone more neutral and not someone who could be learning how my pbn works to setup their own. Please don't pm me asking for a job.

 

[Mr Positive]

It’s difficult to give you a fix amount as it’ll vary on that persons experience, his commitment to your project. I would have suggested you some of the best people i know on BHW for this but since you have ruled them out very difficult to offer suggestions, but I would advise you to begin pay at lower amounts, see their skills, then slowly and slowly raise it up. Mak them sign a NDA too, and have a proper contract in place

 

[ChristineAshe]

1. Find classified ads on popular local newspapers. If language barrier is a problem, hire someone to screen them for you.

2. Find someone on upwork and try him out, see if he ticks the things you like on a dev.
Find his linkedin page, try to make a deal outside upwork.

 

[KJREDDY247@]

India:
The starting Pay for the Least Experienced Candidate Starts from 250$ Per month
At the Moment The Max i Pay is 500$ in My Team.

They are not so experienced like research/coding experts or something but They can get it done whatever i want. I didn't had any issues till now.
But I suggest You should Try them (anyone you are going to recruit) up to their max capacity for at least month before you actually assign them for your real work.
Because.

most people just come with a mind set like they can work for 2-3 hours and play around for the rest of the day. It takes a Month for sure top make them understand what are your Exact expectations from them.

Most of my the Local People don't give a shit before they Resign ( They just wont show up from next day without even submitting their resignation ). This experience will be same and very common with most of the small companies at my place.

I did wasted some time and money in the initial months when i actually recruited some of these guys, If i retained 1 guy that means I Tested and Rejected 2-3 Guys before that in the same place.

I guess All those small agency people in My Place can relate to those points, those are the sweet memories before having their final teams

and OP i guess you found the answer you needed.

 

[kiks]

I was reading a post of @yakuzaemme and he recommended ukrainian developers or russians from Upwork for example , they are very experienced and more affordable.

 

[Holdentot_Accfarm]

Hey,

We are located in Kyiv, Ukraine. Good and huge developer community. Many wordpress / PHP / JS specialists. Good quality and lower prices.
Something around 800-1000 per month may work for you.
The trick. I would suggest Ukrainian local freelance websites in order to get lower price for a developer.
Anyway, in my opinion, Ukraine is Eldorado for startups and cost-effective business.

 

[Himpy]

Freelancer may be a decent place to look @splishsplash , seeing as you set the project budget and potential workers will put in their bids. You’re in control of what you want to pay then.

 

[Deleted member 283687]

I would really appreciate some advice about what I should actually be offering for a monthly salary for different countries. Ie, we have Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Latvia.

2 things i want to share

1) India - You can find developers for very cheap price ,very hard to find gems ,most of them are below average to average but once you train them they are good in it and they are very humble (you can ask them change things multiple times they will do it with no issue)

2)East europe-Russia,ukraine,romania- Lots of very very talented coders from here ,hard to find a geninue one(most of time they end up taking money and never ever come back) and most of time they are rude they are not flexible but you know how to handle them you are good to go.

 

[nimdekvan]

Ukrainian. I used to work with them. They are (mostly) smart in the code and hard working.
I tested them with some very small projects to see how they think and plan ahead. Interview 4-5 people and select 1.
As for Indians, it is harder to find gems but if you find one keep them close to your chest. Super cheap and super smart.
Chinese is super hard working but there English is sometime hard to understand.

 

[M0n3y.]

I've hired devs (not for full-time, but freelancers) -
Need good English Skills? east European countries would be the choice (I've experience hiring one Ukrainian guy and he was pretty good).

USA people gonna ask for out-of-budget hourly rates - the demand to supply ratio is fucked up there. I don't remember hiring anyone from there.

After east Europe - nowadays all my projects are completed in India (my home country). It's just easier to get work done from here for me as i know the work culture/ethics.

If you're from West/Europe - go for East Europe.
If you're from East - go for EE if you got good budget or look into South Asia (Philippines, India, Singapore) to get work done in cheap.

Pro tip (i think so): If you going for South Asia - get a manager.

 

[splishsplash]

It’s difficult to give you a fix amount as it’ll vary on that persons experience, his commitment to your project. I would have suggested you some of the best people i know on BHW for this but since you have ruled them out very difficult to offer suggestions, but I would advise you to begin pay at lower amounts, see their skills, then slowly and slowly raise it up. Mak them sign a NDA too, and have a proper contract in place

Hey buddy,

What would be helpful is if people can give me some ballpark figures like :-

I pay/paid $800/mo for a dev that does xyz from Latvia, so I can see what the norms are.

Is $700-$900/mo for a good dev unreasonable? I'm not looking for someone to work on enterprise level apps. Just someone who can speak good english, look up archive, come up with a creative plan for a pbn, choose a theme, edit the bits and pieces he needs and have the smarts to understand they need to look completely unique, and then be able to write a child theme so I can update, handle the updates himself etc.

$700 would be ideal for me. $1000 is do-able(That would be like $50 per design).

Are there people on bhw that fit that criteria that would work for those amounts? Ie, if there are then there will be on other places too.

 

[Deleted member 1333509]

+1 Ukrainian devs, best I've worked with

 

[Mr Positive]

In a period of covid believe me people will work for any amount so start low and then stop midway

 

[dhia27]

My 2 cents: UpWork freelancers tend to list rates way higher than what they're willing to work for. They are usually OK (happy) with a lower rate, but want to position themselves as not cheap.

Good locations to hire PHP developers (with decent English level) with 2-3 years experience for $600-1000 are: Romania - Poland - Morocco - Tunisia

 

[splishsplash]

Some really helpful advice.

Thanks everyone.

I think I'm going to look at Ukraine for my devs and go for about $800/mo to start.

 

[Hanzo_AA]

OK guys, so this happened to someone who had his entire online team over in India somewhere - during lockdown he had no choice but to cut the salaries back ever so slightly and to get revenge (I think they were jealous of him anyway) it turns out they’ve been scheming for weeks to basically walk, leave his online business hanging he just found out not too long ago. Luckily India is a country where you can hire goons to rough little shits like that up. He’s too much of a nerd to do it himself so i’m organising it for him

Actually the company I used to work for (8 figure turnover) hired professional staff from other parts of europe, namely germany and slovakia but also czech republic but i think that it’s not appropriate for wordpress development and incredibly out of budget.

Stick with Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria. I have no experience with central american countries but freelancers their are supposed to be good for such purposes too (and cheap).

In my experience - avoid hiring a gang of techies of any kind from india unless you want them holding you at ransom at some point imho

 

[Deleted member 283687]

Even today i bought some plugin/addon from a russian/ukranian guy and ripped off- in russian forums mods are not like our mods who investigates and all ,if you want to save your money never ever deal with someone from east europe hard to find decent people there ,mostly you end up getting scammed

 

[t2van]

Serbia. Tried all the other countries and they are all wanting the same level of pay as UK or French Developers or just take the piss.

The guys I've had working for me have been nothing short out outstanding and built a solid working relationship with one over a span of 10-12 years I'm still in regular contact and if you want I can connect you both. I wouldn't refer someone who was going to shit on my name.

In terms of fee I was paying out $200-400 per project BUT to be honest he was only quoting a fraction of that and id always throw in an extra $100 or two so an average month of work was around $900 but the work was done to a very high standard, English is spot on for speaking back and forth on Skype.

Now and again you have to break things down to be rather simple if you wanted a complex task done as somethings would be taken very literal BUT apart from that zero problems. Work is done to a high standard, communication is spot on I think only 1-2 hour time zone difference.

Paid via Skrill but now Paypal is an option.

Like anywhere and anything there are good and bad but I found the cost per project compared to the work that's being done is on par with paying a dev here 3-5k for the same work and you get none of the shit or grumpiness (sorry UK devs you know who you are)

 

[splishsplash]

Serbia. Tried all the other countries and they are all wanting the same level of pay as UK or French Developers or just take the piss.

The guys I've had working for me have been nothing short out outstanding and built a solid working relationship with one over a span of 10-12 years I'm still in regular contact and if you want I can connect you both. I wouldn't refer someone who was going to shit on my name.

In terms of fee I was paying out $200-400 per project BUT to be honest he was only quoting a fraction of that and id always throw in an extra $100 or two so an average month of work was around $900 but the work was done to a very high standard, English is spot on for speaking back and forth on Skype.

Now and again you have to break things down to be rather simple if you wanted a complex task done as somethings would be taken very literal BUT apart from that zero problems. Work is done to a high standard, communication is spot on I think only 1-2 hour time zone difference.

Paid via Skrill but now Paypal is an option.

Like anywhere and anything there are good and bad but I found the cost per project compared to the work that's being done is on par with paying a dev here 3-5k for the same work and you get none of the shit or grumpiness (sorry UK devs you know who you are)

Yep I've been spotting quite a few serbian guys on the various sites. They look good and are well priced.

I would really appreciate a connection with your guy, yeah, that would be amazing. Even if I don't use him for this particular project, I've got SaaS companies in the pipeline that I'll be hiring for, so I could potentially use him in the future.

 

[Doctor Sleep]

You can find it in Macedonia..

I`m not a developer but can help you to connect you with some of them