[callmeed]

I can't really speak to design (we do that in-house), but most of the good/keeper Rails developers that I've used in the last year have been in the $100-150/hour range. So, for $2K that gets you 13 to 20 hours of development.

For that, I think you might be able to implement one of the features you mentioned but not all of them.

I've had good luck finding developers at AuthenticJobs. If you post a freelance job there and you're detailed about your budget and requirements, most good devs will be honest about what's feasible.

[hello_moto]

Really? 100-150/hour?

Would you mind to share your experience? like...

- how old they are

- do they also help you with HTML/CSS?

- do they also help you with graphics, icons, and contents?

- what about unit-tests and quality?

Would be very appreciated if you can answer them. If this is just between you and the developers and both parties prefer to be private and decided not to answer, I would understand.

Thanks!

[callmeed]

Yeah, I hope this doesn't sound bad but I wouldn't hire a US-based dev for under $50/hour. I don't feel $50 is inflated either—even in Tulsa that seems fair to me. To me, going below that is like having the guy down the street paint your car for $150. I'm hiring people for existing, production apps that are making money. I'll skimp on some things but not that.

As for age, I don't know but my guess is mid to late twenties. Of my most recent, one was in the bay area and one is a tech stars alum.

No, no help with HTML/CSS/graphics/icons. I do most of that myself. Plus we do a lot of Flash on the front end and have separate designers for that.

Testing is one area Ive found where the more expensive devs seem to separate themselves. Very thorough which is nice.

This may sound odd but I also try and hire developers who are smarter and better than myself. After almost every job, I glean from their code and end up learning a ton. If nothing else, the extra money we spend also goes to my own education.

[lief79]

I'm curious how this works, and what level of work you expect for that? Most of the contract work I see advertised is luck to get above $40 an hour, of course that's through agencies.

Is this just the difference between contract to hire and lone contracts to individuals? Is there a known place to bid for local work like this, or is it all word of mouth?

I've typically been a java/j2EE dev working full time, but I can't help but wonder if been missing out on something obvious.

[hello_moto]

Thank you very much for the answer.

Where I live (somewhere in Canada, one of the big Cities), sometime I would ask myself if I could make a decent living with Rails skill because the demands aren't too many (mostly they're looking for typical LAMP + jQuery/CSS/HTML or Drupal or Wordpress).

There are a few "shaky" startups looking for Rails developers but I'm guessing the pay is not that great and the company usually won't last long (2 years max).

[dnsworks]

* - how old they are*

Why does their age matter? Their ability to deliver is what should matter. The first time I charged $100/hour as a consultant I was 18, I'm fairly confident that I never had a customer turn down my services due to the number of times I'd traveled around the sun.

[hello_moto]

maybe my question should be modify to ask years-of-experience?

[adamt]

By contrast we regularly employ django developers via elance and pay about $15-25 per hour and the quality now we are very efficient at filtering/testing people is very good

[il]

+1 for this. If you're contracting our work online, don't pay inflated Bay Area wages. Go somewhere like Odesk, you can easily get a very competent overseas developer for no more than $20 an hour.

[dpio]

hey, authenticjobs seems pretty good. I hadn't heard of it til now.