[bstar77]

I generally hire devs on odesk for front end work (css/html). We'll put out a request for work, interview the most promising candidates and hire 2. Both of them work on the exact same thing, we just choose the better implementation in the end.

This works for front end development to mitigate risk. Every time we get a very clear winner and it's not always the one we predicted before hand.

I would never use odesk for architecture work, that's what my job is for. Mission critical systems should be developed internally, or at the worst completely understood by someone internally.

odesk is also fantastic for advise or simple scripts on things I don's specialize in. I can often get a script/optimization in an hour that would have taken me a day to figure out myself.

[brianwawok]

Why is the front end not important? An awesome system that is buggy when viewed on an iPhone may not be that useful. Or spaghetti CSS someone else has to fix down the road.

[_random_]

I guess it's a good advice. Somehow similar to unit-testing: don't test or do outsource things that don't need to be of high quality.