[sparkzilla]

I am using oDesk for a couple of small PHP projects now (<$500). I switched from Elance because it seemed that the developers were better. I had to cancel the first project on Elance because the developer wanted to go through the proposal line by line on Skype every day. It was too time-consuming. There's no point in trying to get $10/hr programming if it takes five times as long.

You must find someone who speaks excellent English -- it's too frustrating otherwise. The number of hours a person has worked on other projects the most important. I'm sure anyone can fake reviews. Devs will also say they can do everything, so you have to track down their specialty. I was looking for experience with date functions so I made sure to ask for that and confirm with the devs I shortlisted.

I am currently working on oDesk with a guy from India. His English is excellent and the project is going well. I pay $20/hr. I am very careful with the assignment of hours. Any extra hours are negotiated up front. If he doesn't negotiate an extension on his side then he won't get paid for it.

Another thing to consider is that you may have to work late in the night or very early in the morning, especially during debugging sessions, which can be disruptive to your life. Due to the time difference I would actually prefer to hire an American dev but I didn't see that many on the site, and I guess they would charge much more.