Looking to hire a cambodian programmer.

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holycow
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Looking to hire a cambodian programmer.

Post by holycow »

Hi guys.

I am looking for advice from the local expat community on the ins and outs of hiring a full time programmer from Cambodia.

What we are looking for:

* Must have reasonable command of English.
* Must have reasonable programming experience (php, linux, standard web based stuff).
* Must be able to work remotely.
* Preferable full time work, if they want to start out part-time first that would be fine too.

I would be willing to hire on the basis of a multi-year employment obligation as we have some long term ongoing development projects.

I am not interested in working with outsourcing companies. Every single one we have worked with over the years has underpreformed and is simply not worth the effort. We would preffer to explore the abilities of individual developers that want a full time / long term gig and want to develop a substantial portfolio.

Obviously, we are looking in Cambodia because of the cost of labour difference.

Would anyone here be able to provide feedback on where to start looking (Google returns some dismal results for obvious reasons), is it possible, thoughts on feasability, thoughts on what it would take to interest a local developer, access to devs with reasonable english capabilities, etc.

Any thoughts and advice is appreciated. I am looking to learn about the pros/cons.

Thanks!

Robert
eriksank
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Re: Looking to hire a cambodian programmer.

Post by eriksank »

I have had a Cambodian assistant/programmer for 7 years. We had specialized in custom Joomla extensions and customizations. I must even admit that in the end he was technically better than me. That was actually expected, because I worked much more in sales and architecture, while he did the implementations.

Last year, however, the Joomla CMS business had badly declined. I had moved on to programming improvements to bitcoin marketplaces and exchanges while it was clear that it would take quite a bit of effort for him to make the switch too. It would take me at least six months to build this new business, and after mutual consultations, we agreed that it was better for him to take up that offer from a Japanese company where he would do Wordpress and PHP frameworks, something which is closer to Joomla CMS programming. I still regret it, but I also cannot see myself pushing him through the mathematics underlying elliptic curve cryptography.

In the better days of the Joomla business, my Cambodian programmer easily made 1500-2000 USD/month. At the moment, he is only making 1000+ USD with the Japanese guys. You see, the way in which the market works -- and therefore in terms of technical results and financial results -- developers with high salaries are usually cheap, while developers with low salaries, are usually expensive, simply because the cheap ones will always turn out to be useless.

Cambodia is pretty much the same as elsewhere. The programmers who are good, are already busy. So, you will have to be asking for them, and not the other way around. Furthermore, what they are obviously interested in, is how much more are you offering than they are getting already?

You cannot assume that Cambodian companies are able to properly assess the true level of skill of their programmers. So, if you do not want to waste your time, you need to hire Cambodian programmers who are currently busy working for foreign companies. There are still candidates who work for 500 - 700 USD somewhere, with at least a few years of experience. Therefore, if you can reach them, you could still hire them for a bargain by offering more. You may even want to use a recruitment company for that task. They may better know where to find this particular type. But then again, if the person has a really low salary and has not moved on yet, there will most likely again be a reason for that. So, if things look too good to be true, they probably are.

By the way, if you advertise for a position, you will obviously see hundreds of candidates desperately agreeing to work for whatever you are offering. These candidates are not busy and there is usually a good reason for that. It is not just poor English that you will face. It is the total inability to learn anything that will be the most frustrating. There is a good reason why they don't know much. Seriously, anybody who is capable of learning, would have learned things already.

Another way to get good candidates is to invite them to do an internship at your company while they are still studying. After the internship, you can approach the best candidates and offer them a contract before they graduate. When they have graduated already, it will have become impossible again to know who to recruit [5%] and who not [95%].
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vladimir
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Re: Looking to hire a cambodian programmer.

Post by vladimir »

holycow, check your PM
Jesus loves you...Mexico is great, right? ;)
TheGrinchSR
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Re: Looking to hire a cambodian programmer.

Post by TheGrinchSR »

holycow wrote:Hi guys.

I am looking for advice from the local expat community on the ins and outs of hiring a full time programmer from Cambodia.

What we are looking for:

* Must have reasonable command of English.
* Must have reasonable programming experience (php, linux, standard web based stuff).
* Must be able to work remotely.
* Preferable full time work, if they want to start out part-time first that would be fine too.

I would be willing to hire on the basis of a multi-year employment obligation as we have some long term ongoing development projects.

I am not interested in working with outsourcing companies. Every single one we have worked with over the years has underpreformed and is simply not worth the effort. We would preffer to explore the abilities of individual developers that want a full time / long term gig and want to develop a substantial portfolio.

Obviously, we are looking in Cambodia because of the cost of labour difference.

Would anyone here be able to provide feedback on where to start looking (Google returns some dismal results for obvious reasons), is it possible, thoughts on feasability, thoughts on what it would take to interest a local developer, access to devs with reasonable english capabilities, etc.

Any thoughts and advice is appreciated. I am looking to learn about the pros/cons.

Thanks!

Robert
You'd be better off in Vietnam if you're looking for programming resources. Tons of them and cheaper than here...
"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." - George Orwell
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