PHP developer internships

Mozart1986

Hi All,

I am taking on two PHP developers as interns to help build a website for my start-up. They will be able to earn in a stake in the company depending upon targets met.

I'm putting an ad in GradIreland.com. Where else do you think I should advertise such an internship? Where would the highest quality developers be looking? I've also put it in Collab.ie, just to pre-empt that suggestion.

Thanks in advance:)

What? Oh Rly!

Mozart1986 wrote: »

Where would the highest quality developers be looking?

No offense OP, but the best devs would most likely be employed working away with their 50k+ salary instead of looking for a "stake" in a startup.

CheckRaiseIRL

You will get a better quality of candidate if you also offer a paid contract.

Advertise on the standard recruitment agency websites also... monster, jobs.ie, ect

FAS have a work placement scheme also which might be what your looking for but it sounds like you are looking for people who are overqualified to be interns.

Mozart1986

What? Oh Rly! wrote: »

No offense OP, but the best devs would most likely be employed working away with their 50k+ salary instead of looking for a "stake" in a startup.

None taken, but I already have a quality developer with years of experience in business and two masters degrees. This is the path we are taking so excuse me if I don't take you too seriously.

A developer that comes into my start-up will be risking their time and effort, but there is potentially a far greater pay-off.

Thanks Check, I'll avoid those sites if possible, but may have to use them.

QwertyFinger

I never understand how people would be willing to work in a startup and do all the work for someone else only earning a small proportion of the profit (if there is any) and spending hours upon hours making something for free to someone elses liking. People really do undervalue web developers.

BostonB

Most developers, of all levels will have been pitched to by a startup at some point. Its very common. Most will be a bit skeptical of it. Money talks and all that.

So I think, you are not going to attract developers, in safe employment with permanent contracts, as they've gone that route for a reason. However, some of the best developers will be working on a high rate as contractors. So if you get them in as contractors, you'd be able to pitch to them. Or at least when you interview them.

Mozart1986

You are right, and the developer I paid was not, at first, willing to risk his time on this start-up.

But, after a month or two working on the site and working on the business model my developer refunded the payment and took a 20 per cent stake in the company to help get it launched.

Now I am not looking for rock-stars, just ordinary programmers. You people think that a business is built solely on the bloody website. It isn't, there is a massive amount of promotion, community development, marketing, branding, as well as all of the finances and the creative energy that goes into developing the business. Any coder can write code, most are semi-autistic and find it very difficult to develop serious businesses because they don't understand what consumers want as far as content is concerned. You think Mark Zuckerberg was successful because he was a programmer? NOOO... he knew what people wanted in a social networking site and went about getting it built. Yeah, sure, there is a massive amount of effort that goes into developing a proper website that fits write with users, but much of the creativity comes from understanding what users want in the front-end, what experience they want.

I also haven't pitched anyone yet, so keep your rubbishy ignorant opinions to yourselves please, until you actually see my business live and can understand what I've brought to the table. Pure ignorance:mad:

PS I do respect and value web developers. I am not asking them to do work for free, I am asking them to risk their valuable time and energy on a very viable and high-growth business.

BostonB

Mozart1986 wrote: »

...
I also haven't pitched anyone yet, so keep your rubbishy ignorant opinions to yourselves please, until you actually see my business live and can understand what I've brought to the table. Pure ignorance:mad:....

Whats with the attitude?

Mozart1986

BostonB wrote: »

Whats with the attitude?

Whats with the derision and the presumptuous tone of your comments?

BostonB

Mozart1986 wrote: »

Whats with the derision and the presumptuous tone of your comments?

What did I presume? I made only one comment not comments. I limited my comment to where developers are and why. How is that derisory?

futureme

CheckRaiseIRL wrote: »

FAS have a work placement scheme also which might be what your looking for

This might attract more people to apply.*

*More people being me

RUDOLF289

Mozart1986 wrote: »

You are right, and the developer I paid was not, at first, willing to risk his time on this start-up.

But, after a month or two working on the site and working on the business model my developer refunded the payment and took a 20 per cent stake in the company to help get it launched.

Now I am not looking for rock-stars, just ordinary programmers. You people think that a business is built solely on the bloody website. It isn't, there is a massive amount of promotion, community development, marketing, branding, as well as all of the finances and the creative energy that goes into developing the business. Any coder can write code, most are semi-autistic and find it very difficult to develop serious businesses because they don't understand what consumers want as far as content is concerned. You think Mark Zuckerberg was successful because he was a programmer? NOOO... he knew what people wanted in a social networking site and went about getting it built. Yeah, sure, there is a massive amount of effort that goes into developing a proper website that fits write with users, but much of the creativity comes from understanding what users want in the front-end, what experience they want.

I also haven't pitched anyone yet, so keep your rubbishy ignorant opinions to yourselves please, until you actually see my business live and can understand what I've brought to the table. Pure ignorance:mad:

PS I do respect and value web developers. I am not asking them to do work for free, I am asking them to risk their valuable time and energy on a very viable and high-growth business.

Well, if I were a web designer / developer, starting out (which I am not) I would be very weary to take on a job with you after that rant.

jhegarty

Mozart1986 wrote: »

Where would the highest quality developers be looking?

Mozart1986 wrote: »

Now I am not looking for rock-stars, just ordinary programmers.

Does not compute.

J_Wholesale

Mozart1986 wrote: »

I also haven't pitched anyone yet, so keep your rubbishy ignorant opinions to yourselves please, until you actually see my business live and can understand what I've brought to the table. Pure ignorance

Fella, you have got one giant chip on your shoulder. I was going to make a suggestion, but I honestly don't feel like being verbally abused.

amen

Any coder can write code, most are semi-autistic and find it very difficult to develop serious businesses because they don't understand what consumers want as far as content is concerned

Yeah any idiot can write code but does it scale, does it perform well under strees, does it follow standard security practices, is it easy to maintain, is it error free, is it fast, is it adaptable ?

most are semi-autistic

really? None that I know of (and I am programmer). That is such a degrogatory comment. All the programmers I know including rock star programmers (who by the way according to most research papers suggest can be 2-10 more effective/faster/accurate then ordindary programmers) are normal every day people who have an interest in programming. We lead normal lives and some of us are even married and have kids!

s because they don't understand what consumers want as far as content is concerned

Who do you think started such successfully companies such as Microsoft, Oracel, SAP, Cisico, IBM, HP etc ? Programmers/Technical people thats who.

Then outside of computer/its you have other successfully companies such as Boeing, Elan, Merric etc all started by engineers/chemists who were responding to a need to satisfy customers.

So how do you think we write programs for a company if we don't understand what the company does? From my experience (18+ years) most programmers have a better grasp and understanding of what a company does then the business managers. Business managers often have knowledge of their business domain/section while the programmers generally work on projects across multiple domains/sections and have a knowledge of the whole.

creative energy that goes into developing the business

so no creative energy required from programmers?

massive amount of promotion, community development, marketing, branding, as well as all of the finances

you can do this till the cows come home but it the site isn't working then forget it.

Look at Boeing and the 787 (new plane). Great marketing, pre production sales etc but now 4 years later because it appears senior management did not listen to senior engineers when they explain what was going to happen.

Sid_Justice

lol at someone who is comparing making a website to building an aeroplane.

jhegarty

Sid_Justice wrote: »

lol at someone who is comparing making a website to building an aeroplane.

Engineering a well built webpage uses exactly the same principles as engineering a well built plane.

Scale is the only difference.

When people treat is differently we end up with the FG website giving out everyone's email addresses to hackers.

CheckRaiseIRL

Did your first developer quit?

What has he done so far for his 20% equity?

I cant imagine a qualified developer putting in any time to a startup website for someone just out of college with no experience but you may get someone going into their last year of college who will take a chance over the summer months but you dont want to be giving away equity in this scenario. If you want to be taken seriously you need to remain calm and act professional at all times or you wont be around too long and lastly you get what you pay for so you need capital to start and grow a business.

good luck.

Mozart1986

CheckRaiseIRL wrote: »

Did your first developer quit?

What has he done so far for his 20% equity?

I cant imagine a qualified developer putting in any time to a startup website for someone just out of college with no experience but you may get someone going into their last year of college who will take a chance over the summer months but you dont want to be giving away equity in this scenario. If you want to be taken seriously you need to remain calm and act professional at all times or you wont be around too long and lastly you get what you pay for so you need capital to start and grow a business.

good luck.

No, my first developer is a partner in another company, so will be taking more of a supervisory role. We also have plans for him to launch the site in the US when we're established here and in the UK.

Mozart1986

Unfortunately this thread quickly turned into exactly what I didn't want, a debate about how developers aren't valued and "why would they build YOUR website?"

That wasn't what I asked and people should not come on with so many assumptions and nothing helpful to say. Feel free to close this thread

BostonB

No offence, but you've derailed your own thread with contradictory comments.

You say you want the the highest quality developer, who are also ordinary developer. Thats not the same thing. You don't want advice on what attracts a developer to a start up, but thats exactly what you asked starting off. You say its important to know what the customer wants. You'll get the developers you want by working out what they want. I think you are looking at from your perspective not theirs. I expect you'll take offence at that. But thats not the intention. Theres some wise comments on this thread from people with obvious experience. Perhaps they could have been expressed better, but thats the nature of a forum. Some links, you may or may not find useful.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FindingGreatDevelopers.html
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000050.html
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FieldGuidetoDevelopers.html


I'd make the point that if you parachute a "highest quality developer" in they almost always parachute out at some point. Whereas if you take a more junior person on, they may stay with you much longer. I've worked in a few start ups, and they can be exciting or terrible. But good luck with it.

CheckRaiseIRL

Its sounds like you gave 20% of your company away to a person who wont contribute any meaningful effort until you have already established yourself in two markets?

Thats a very bad deal for you and it looks like he took advantage of your inexperience.

If he is a highly qualified developer he should be answering all the questions you have asked here and using his contacts.

It sounds like you have zero capital. If you keep giving away parts of your company you will get average workers who couldnt find better opportunities elsewhere and you will end up with a small stake in a company where it is not worth your time and your partners are not pulling their weight.

You need a new plan.

JonJoeDali

Mozart1986 wrote: »

Any coder can write code, most are semi-autistic and find it very difficult to develop serious businesses because they don't understand what consumers want as far as content is concerned.

Wow. Just wow. Best of luck with the hiring. With an attitude like that, you won't go very far.

amen

As for getting developers to work for free I bet your don't want your accountant, lawyer etc to work for free so why should your engineers?

Twitter, YouTube, Textme+, hotmail etc were all starts up and all paid their staff.

Their seems to be misconception that startups do not pay wages. I would say nearly all startups pay staff wages with owners taking a reduced wage (or sometimes none) in the hope of a large future payout.

Most startups have some sort of funding (bootstrapped, early angel funding, a paying customer etc).

If you can't get even some basic funding it maybe that your idea is not as good as you thought.

Chet Zar

amen wrote: »

As for getting developers to work for free I bet your don't want your accountant, lawyer etc to work for free so why should your engineers?

Twitter, YouTube, Textme+, hotmail etc were all starts up and all paid their staff.

Their seems to be misconception that startups do not pay wages. I would say nearly all startups pay staff wages with owners taking a reduced wage (or sometimes none) in the hope of a large future payout.

Most startups have some sort of funding (bootstrapped, early angel funding, a paying customer etc).

If you can't get even some basic funding it maybe that your idea is not as good as you thought.

+1, good points - and if a start-up DOES have funding then you'd have to ask serious questions if they aren't paying staff..

Sid_Justice

jhegarty wrote: »

Engineering a well built webpage uses exactly the same principles as engineering a well built plane.

Scale is the only difference.

When people treat is differently we end up with the FG website giving out everyone's email addresses to hackers.

are you naive or extremely arrogant? both?

of all the development projects that begin, how many complete?
how many do not go over budget?
how many are finished in time?

Software development is the absolutely weakest area of 'engineering' with regard to the quality of product. It's very very rare a **** plane/car/fecking washer gets inadequately engineered, while an actually competent piece of software is the exception not the norm.

throwing a few 1s and 0s together is not the same as buidling machines that fly across the sky. if you think the the difference is merely scale you're deluded.

Sean^DCT4

Sid_Justice wrote: »

It's very very rare a **** plane/car/fecking washer gets inadequately engineered

I think you will find that you are the one that is deluded here.

Sid_Justice wrote: »

throwing a few 1s and 0s together is not the same as buidling machines that fly across the sky. if you think the the difference is merely scale you're deluded.

You obviously know nothing about software development.

Sid_Justice wrote: »

of all the development projects that begin, how many complete?
how many do not go over budget?
how many are finished in time?

There's a thread in after hours I should post this into.. here

Gambler

most are semi-autistic and find it very difficult to develop serious businesses because they don't understand what consumers want as far as content is concerned

Wow, just - WOW. At first I was intrigued by your post but if that's your impression of developers then good luck to you in finding one and my best wishes for the poor soul that ends up working for\with you..

jhegarty

Sid_Justice wrote: »

are you naive or extremely arrogant? both?

I am arrogant , but I am not sure what that has to do with anything.

Sid_Justice wrote: »

of all the development projects that begin, how many complete?
how many do not go over budget?
how many are finished in time?

Depends on the quality of the planning and work that goes into the project.

Proper planning , design and testing and a project will finish on time and in budget.

Sid_Justice wrote: »

Software development is the absolutely weakest area of 'engineering' with regard to the quality of product. It's very very rare a **** plane/car/fecking washer gets inadequately engineered, while an actually competent piece of software is the exception not the norm.

I said well built. There is such as a thing as well built software. Of course badly designed ****ty software isn't going to be using sound engineering principals.

Sid_Justice wrote: »

throwing a few 1s and 0s together is not the same as buidling machines that fly across the sky. if you think the the difference is merely scale you're deluded.

I see you know nothing about software. People haven't programmed in 1s and 0s since assembly language became available the 1950s.

A Boeing 747 has 6 million parts , Windows XP had 45 million lines of code.

Sid_Justice

so what? Hamlet might have less words than the manual for Windows Xp does that make it a more complex piece of work.

I'm getting told I don't know anything about software development and there's people here telling me 'lines of code' are useful parameters for quantifying the quality of software.

BostonB

Sid_Justice wrote: »

so what? Hamlet might have less words than the manual for Windows Xp does that make it a more complex piece of work

The defination is...

Involved or intricate, as in structure; complicated.

Sid_Justice wrote: »

I'm getting told I don't know anything about software development and there's people here telling me 'lines of code' are useful parameters for quantifying the quality of software.

The complexity.

BostonB

Sid_Justice wrote: »

....
throwing a few 1s and 0s together is not the same as buidling machines that fly across the sky. if you think the the difference is merely scale you're deluded.

You mean something like this?
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0275.shtml

Sid_Justice

you think a website is more complex then that plane?

i'm signing out of this thread too many deluded button bashers

BostonB

Sid_Justice wrote: »

you think a website is more complex then that plane?

i'm signing out of this thread too many deluded button bashers

Depends on the website. Problem is your comparing projects of disparate scale and complexity, which is inane tbh.

A website could be one page and done in 20 sec. Or it could be a massive site, taking a huge team and a year or more. Like wise a plane could be something you build in your kitchen Or it could be something that takes a a consortium of massive companies 20yrs.

BnB

Hi OP

This is a genuine reply.

You will have to change you attitude towards programmers / developers. Yes, they are 10 a penny, but good ones are very scarce, particularly anyone with decent PHP experience.

We have been trying to hire 2 php programmers this year and we have found it very very difficult to find someone good. We finally do have one of them now. He doesn't have the experience that we were initially looking for but we're happy enough that he's a smart fella and he's picking it up quick.

A bad programmer will break your heart. We had a guy in for 12 months programming away. It was only when we replaced him that we found everything he had done for the previous 12 months was a crock of shoite. Cosmetically, it looked ok, but the code behind it all was very very flakely, slow and cumbersome. The whole thing had to be re-written from scratch.

Just my 2 cents. All of the above is from experience.