How I Find Top Outsourcers on RentACoder

Over the years I have been extensively on the buyer side working with RentACoder, an online labor marketplace, to outsource all sorts of technical projects.

RentACoder boasts “the world’s largest number of completed software projects and is currently made up of 112,923 buyers and 242,331 coders.”

With so many coders to choose from, finding the best coder to complete your project can be tough.  It can even be frustrating when it feels like you are spending more time finding the right person to do the job and outline them with instructions than it would probably take to do the work yourself.

If you want to save time, find the highest rated coders who have completed similar projects as yours.  So to only work with the best coders, follow some of these tips:

Creating your project

1. Create a new bid request for your project and start your bid as a “Private Auction.”

   Tip: By creating a private bid as opposed to public, you will be able to choose the best coders you want to work on your project.

2. Invite top quality coders to bid your project using the instructions below.

Recruiting quality coders with similar project experience

1. From the RentACoder homepage, click on the link in the rop right under “Newest Bid Requests” to browse all open bid requests.
2. Using some of your project description’s keywords (e.g. HTML template), search past bids for projects similar of the one you want to create by using the “Bid Request Search” in the top right.
3. The search will show a list of related projects based on your keyword search.  Click on a similar project as the one you would like to have completed.

   Tip: Results are filtered by date, so you may have to browse back a few pages to find completed projects.

4. Read the project’s details under Brief Summary.   If the project is a similar match to yours, view the buyer’s history by clicking their username next to“Posted By” to find the coder who completed te project.
5. From the user’s profile page, view their “Work History” and browse for the related project you found. After locating the project in the “Rated For” column, you are able to see the coder who completed it under “Rated By.”
6. Now that you have found the coder that completed the job, click on the coder’s username to view their profile page and history. Browse down to the project title you found and you can view any rating or feedback given to the coder.

   TIP:  Finding a positive rating and/or feedback will let you know this coder was able to complete the job successfully.

7. If you are interested in the coder, invite the coder to bid your project from their page by clicking on “Control Panel” and “Invite ______ to bid on one of my existing projects.”

Alternate way of finding the best coders

1. From the Rent A Coder homepage,  click on the link in the rop right under “New Bid Requests” to browse all open bid requests.
2. The 10 highest ranked top coders are listed on right side, but to see all the coders by ranking click “See all coder by ranking.”
3. From this page, you can browse users page for project history and look at their skills
4. You will want to start at top and work down to the lower rated coders.

Assessing a coder credentials, ability, and ethics

Ratings are often the top indicator for assessing a coder’s ability.

The number of ratings shows how active coders are in RAC, and also give you a more accurate indication of their coder rating.

Looking at the coder’s past bid amounts under work history will give you a good idea as to how large of projects the coder is experienced with.

If they coder leaves you a comment and or bid, respond with a question or comment of your own and time their response. If there is a long delay, which may be a good sign as to how responsive they will be during the project.