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Hire Programming Tutors now on WageMachine

wagemachine.com

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Re: Hire Programming Tutors now on WageMachine

#31

Post by jey »

breck wrote: post #28
jey wrote: post #24

I regularly tutor people in programming and act as a helpdesk, am considered a good tutor/helpdesk, and I would never offer my tutoring/helpdesk services at that puny rate. I absolutely love the idea, but you NEED to let the tutors set their own rate. Anyone want to build such a site, possibly working with me? I own "software-shaman.com" and have been meaning to set it up for something like this, but haven't felt any…

Thanks for the feedback. We limit it to a 30min-2hr shifts. My hope is people will do a quick 30min-1hr help session, and then if it's a good fit continue to work together (offsite). The idea here is to speed up the initial intro period. > You may not use WageMachine to find workers and then conduct the transaction off site, unless you pay them at least their "Normal Rate".

I don't see how that would be worth the trouble to a good tutor.

Re: Hire Programming Tutors now on WageMachine

#32

Post by Fixnum »

rmason wrote: post #17

First I think they need a rating system so people can see at a glance who is really good. Then they need to pay based on ranking. Everyone starts at minimum wage but if you get five stars suddenly you are making $25 an hour.

Wanted: web programmer with knowledge of game theory to help design a rating system (must be useful, fair, and hard to subvert) for new programming tutoring site.

Re: Hire Programming Tutors now on WageMachine

#33

Post by breck »

tentonova2 wrote: post #6

I'd happily solve/tutor a one-off problem for 2 hours at a lower fixed price ($100-200), but as much as I like the idea of one-off tutor sessions, I can't get behind a minimum wage rate. At my usual $150 hour rate, it would take 17 hours on WageMachine to match one hour of work . I could just as easily spend those 17 hours finding that one hour of work (and it wouldn't be just one hour). [Edit] Thinking about it more…

Thank you very much for the feedback. We haven't figured out product/market fit but thanks to all the feedback we're getting today we're getting closer.

We reduced the max shift from 2 hours to 1. We think this stresses that this is more of a tool to get small things done, meet future potential clients/employees, and earn small amounts of cash now versus a way to make a living.

Basically, instead of spending 17 hours looking for work, we think it makes more sense to do small Does that sound like something you'd want?

Re: Hire Programming Tutors now on WageMachine

#34

Post by mlapeter »

I think this is a great idea, but agreeing with other commenters minimum wage is likely far too low. My brother and I are fairly new to ruby on rails, and we often get stuck and left at the mercy of support forums and friendly programmers. Many times we'd gladly pay for an "office hours" type service, especially since one hangup can cost us a day or two... one model might be to try letting users post questions along with an ideal price range and let programmers bid to answer it, like a stack overflow for business users.

Re: Hire Programming Tutors now on WageMachine

#35

Post by prawn »

mlapeter wrote: post #34

I think this is a great idea, but agreeing with other commenters minimum wage is likely far too low. My brother and I are fairly new to ruby on rails, and we often get stuck and left at the mercy of support forums and friendly programmers. Many times we'd gladly pay for an "office hours" type service, especially since one hangup can cost us a day or two... one model might be to try letting users post questions along…

Or elance for small/quick problems.

What I'd do is white-label it and make it available (revenue share) with communities/networks. e.g., say ForumX always has newbies struggling to install their code and get things working, and a voluntary support forum isn't always ideal. So they run paidsupport.forumx.com (or whatever) as a marketplace for cheap installation help. Scrape x% from the transactions to split between ForumX and WageMachine.

Re: Hire Programming Tutors now on WageMachine

#36

Post by prawn »

megamark16 wrote: post #21
sam wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you could handle 17 WageMachine threads simultaneously.

Now there's an idea! It would be like sitting in the Django IRC for an hour or two, but getting paid for each person who you offer advice to, regardless of the time overlap.

Problem is that you'd lose time dealing with each transaction.

I'd rather have one $1000 transaction than a dozen $100 transactions unless the process was completely automated (no one questioning time-tracking, no getting-to-know-you period, no trading contact details - just work done and money in the account).

Re: Hire Programming Tutors now on WageMachine

#37

Post by steveklabnik »

breck wrote: post #30
collision wrote: post #12

I can't find an RSS or atom feed for your blog :(

http://wagemachine.com/blog/feed Let me know if that's a good feed. I don't use RSS at all so don't know what people expect.

It's good, but either a summary of your posts or the full text would be nice, as I usually read articles inside of my reader.

Re: Hire Programming Tutors now on WageMachine

#38

Post by dflock »

breck wrote: post #30
collision wrote: post #12

I can't find an RSS or atom feed for your blog :(

http://wagemachine.com/blog/feed Let me know if that's a good feed. I don't use RSS at all so don't know what people expect.

Yeah, full text in the feed, or don't bother with the feed at all.

Re: Hire Programming Tutors now on WageMachine

#39

Post by jasonlbaptiste »

jey wrote: post #24

I regularly tutor people in programming and act as a helpdesk, am considered a good tutor/helpdesk, and I would never offer my tutoring/helpdesk services at that puny rate. I absolutely love the idea, but you NEED to let the tutors set their own rate. Anyone want to build such a site, possibly working with me? I own "software-shaman.com" and have been meaning to set it up for something like this, but haven't felt any…

Hey jey, shoot me an email: j[at]jasonlbaptiste.com .

Re: Hire Programming Tutors now on WageMachine

#40

Post by dbz »

Estragon wrote: post #8

Every worker on WageMachine is highly talented, industrious, college educated, English speaking, and lives in the United States. http://wagemachine.com/blog/learn_more_about_wagemachine Then why the hell are they working for minimum wage at a deadend job on your site?

Meh. I do tons of free coding for people, and I would do this as well. It's like free coding, but I get paid and get to train my patience! =]

More importantly. How are the workers guaranteed to be highly talented? I'm under the impression that all the workers are added by invite; however, what are the real tests of ability? I'd be curious to know.

[EDIT:] I love the idea! (My only skepticism/criticism/dislike is that I can't find the hiring process online and therefore can't approve of it.)

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