I’ve been looking through some freelancing site again. I often do this to keep myself abreast of emerging markets and to look for new gigs.

I’ve found that a certain segment of the gig-giving set like to give limits on how long a project should take. Not in the “we’d really like this finished by Friday” kind of way but in the “This should not take an experienced developer more than one hour - please ensure your estimate is less than this limit” kind of way.

Where are they getting this information? What makes them think that they are qualified to make this call?

Hell - I just found one today that read “I believe the right person can write this in twenty minutes.”

Twenty minutes!

I can’t think of any program that I could write for a person in under twenty minutes. Twenty minutes to get the spec, think it through, code up a solution, test the hell out of it, compile the solution, and then bundle the thing up and send it on it’s way. I’m a pretty quick programmer, but that’s just not going to happen.

Here’s a hint for the certain segment of the gig-giving set. Recognize why you’re bringing in an expert. Make your request as detailed as possible and ask for quotes with estimates from multiple people. You should start to see an average after you get some responses. This will give you a ballpark figure for how much time (and therefore money) to budget. If someone gives you a wildly overblown estimate you can either find out why (your spec might be hard to understand) or try to find out why.

You’ll be happier and you’ll get some responses from people who might actually be able to get you what you want.