I want to hire an iOS App Dev.

December 5, 2011 8:38 PM

I need to hire an iOS App Developer. Where do I do this?

So, a friend and I have an idea for an app. We've both successfully launched products in the past, have a lot of contacts and some interest from some fairly large sponsors. We also have a fleshed out pitch doc (Wireframes, mock ups, etc.).

However, neither of us is an iOS developer and the App is sufficiently complicated so that it's not a great "Your First App in 20 Minutes!" project. Point being: We're not ju

We'd like to either hire a developer or come to a revenue sharing agreement with one. Is there a forum or a popular website for this? Nothing we're looking for is that crazy, but it does involve some DB work and so we'd like to see it done right.

To be clear, this is not a game. If it was a game, we'd be all set.

posted by GilloD to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

I am sorry if this is a very obvious answer, but one potential option is to post it to jobs.metafilter.com, there are iOS devs reading this site.
posted by fake at 8:48 PM on December 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm a board member, so obviously biased here, but many people are finding great coders on Stack Overflow Careers for this sort of thing; it succeeds for many of the same reasons that MeFi Jobs does.
posted by anildash at 8:58 PM on December 5, 2011

Probably the most reliable source for decent iOS developers is your local Cocoaheads group. Either show up at a meeting and announce your job, or email the local group organizer, and they'll probably forward your job listing to their mailing list. A lot of areas have similar groups that you can also hit up.

Are you willing to pay money to find someone? If so, the usual job sites - authenticjobs.com, Dice, and Monster can work, too.

And there's always Craigslist.

Wherever you solicit, make sure you say up front that this job will pay money like any other programming job. Maybe they'll go for the revenue sharing, but people are wary of that these days, so letting people know you can pay for the work will help build trust.
posted by ignignokt at 9:07 PM on December 5, 2011

Best answer: I'm the lead iOS developer at foursquare. Quite frankly, it's a good time to be an iOS developer. My colleagues and I get pitches like this all the time, and you'll be hard pressed to find someone willing to do this strictly for revenue unless the idea is truly revolutionary. While it may be to you, to most people, it's probably not. If you're willing to pay a good rate ($100+/hr), you shouldn't have a problem. Otherwise, you need to get creative. Your goal should be to minimize the amount of risk carried by the iOS dev. Offering a significant amount of equity in exchange for part-time work until real revenue comes in and you can afford to pay a salary is probably the best way to do this.

Definitely check out all the standard job boards and local groups such as Cocoaheads. Look at every post on Stack Overflow tagged with iOS and keep an eye on Apple's Developer Forums at devforms.apple.com. Browse Github for iOS projects and take note of names that keep coming up.

Finally, if you meet someone interested, make sure you get your most technical friend to interview them. Nothing can bleed you dry and kill any idea you had like a mediocre developer. You don't want that.
posted by AaRdVarK at 9:51 PM on December 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank for the advice! I'm generally averse to things like Rev. Share, I think it's sort of unprofessional. But this is a small-ish project and falls sort of in our niche, but out of our wheelhouse if that makes sense, so we're trying not to destroy what we've worked on so far by pouring all of resources into this project - i.e., we're trying to get it done cheap.

Anyway, I'll throw our line out there and see what comes up.
posted by GilloD at 10:07 PM on December 5, 2011