Frequently Asked Questions

There are many reasons to think of why outsourcing parts of your programming / code-work is a good idea. But most definitely the underlying drive is to speed up, or even come to finish your product/mvp/service and getting it live.

"Time is probably your most scarce asset."

Typical use cases for outsourcing parts of your code:

• You're facing a development task that might easily take weeks, while someone with the correct experience will finish it in hours
• You're facing a challenge or complexity in your code and you need help to finish writing your code
• You found the motivation to start your programming-project, but lack the motivation to finish those boring parts
• You're unsure how to implement a certain technology or concept and could use an example, or need some advice
• You're simply facing too much code to write, and simply need a few hands.
• You're an entrepreneur and not so much a programmer, so you need someone else to get it done

• That you can keep your focus on the fun and creative tasks / code.
• That you'll be able to release your MVP released sooner.
• That it will enable you to apply new technologies without undergoing the learning curve.
• That you'll be able to leverage re-usable knowledge stored in the minds of other professionals, saving you months.
• You will almost certainly build a trusted relation with the developers you work with which will have future value.
• Designing for outsourcing typically improves the overall quality due to abstraction and modularization.

I definitely should look up some quotes for this one, but I guess it's quite simple - you cannot conquer the world on your own, let alone finish a production ready application while staying ahead of the competition. It's therefore wise to get some extra hands to work with.

Being a developer myself I do acknowledge "we" typically find it hard to share our ideas with others, or trust others to write "our" code.

Now the first problem should be easily overcome by improving our software design, so that we can abstract our request. For example: I had a developer write a MS Office & PDF document scanner that checked if any macro's / scripts / objects were in the document (thus posing a security threat). It took me 5 minutes to specify what I needed (DocumentChecker.needsSanitizing(String mimetype, InputStream doc), and another developer did the rest.

As for the second one, I guess it's about letting it go. As time is probably your most scarce asset. And if you fear it will lead to Technical Debt, then it's good to know that you always can define your acceptance criteria up front.

Everything you can name or "conceptualize" is a possible subject to outsourcing. Additionally, the Snippet-Market board allows requests for help, advise, services or bounties as well.

Although it is quite easy to e.g. hire a 40hr/week java/php/python/... developer for a few months, it's harder to find a developer to take on a small & fixed assignment worth only minutes through hours. Snippet-Market therefore focuses on smaller coding-"tasks" rather than long-term jobs.

While Snippet-Market was initially created to aid developers, it is typically used by entrepreneurs and company-owners without programming skills as well as programmers. As long as you're able to conceptualize and specify your needs, Snippet is a platform you can use.

Snippet-Market is a platform for outsourcing small code-tasks, requesting coding-services or for requesting paid aid, coaching or guidance on software-development. Additionally, it is possible to post requests for both short and long-term contracts & jobs.

Some examples:

• Coding-Task: Create a Document (office + PDF) script/macro/... scanner to detect possible security problems
• Coding-Task: Integrate a payment provider in my online webshop
• Coding-Task: Need my website to become responsive / mobile-ready
• Coaching/Advisory: I need help dockerizing my application
• Coaching/Advisory: My WordPress site does not show / render under IE11!

Basically Snippet-Market focuses on programming / code tasks rather than Job's. These may be smaller tasks that will only take hours, or bigger tasks that will require teams.

Yes! The use of the Snippet-Market board is completely free. However, if you happend to come to an agreement with someone to develop you code, it's highly likely that you'll come to an agreement in terms of payment.

While we have future plans on expanding our services to cover the client-worker relationship, we currently only provide a free market place where you can post your code-requests and reach developers. It is therefore your own responsibility to come to a good mutual understanding of the assignment.

As you're not obligated to accept any offers, you're free to use Snippet to get an indication of costst. It will hoever be much appreciated to cleary state that your looking for an indication of costs rather than looking to take on services immediatly.

If you do have responses, but none are appealing enough, then it's good to know that you're not obligated to accept any of them. It will be much appreciated to let everyone know how you valued their response.

You're not obligated to accept an offer. It will be much appreciated to let everyone know how you valued their response.

You can remove / un-list / withdrawal your Job from public at any time. Make sure you're logged in, then navigate to the specific job/task (this can be done through the "My Jobs" page. On the job-page press "Close this Job from Public"

Closing a Job from public will hide it from our front-page and hide it from the search-results. The link/url will however remain valid for a few weeks after which the Job will automatically be removed from our system.

Yes, you can update your task at any time. This is done by clicking the "edit" button when you're logged in and viewing the Task/Job.

Besides updating the details of your task/job, you might additionally "reply" to your Job as a means to provide additional information / remarks.

Developers will be able to respond in two different ways - public, and private.

The public response is in the form of a "reply" to your job and is highly likely to be a comment or a question. Being the case this type of response is best replied to on our website (simply click the "reply button").

Private responses - and most likely serious offers - are only communicated to you by e-mail. This e-mail contains the e-mail address of the sender who you can immediately reply to.

There are two ways to get in touch with the task-owner. One is via a public reply/comment which is done by pressing the "reply" button on the task-page. The other is via a private message which is done by pressing the "apply" button on the task-page.

The task-owner will (unless explicitly disabled) receive an e-mail notification of your response.

Yes! This is achieved by creating a search-subscription.

You can subscribe to any search (including filters) you've made on our search page. This is done by pressing the "subscribe" button on the bottom of the search-results page. You can choose between daily and weekly notifications.

Search-subscriptions can be removed via the "my subscriptions" page.

Posting a task is easily done by clicking the "Post a Task" menu (above), and filling in the form that is presented when you choose the type of Job you want to post.

Only the title and description are required. You may attach additional information in the form of .pdf, .docx, .xlsx or .txt

Any information you think is needed to allow developers to reason about possible solutions and to estimate the time and costs. Note that you can update to add information at any time. Additionally, developers may ask you questions or inquire for more information.