Hi, i currently followed the guide and installed magento 2.3 and installed a paid theme. However i need custom work doing on the site with new feature developed. Where can i find developers that can work on this?
Hi @ninjabear and welcome!
I wish I could give you a great answer here, but I can’t. Please, indulge me by letting me rant for a bit… 
As some of you may know (or not know), I’m not a great PHP or JS coder. I learn what I can, when I can… When I get really stuck I go looking for Magento Developers.
So far my goto place to find Magento Developers has always been Upwork.com. However, my experience with hiring/working with freelancers has mostly been awful.
Screening Applicants
Whenever I post a job that needs doing, I get quite a lot of people apply. But you read through their applications and it’s clear that they’ve not read the brief properly (or at all). When I post a job, I always go into great detail so that the developer knows what I need.
But on a handful of occasions I’ve offered someone a job who then says they don’t understand what they want me to do - Despite applying for the job! Needless to say, I reject them at that point.
Last year, I hired someone who said they could do the job within 24 hours. The next day, I contacted him to check his progress. He then asked me what I needed doing! I said it was in the brief. He then said that he couldn’t do it on the budget I gave him and that he needed more time! I was so angry 
that I terminated his contract immediately.
I think it comes down to Upwork being such a competitive space that people just apply to any job and work out the details later.
Going global
When I first started hiring developers, I’m not ashamed to say that I looked East for “cheap” rates. But the problem with everything in life is that “you get what you pay for”. Time and time again I’d have issues communicating the work that I needed done and the language barrier never helps.
And another large frustration of mine is that these Developers use time zones as an excuse. So, when you really need them they can easily ignore your message and say that it arrived after then finished work or something like that.
Posting jobs to UK Applicants has been a blessing. Yes, I pay more but the communication is far superior. If I need to get in touch with someone quickly, I know they’re on the same clock as me.
Oversellers
I’ve had a few occasions where I’ve been really won over by an applicant. They’ve said all the right things and shown an understanding of the task. But they take weeks to get the project done because it turns out that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. And eventually they abandon the project. There’s no way of knowing if you’re about to deal with someone like this, but you should be aware that it happens.
Accountability
The one issue that you get with hiring “Joe Bloggs” the Freelancer is that they don’t have any real accountability. So, let’s say they screw up or stop communicating. What are you going to do about it? It’s not like you can pick up the phone to their boss or going knocking on their office door. Can you also trust that they won’t take the work you’ve done and sell it to someone else? This is an issue that’s always concerned me with hiring freelancers.
Get what you pay for
Sometimes you’ll find someone really eager to please you. They’re pretty good at coding and can work a problem. But when you hire “cheap” you often find that shortcuts get made in the code. Magento development requires finesse and expertise. You can make things work in Magento even if you code something poorly. But what you’ll tend to find are that those shortcuts can result in other issues further down the line.
A Diamond in the rough 
They’re not all that bad… I found a gem last year. He was absolutely amazing 
and worth the extra cash I’d spent to find someone good. We had a great relationship. He was early on his deadlines and communicated really well. We worked together for nearly 4 months everyday. Then he said he was going away on holiday for a week and asked me to have some more tasks ready for when he was back.
He never came back. 6 weeks later I’ve no idea what happened to him and hasn’t answered any of my communications - Even checking that he was okay…
Where I am now
I’m now back at square one and very hesitant to hire someone else (even though I need to). But as you can see I’ve been burned alot by my experiences with freelancers. This doesn’t mean you’ll have the same issues, but perhaps hearing this will make you a little wiser during the hiring process.
What would I do differently or continue doing?
- I’d stick to hiring people from my own timezone (communication)
- I wouldn’t go for the cheapest bids (skill)
- I’d actually pay a little more (skill)
- Get their contact number (accountability)
- Writing very detailed briefs (skill, communication)
- Checking in once a day (accountability, communication)
- Have a good conversation during the interview (trust, skill, communication)
- I’d consider using a local Magento Developer Agency (trust, skill, communication, accountability)
- I’d consider hiring someone to work in our office (trust, communication, accountability)
I guess one of my strengths is my experience with Magento code. I don’t know enough to write something decent from scratch. But I know enough to get by, which helps me see through developers BS or helps me explain and identify problems easier.
The future
What I’d like to do one day, is find that person who ticks all of my boxes and get them to drop by this forum regularly to teach or share their expertise. But I’ve yet to find that person (let alone pay for them to do that).
I’m sorry, I couldn’t answer your question in black and white, @ninjabear. I just wanted to be truthful. But hopefully you’ll be able to take something positive away from this.
If anyone else reads this, I’d love to know the answer to this question.