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Occasionally I come across a good programmer that I could use to do some projects for me. I have lots of ideas and need help sometimes. I wondered if it's allowed to hire someone?

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2 Answers 2

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You should go with the Stack Overflow Careers-specific site to hire people:

http://careers.stackoverflow.com/

It is not a good idea to try to hire people within the questions and answers site by leaving comments. That's not what the comments are meant for. Though, if you find the person's email on the profile, well then you can contact them. The profile is public, so if someone leaves their email, it's okay to communicate with them.

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    As long as they aren't leaving off-topic comments about trying to hire a user, nobody will care. Heck, I got the job I'm about to start because someone came to my profile, looked up my email and asked me to fly in for an interview.
    – Mysticial
    Apr 16, 2013 at 0:11
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    This answer is obsolete. Stack Overflow Jobs and Developer Story were shut down. Nov 18, 2022 at 18:01
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    The relevant announcement on MSO: Sunsetting Jobs & Developer Story
    – V2Blast
    Nov 18, 2022 at 20:02
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Assuming you have a legitimate project, and you're not filling answer comments with job solicitations, then

Go for it

I got hired in my current—dream—job after my current employer went to my profile, browsed to my website, found my email address, and contacted me.

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    This answer is just wrong. Posting job ads here anywhere but Careers is outside the scope of the sites, and violates every faq I've ever seen here. SO, for instance, requires that they be specific programming questions about actual problems, and trying to find an employee (even if it's for a coding job) is not a programming problem any more than my asking for a list of good lunch spots because I'm starting a job at Google and programmer's gotta eat to keep up their strength for writing code.
    – Ken White
    Apr 16, 2013 at 11:35
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    @Ken - don't care. My job's awesome and high paying, and I got it from a user contacting me through my profile. Everything else is just noise as far as I'm concerned. Apr 16, 2013 at 16:03
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    The question asked nothing about asking through the profile, and neither did your answer. (And thus my comment.) If you meant "through their profile if an address is available", you should say that so that it's clear (as Hugo did). :-) Your answer sounds like "Sure. Contact them.", which leaves open asking in comments and other places, and that's what newcomers who find it will think you meant.
    – Ken White
    Apr 17, 2013 at 1:21
  • @Ken - OP didn't specify how he wanted to contact people, and my answer was quite clear on how I was contacted; I hope I didn't imply that making comments for this purpose was ok. Apr 17, 2013 at 2:04
  • Adam, that's the immediate impression I got (and the reason I posted the comment I did and the downvote), and I'm not new here. :-) If I misunderstood what you meant, I'd suspect someone new here could do so easily. I wouldn't have had any objection to it if it was clear how the contact should be made. (Note I said "Posting job ads" in my comment.)
    – Ken White
    Apr 17, 2013 at 2:10
  • @Ken - whoa - delphi :) Ok, I've edited my answer to be a bit clearer. Apr 17, 2013 at 2:23
  • And you're insinuating... what exactly? :-) Delphi does Win32/64, OS X, supports generics and closures, and will soon be supporting iOS and Android, all from the same language. But I've got a few badges in other tags, too, and I reed n rite purdy gud when I try rilly hard n consintrait. ;-)
    – Ken White
    Apr 17, 2013 at 2:35
  • @Ken - I'm no language snob (unless it's VB, naturally). Delphi is just not a common language to see in these parts. Sorta like seeing a gold badge in Ada :-) Apr 17, 2013 at 3:07
  • Adam, no offense taken (you saw the smile, right)? I'm used to it somewhat. :-)
    – Ken White
    Apr 17, 2013 at 10:52
  • Oh none intended, @Ken :) Apr 17, 2013 at 15:27
  • I got many enquiries from various people looking at my profile to, following to my webpage and finding my contact detail. Lots of interesting jobs ... and no boring ones.. hey what you know. SO is full of interesting people :) I see this as a small reward from SO for all the hard work I put in to help reach millions of people (stats from my profile, not making numebrs up)
    – Piotr Kula
    Aug 25, 2015 at 17:07

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