Originally Posted by Masterchief

The chance of finding a single solo "decent" outsourced programmer is pretty slim.

When you break it down there are maybe 3 types of programmers when it comes to outsourcing:

1) The really intelligent guys - they get hired by companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google and etc.
2) The average ones - they get hired by IT firms.
3) The wannabes - the ones that have zero technical intuition, but figure "hey I can make $10 an hour doing this, which is a huge amount in my 3rd world country". so they read a few tutorials oh php/mysql and start taking orders from clients. Eventually, they realize that they're way in over their heads and can't deliver so the just vanish.


Another thing is that you're at a huge disadvantage if you're using PHP/MySQL and not making it evident that you're willing to pay serious cash to have things done right. Take for instance, I get paid anywhere from $125-$200/hour for working with asp.net/c#/c++/.NET, but the market is so overflooded with amateurs/novices that know a little bit of PHP and think they're developers, so the going rate for PHP dev work is much lower. So many of these "good" and "experienced" developers won't even bother at all with php jobs.