What is the best way to find someone with technical expertise?

[GasX]

My wife's business needs some technical help and she does not know where to begin in order to spec out the job, find and screen candidates.

Any ideas on where to start?

In short, the companies needs is a Real Time Data Retrieval / Push System.

They need to build a SECURE, EXTENSIBLE, SCALABLE, and ROBUST system that allows MANY Clients to Access data in Real-time over the internet.

 

[Matthias99]

1) This is not really a "highly technical" question (however, it's too technical for OT, and is not a great fit for GH, either). This would be a good thing to put in a Programming forum if we actually had a usable one (see petition in Forum Issues), but I digress.

2) If you need a "system" built, you might consider simply finding a company that can provide/customize the servers and software you need, and outsourcing the whole project to them. You are unlikely to be able to find someone who is both willing and able to do software development AND long-term support of such a system except on a consulting-type basis (ie, not cheap, and probably not as a full-time employee).

3) If they do really want to build and support this thing in-house, it's possible... but not going to be easy, especially if their company currently has no technical personnel. You might look at using a service like Monster.com to help find candidates (they could probably help with speccing the job as well), and folks on here could probably help tell you want to look for if you provided more details. What you described is incredibly vague.

 

[GasX]

Here is some more info:

Source/ Data Creation
We retrieve data from a variety of sources. Primarily we extract data out of emails that we have popped or imap's from various ISPs. This data consists of things like the subject line, date the email was sent, the message identification number, and whether the email was in the spam folder or inbox. This process is stable and unlikely to change greatly. However, given that this is the data that feeds the rest of this process, we do want to ensure the extraction process is efficent and where and how this data is stored is defined to enhance the rest of this process.

INITITAL & SUBSEQUENT Data Storage
We want to store this data in the most ideal fashion. right now all data is stored in relationable SQL tables. however, this may or may not be efficent to support real-time information retrieval which is one of our goals. Thus, do we have a system where the INITIAL data storage is SQL tables and then the data is moved to a SUBSEQUENT storage method for real-time information exchange?

Client Real Time Data Retrieval / Push System
We need to build a SECURE, EXTENSIBLE, SCALABLE, and ROBUST system that allows our MANY Clients to Access the DATA in Real-time over the internet.
Secure - we want to ensure a client cannot access another clients data. we also want to ensure non-clients can't get to it.
Extensible - we want the platform & infrastructure to be extensible to other types of data. Initially we would be providing data extracted from emails ..in the future it may be different types of data whose SOURCE is different and potentially their INTIAL data storage. Ideally the framework for communication (e.g. how we transfer the info, etc.) will be "extensible" so that we can use this same framework for new applications.
Scalable - its essential that all efficiencies to manage peeks in load be considered. Additionally, is it better to PUSH data to clients or allow them to PULL data from us or provide options for BOTH.
Simple - we want to minimize the back & forth between client and us. Each transfer of data should be independent and not reliant on us successfully storing informaiton regardng a prior request. How & when & where do we use cacheing.
Robust - we want to be ablee to provide simple to more complex data. we want to be flexible in the options we provide for accessing the data.
Different Applications of Data on client side - clients may use the data to integrate into other processing applications (e.g. deployment engines), clients may want to create an web-based report with the data (in which case, do we transfer style sheets), clients may want to insert this data into their database tables. Does this change anything about how we send it or what else we send.
Reliable - its critical that downtime be limited to minutes - how do we build a real time back up system that is used as a failover in case the primary goes down.

Hardware/Software
what is needed to build and support all of above.

 

[GasX]

What they currently have (all the mySQL stuff) was built in-house. Their tech guy is a pretty young guy whose expertise doesn't extend to this realm. They would prefer to develop and manage things in-house if possible.

As an added "tech thing", clients have been asking what kind of interface they would be setting up and whether or not it would be XML-RPC or SOAP, etc... They are gettinbg worried as they are extremely knowledgeable about their services, but this is foreign territory...

 

[Matthias99]

Based on what you posted there (is that ALL they have for specs?), you're not really at a point to start hiring people to "build" something. You have too many unknowns.

If they want to do a project like this, and they don't know the answers to basic questions like 'how do we want to organize the data', 'what kinds of access do clients need', 'should we use a push/pull-type model', 'how are we going to store the data', etc., what they need to do is to hire an experienced technical lead/manager (or bring in a technical consultant who is an expert in this field) who could help them figure out exactly what they want to do first. Then they can start worrying about who to hire to do it, or if it should be in-house or not. IMO, anyway...

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
Based on what you posted there (is that ALL they have for specs?), you're not really at a point to start hiring people to "build" something. You have too many unknowns.

If they want to do a project like this, and they don't know the answers to basic questions like 'how do we want to organize the data', 'what kinds of access do clients need', 'should we use a push/pull-type model', 'how are we going to store the data', etc., what they need to do is to hire an experienced technical lead/manager (or bring in a technical consultant who is an expert in this field) who could help them figure out exactly what they want to do first. Then they can start worrying about who to hire to do it, or if it should be in-house or not. IMO, anyway...

That is pretty much exactly what they need. Where does one find a good technical consultant? The same issues apply when you are assessing someones expertise in a field that you have none in...

 

[ahurtt]

Originally posted by: Mwilding

Originally posted by: Matthias99
Based on what you posted there (is that ALL they have for specs?), you're not really at a point to start hiring people to "build" something. You have too many unknowns.

If they want to do a project like this, and they don't know the answers to basic questions like 'how do we want to organize the data', 'what kinds of access do clients need', 'should we use a push/pull-type model', 'how are we going to store the data', etc., what they need to do is to hire an experienced technical lead/manager (or bring in a technical consultant who is an expert in this field) who could help them figure out exactly what they want to do first. Then they can start worrying about who to hire to do it, or if it should be in-house or not. IMO, anyway...

That is pretty much exactly what they need. Where does one find a good technical consultant? The same issues apply when you are assessing someones expertise in a field that you have none in...

Where are you located? Would you like my contact info?

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: ahurtt
Where are you located? Would you like my contact info?

I'd prefer some general input on how to find a technical expert when you aren't one...

 

[ahurtt]

Originally posted by: Mwilding

Originally posted by: ahurtt
Where are you located? Would you like my contact info?

I'd prefer some general input on how to find a technical expert when you aren't one...

You can try to find IT consulting / contracting companies whose sole purpose in life is to help people like your wife figure out things just like "what is it exactly we are trying to do here?" and "is it worth it? How will we do it? How much will it cost? Where will we do it? When will it be done? Who will host it and maintain it?" and then ultimately implement it. <yoda> Or perhaps found you one has, mmm?? </yoda>

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Mwilding
I'd prefer some general input on how to find a technical expert when you aren't one...

Generally?

Either find someone with technical expertise that you trust, and have them help you, or do what you do when you're going to hire anyone in a field you don't have experience in. On an objective level, it's not much different than, say, hiring someone to design and construct a building for you.

Put together as specific a description of what you want as you can, and post the job and/or talk to technical consulting firms and/or ask people you know and trust for recommendations. Ask candidates for resumes and references and credentials. Talk to the references and see what they thought of the work that was done for them. Verify the credentials and the info on the resumes. Talk to the ones that seem qualified, and pick the ones that you feel can best do the job. It's not foolproof, but having technical skills doesn't make it foolproof either...

 

[GasX]

Know any IT Consulting firms with a particular expertise in the vague realms of my description above?

 

[ahurtt]

Yes. The one I work for. But I don't want to abuse the message boards to plug my corporation. Suffice it to say this kind of stuff is the stuff we do. Whether or not we can help your wifes company depends on some factors such as the size of the engagement as we do not typically do small business engagements. If I cannot personally help you, we have business consultant professionals worldwide who can. If you are interested in more information, I can see what I can set up. What size company does your wife work for? How many employees?

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: ahurtt
Yes. The one I work for. But I don't want to abuse the message boards to plug my corporation. Suffice it to say this kind of stuff is the stuff we do. Whether or not we can help your wifes company depends on some factors such as the size of the engagement as we do not typically do small business engagements. If I cannot personally help you, we have business consultant professionals worldwide who can. If you are interested in more information, I can see what I can set up. What size company does your wife work for? How many employees?

Her company has only 5 employees at the moment, so perhaps we should focus on the consultants rather than your firm...

my e-mail is matt<at>mwilding.com

 

[thunderroller]

you will need to work a lot

 

[blahblah99]

Best way would be to contract out that job search to a hiring agency.