A highly creative, knowledgeable and passionate PHP lead programmer and architect available for a minimum three months contract

Dear Sir or Madam, Thank you for visiting my blog. My name is Ankur Agarwal and I am the co-founder of a small company called vEmployee in India. We are a team of highly skilled programmers who specialize in PHP web application development. LAMP, and especially PHP has been my passion for the last ten years, and that's what we're really good at compared to anybody else.

Since a blog is just a monologue, let me make some assumptions about you before I continue...

I am also assuming you are NOT...

You're not looking for a quick fix on your PHP web application. Because I don't accept consulting jobs less than three months (fulltime). While I'd be happy to help you with a quick fix if you are in trouble with your website, it would essentially imply that you will have a long-term assignment for me in the next few months or so. I'll do it for you to start a relationship. You're not looking for cheap labor. You'll find them plenty on the internet. You don't need me if you all you need is a junior programmer to help you with some simple apps, or may be just do simple coding under the close supervision of your local lead programmer.

If you are in a hurry, you can contact me by clicking on the button below. You can always come back later to read the full blog. Just remember to bookmark this page.

So let's move on. Let me tell you a little bit about myself first. I have been programming as a hobbyist for twenty five years. I started as a kid and my first computer was the BBC Micro. We used to write games in gwbasic and play them amongst ourselves. Hangman and some word games were my favourite.

My first professional break came some twelve years ago after I graduated from one of India's topmost colleges, Institute of Technology, BHU. I was picked up as a software engineer by Infosys Technologies, one of the largest and most prestigious IT firms in India, and now in the world.

It was at Infosys that I metamorphosed from a rookie programmer to a real professional. Fortunately my first client was a Japanese company. And Japanese are known for their discipline and quality control. Their standards are so high, much-much higher than what we Indians and Americans can ever imagine. If you've seen the movie, The Last Samurai, you'll understand what I'm talking about. There's a scene in this movie when Tom Cruise, who's in captivity of a Japanese war leader, wakes up early in the morning and sees that everybody in the village is out 'perfecting their craft'.

I was fortunate to start my career with Infosys, with a Japanese company as my first client. That laid the foundation of what I did subsequently and what I do now - running a PHP consulting firm. It gave me the discipline and persistence to start my first venture in which I holed up myself in my apartment for a year and single-handedly built an IP-based faxing product which was at par with what some of the leading software companies in US and Canada had built at that time with large teams and significantly bigger budgets.

I was introduced to the PHP programming language for the first time in around 2001. It was just in the initial stages, but already spreading in the developer community like wild fire. I loved the simplicity of the language because it let me focus on the business logic and user interface rather than the syntax. And it could do almost everything that other more complex languages could do. Although I still had to write my cron jobs in Perl ;)

I started vEmployee in around 2002. My goal was to build a team of talented programmers who share my passion for PHP programming language, writing usable and intelligent web applications and instil in them the same work ethics I learnt when working for the Japanese.

My philosophy was rewarded fairly quickly when I won the Skype developer competition, and my team's work was appreciated by Niklas Zenstrom, the CEO and Founder of Skype.

But the icing on the cake was when we won it again the next year! Even Meg Whitman, the CEO of eBay, appreciated and talked about us in the eBay Investor Presentation.

Over the years I have hand-picked some of the most talented programmers and built one of the best PHP teams ever. Just out of curiosity, few years ago I asked some of my team members to take the PHP brainbench test. You know, Brainbench is a global leader in knowledge, skill and ability assessment especially for programmers. I wanted to see where my team stacks up against other expert PHP programmers.

Three of them made it to the top 10 list. One of them reached the number 1 slot, and dominated that position for many years!

Let me tell you a little about our engagement model.

I work on a concept called Virtual Employee (hence the name vEmployee). When you hire one of my programmers, he will work with you like any other fulltime employee. The only difference would be, he will work remotely from my office in India.

For each programmer we require a minimum three months contract. It doesn't have to be a single 3-months project. Most of my clients who are software consulting firms usually stack up the programmers with a couple of projects simultaneously.

So this programmer will be your anchor for all your PHP programming needs. He will communicate with you on a daily basis on Skype or IM, discuss your requirements, architect solutions, and code the applications for you.

We use an online project management tool to manage all aspects of the project and communication. It's a really sophisticated application that allows my clients to track the various parts of the project and keep them updated in real time. Apart from tracking tasks and the project itself, programmers fill their daily timesheet here, as well as write their daily blogs.

Well, blogs are something really unique that we do. At the end of every day, the programmer sits down and mulls over what he has done and achieved that day. What options he faced and what solutions he considered. All that goes into a well written blog. It's like a journal which helps the individual reflect and grow from his own experience. It also helps the clients get into the minds of the programmer, sometimes just out of curiosity, and at other times to understand what's going on in his world.

I am a staunch believer of coding standards. Even when I used to code alone, my code was always impeccable. My team is as passionate about writing beautiful code. It not only helps to keep the code readable by other programmers when the team size grows, but it also results in efficient coding.

But if you ask me what is the one thing that really sets us apart, my answer would be Ideas Diary. This is a unique concept which we started a few years ago after studying why some of our clients were more successful than others. There's a long story behind it, but in a nutshell, every programmer in my team maintains a diary in which he notes down any idea that pops up in his mind. Anything that would make the client's business more successful. Ideas range from code and usability improvements to studying competitor websites and suggesting better features. The programmers immerse themselves in the client's business and act like growth consultants with the single aim of making their clients more successful. I think that is the main reason why my clients keep growing over the years and they continue to work with me much beyond the minimum three months contract. Some of my clients have been with me for over five years now.

There are a lot of other things that makes my team special. We'll discuss about it in more detail when we connect. Let me quickly wrap up by telling you what you can expect after you fill up the contact form.

As soon as we receive your inquiry, someone from my team will call you back. One of my non-technical staff monitors emails till about 5 PM (US Eastern Standard Time) and he will call back immediately if it's before then. Otherwise he will contact you the next morning.

If required, we will schedule a second call along with one of my PHP consultants to discuss about your requirements. If you need any technical suggestions, feel free to ask him. We may have to do a couple of calls to really understand your vision or requirements. An analyst may also be part of the call to document the vision.

After the first call with the PHP consultant, our sales manager would take you through a presentation that will give you more details. You will get a better understanding of what we do and how we do it. You will also get a chance to discuss rates and engagement period.

We will send you our portfolio which will give you an idea of the kind of web applications my team has built. We've done hundreds of apps, so if you'd like to see any specific kind of application, feel free to ask. We'll highlight them in the portfolio before sending.

If you want to check references please ask for a list of our clients. Feel free to email to call them.

We will then proceed to sign the agreement. As soon as the agreement is signed, and if the programmer is available immediately, we will introduce you to him. Billing starts only when the programmer starts working with you fulltime. Sometimes he may need time to understand your requirements and business so that he can be up and running from the first day of engagement.

I have also included testimonials of some clients below. Feel free to browse through them at your convenience.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.

Ankur Agarwal

CEO & Co-founder, vEmployee

Testimonials