Twilio, a provider of software that enables developers to build voice and SMS applications, has announced a partnership with oDesk, an online employment platform, to connect developers with projects.
The partnership extends Twilio’s Developer Connect program and makes it easier for members of the Twilio developer community to find contract software development work. Indeed, oDesk has created an official Twilio group that connects project owners with Twilio’s developers.
“Twilio is committed to helping developers in our community find opportunities to utilize their technical expertise to make money solving people’s problems,” Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio, said in a statement. “We’re also committed to providing businesses access to the technical resources they need to complete their Twilio-powered projects. We have partnered with oDesk because they have a powerful platform for facilitating these connections.”
The partnership benefits end customers because businesses looking to build Twilio-powered applications can reach Web developers with the experience and technical skills they need by posting a job to the new Twilio oDesk group. Project owners can find developers who have expertise with a specific technology platform or industry experience they are looking for.
For developers, oDesk offers tools to find new projects, apply to work on them and get paid for successfully completed work. oDesk takes care of all of the project management tasks like tracking time worked, reporting back to the project owner and collecting the payments once a project is complete.
“oDesk does a great job of increasing visibility between developers and project owners,” John Sheehan, lead developer evangelist at Twilio, said in a statement. “For example, oDesk provides a developer’s complete work history-including ratings for past work-so that you know you can trust the person you hire for your project. Using oDesk’s visual timesheets you are able to verify and pay for only the time spent working.”
Twilio is reinventing telecom by merging the worlds of cloud computing, Web services and telecommunications. Twilio hosts a telephony infrastructure Web service in the cloud, allowing Web programmers to integrate phone calls and SMS messages into their applications. Twilio’s API minimizes the learning curve required to build advanced, reliable communications applications, and its pay-as-you-go pricing model means customers pay for capacity only when they need it, not before, Twilio officials said.
oDesk claims to be the world’s largest and fastest-growing global employment platform. With $18 million in work performed every month, and nearly 1.5 million tested-and-rated contractors offering their services, oDesk enables any business to hire, manage and pay a flexible online workforce, including Web developers, writers, designers, administrative assistants and more. oDesk’s solution guarantees employers that an hour billed is an hour worked and guarantees contractors that an hour worked is an hour paid, the company said.