I Just Need a Programmer

· 4 min read
A napkin with a sketched app idea next to a laptop

“I just need a programmer.” It is one of the most common things non-technical founders, small business owners, and project sponsors say. It is almost always followed by a description of an idea — sometimes a good one — and an implicit assumption that translating that idea into working software is the straightforward part.

This essay is about why that assumption is wrong, what “I just need a programmer” actually entails when you unpack it, and how to think about building software if you are the person with the idea and not the person who writes the code.

The Word “Just” Is Doing Heavy Lifting

“Just” implies that the programming is a minor task. A commodity. Like needing a plumber to connect a pipe — call someone, they do the thing, you pay them, done.

But software is not plumbing. A more accurate analogy: you have a sketch of a building on a napkin and you are looking for “just” an architect, structural engineer, general contractor, electrician, plumber, inspector, and someone to maintain the building after it is built. The napkin sketch is the easy part.

When someone says “I just need a programmer,” what they usually need is:

  • Someone to turn vague requirements into specific, implementable features
  • Someone to design the data model, API, and user interface
  • Someone to write the code
  • Someone to test it across devices, browsers, and edge cases
  • Someone to deploy it and set up hosting, domains, and SSL
  • Someone to maintain it — fix bugs, update dependencies, handle security patches
  • Often: someone to tell them which parts of their idea are technically impractical

That is not one job. It is five or six jobs, and the programming is maybe 30% of the total effort.

The Specification Gap

The biggest hidden cost is not coding. It is figuring out what to code. Most ideas arrive as high-level descriptions: “It’s like Uber but for dog walkers” or “I need a website where customers can schedule appointments and pay online.”

Those descriptions sound complete. They are not. A scheduling system alone raises dozens of decisions: What time zones do you support? Can customers cancel? How far in advance? Is there a cancellation fee? Who sends the reminders — email, SMS, both? What happens when two customers book the same slot? How does the calendar sync with the provider’s existing schedule?

Each of those questions has a right answer for your specific business. A programmer cannot guess those answers. They need to be told, and arriving at the answers requires product thinking — understanding the user, the market, and the business model. That is product management, not programming.

The Real Cost

Software projects fail more often than they succeed. The Standish Group’s CHAOS reports have tracked this for decades — roughly 70% of software projects fail to meet their original goals in terms of time, budget, or scope. The primary cause is not bad code. It is bad requirements, scope creep, and unrealistic expectations.

If you are budgeting for “a programmer,” you are probably budgeting 20–40% of what the project actually costs. The rest goes to design, testing, project management, infrastructure, and the inevitable scope changes that happen when you see the first working version and realize it is not quite what you imagined.

A rough rule of thumb: take your initial estimate for how much the programming will cost, then multiply by three. That is closer to the real total when you include everything.

What Works Instead

If you genuinely have an idea and want to build it:

Start with a prototype, not a product. Use no-code tools, mockups, or a very simple first version to validate the idea before investing in custom software. You learn more from showing people a clickable prototype than from describing your vision.

Write down the requirements in detail. Not “I need a booking system” but a document that describes every screen, every user action, every edge case you can think of. This exercise alone will reveal how much you don’t yet know about your own product.

Budget for the full lifecycle. Development is not a one-time cost. Software needs maintenance, hosting, updates, and bug fixes. Plan for ongoing costs from day one.

Hire for judgment, not just skill. The best programmer for your project is not necessarily the fastest coder. It is the one who asks the right questions, pushes back on bad ideas (including yours), and builds something maintainable rather than something that works once.

The Bottom Line

If you have an idea and “just need a programmer,” you are at the beginning of a process, not near the end. The idea is the seed. The programmer is one member of the team that turns it into something real. Respecting the complexity of that process — and budgeting for it honestly — is the difference between a project that ships and one that joins the 70%.