What skills/knowledge are needed to write a plugin?

Question

I'm not a sofware programmer, so I would need to hire someone else to write a plugin. What skills should I be looking for when hiring someone? Is PHP programming the only skill required?

Also, I know this is a vague question, but how many hours might I expect a programmer with the required skills to need to develop a typical plugin (not simple but not super complex)?

Maybe if some of the people who have already written plugins could respond with how many hours it took, that would be useful reference information.

Answer 1

php and mysql knowledge is required to write a plugin. Just hire a expert and ask him for the quotation for your plugin.