Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?

#111

Post by always_swapping » Fri, Feb 04, 2022, 6:24 PM UTC

FpUser wrote: post #58

always_swapping wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just starting out and I like your style. I would love to know more. My email is in my profile. - Young eng in the GTA

I was employed for 6 years at company in Toronto until 2000. The company was a consulting business oriented towards delivering complete solutions (products for clients). I saw their ad and just walked into their office. Chatted for a bit with the receptionist who'd also doubled as assistant to CEO got her interested to the point that she brought me to a CEO (company was very small by then). When they hired me, I very…

Very interesting path and hit the nail on the head: It really comes down to networking and lead development to consistently find jobs (especially the ones that you want to take!).

I have recently relocated to the GTA and pretty new to working on my own as I still only have one customer which I work for remotely. Now, the space I'm in is adjacent and overlapping to the typical coder-for-hire as I am more in the hardware/embedded/product end of things for the medical device industry (At least so far). However, all of these systems need code and infra to support them so I've gotten pretty apt with that. I'm looking to maybe go after IOT, Edge computing, product development. All of this aside, I've found that networking with other freelancers who are in complimentary spheres can be great since I've passed on a few jobs to colleges and vice versa. I don't really have a basis on the TO tech scene to know where to start.

With everything opening up post lock-down maybe we should grab coffee (or hot beverage of choice)!

Re: Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?

#112

Post by rhizome » Fri, Feb 04, 2022, 8:12 PM UTC

throwaway81523 wrote: post #104

rhizome wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard advice is that you're the one coming up with the list of tasks required to achieve an agreed upon goal, and concocted features to be added are a new, additional contract. Stick to your list, practice establishing boundaries. If you're just working on whatever their whims bring to the table on any given day and can't control the tasks and outcomes to which you've already agreed, you aren't a contractor, y…

> "Banging out code" is nothing special, yet here they are knocking at your door? They tend to want to pay pretty poorly in this situation.

Perhaps, but my point is that calling what one does in this situation "banging out code" is underselling and unfair to oneself.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?

#113

Post by ensemblehq » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 12:55 PM UTC

RomanPushkin wrote: post #109

ensemblehq wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any tips on structuring trainings? Would love to incorporate some trainings this year for data science/data engineering.

I follow "20 + 20 + break" approach. My father used it for 30+ years (professor of physics and CS). It means 20 minutes of theory, 20 minutes of practice, 10-minute break. It can be 25 + 25 + 5, or something along these lines. I never do more than 25. The bottom line is that people are getting bored after more than 20 minutes of theory. Good luck!

Thanks. How about topics? How do you choose which topics to cover? Or is this mostly led by clients?

Re: Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?

#114

Post by throwaway81523 » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 7:43 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #108

throwaway81523 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I haven't been looking at it the right way. I had figured you either had to train in a specialized area or have a slick presentation and pitch. The office probably gets a 25% productivity boost from having coffee delivered, and that boost is worth millions, but the coffee delivery person certainly can't charge proportionately to the value added. I had figured training was about the same way: in the gigs I've se…

The coffee person can't charge proportionately because coffee delivery is oversupplied with potential vendors. Look at training that way. You're not going to make a high rate if you're "a Python instructor", because there's quite a few of those. You will if you're "the you Python instructor", and the customer thinks you're worth that rate, because having their people trained by you is worth the premium. And that's wh…

Thanks, yeah, that puts it pretty well. Having packaged course materials, videos, and a bit of celebrity status has to help too. I'm glad this is working out for some people, but it's probably not the right thing for me to be pursuing since I'm pretty low profile these days.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?

#115

Post by RomanPushkin » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 2:29 AM UTC

ensemblehq wrote: post #113

RomanPushkin wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I follow "20 + 20 + break" approach. My father used it for 30+ years (professor of physics and CS). It means 20 minutes of theory, 20 minutes of practice, 10-minute break. It can be 25 + 25 + 5, or something along these lines. I never do more than 25. The bottom line is that people are getting bored after more than 20 minutes of theory. Good luck!

Thanks. How about topics? How do you choose which topics to cover? Or is this mostly led by clients?

I'd say mostly led by clients. But both of them were Ruby crash courses. Pretty much from nothing to getting up to speed in two days.