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What I don't get is why are the rates so different? Arguments like: uncertainty, getting clients is hard, certain overhead isn't paid, not always having work are all valid reasons. However, they don't seem to make sense for such a big difference. Based on those reasons, I'd suspect a 1.5x difference to be more reasonable, but in most cases it's like 2x to 4x.
What I don't get is why are the rates so different? Arguments like: uncertainty, getting clients is hard, certain overhead isn't paid, not always having work are all valid reasons. However, they don't seem to make sense for such a big difference. Based on those reasons, I'd suspect a 1.5x difference to be more reasonable, but in most cases it's like 2x to 4x.
I think I’m competing against FAAN[M]G full-time for these candidates and, until your question, never even thought to benchmark against day rates.
What I don't get is why are the rates so different? Arguments like: uncertainty, getting clients is hard, certain overhead isn't paid, not always having work are all valid reasons. However, they don't seem to make sense for such a big difference. Based on those reasons, I'd suspect a 1.5x difference to be more reasonable, but in most cases it's like 2x to 4x.
What I don't get is why are the rates so different? Arguments like: uncertainty, getting clients is hard, certain overhead isn't paid, not always having work are all valid reasons. However, they don't seem to make sense for such a big difference. Based on those reasons, I'd suspect a 1.5x difference to be more reasonable, but in most cases it's like 2x to 4x.
On the buying side, if I need a specialist wizard on a particular topic for a week for an acute problem, I can shop for skills and largely don’t care what they charge. I want my problem solved and whether it costs $10K or $20K to solve a wizard-scope problem, I literally don’t care so long as it gets fixed. I don’t calculate “well, sure they fixed my problem but I’m annoyed that they make $1M per year at these rates!!”
The primary way is to pay more. Technical skills are in a (global) marketplace, and right now it is a sellers marketplace. If demand outstrips supply, this is the natural path.
That said, if you can’t match the pay of the top bidders, you need to provide an environment they can’t or won’t, and how you go about this is specific to individual target developers.
Some things I might consider being worth accepting a lower offer - the range of things others will consider are different, and I’ll be interested to read the other responses to this thread as they come up!
- Be up front about pay and benefits. The number of times I’ve seen “competitive market rates!!11!!” in an ad only to discover they are absolutely nothing of the sort is simply infuriating, and I won’t engage with any recruiter that won’t give an up front range, and concrete measures of how to be at the top end of it.
- Don’t use third-party recruiters. This is variable by country, but in the UK recruiters have a _terrible_ reputation. I’ve personally blocked over 100 of them by email and phone, and as a rule do not respond to them.
- Don’t do “dog and pony show” interviews. If I have to write code on a whiteboard, or even in an editor live on a call, or look at an extensive take-home test (anything more than a 15-30 minute task), I’m highly likely to pass for anything except an a top shelf package at a company I’m highly motivated to work for.
- Eliminate barriers to work being done. I can’t count the number of places I’ve seen where developers spend more time in irrelevant meetings designed to boost the sense of importance of a B team middle manager than pairing, or even getting individual tasks done.
- Have an altruistic mission, or at least one aligned with the ethics of the candidate. If your business reduces to “invade privacy to sell ads”, I’d be unlikely to be interested even at top end rates. If it’s something less sociopathic, it may be worth a second look even if the explicitly stated salary range is lower.
- Don’t attempt to control employee behaviour outside of working hours. This includes open source contributions without getting tied up with legal review, and over-reaching IP agreements.
- Don’t expect me to go to an office, and have top notch IT support for remote employees, whether that’s VPNs that work without screwing about, or a BeyondCorp-type model. Others may want to go to an office, and it’s important to support both models. The days of “you must be in the office weekdays from 9-5” are gone though.
* Low distraction work. As an employer you minimize rituals and ceremonies for things like Agile. You also put out less operational email unless the engineer is dev ops specifically. No mandatory endless meetings except those specifically about business requirements. Don’t waste my time mentality.
* Offer challenging work. Will I be solving real problems? In exchange for increasing your revenue I, as an engineer, have increased my capabilities and advanced my skills and capabilities. I don’t want to dick around with your framework and circle-jerk some React nonsense or some excessive tool chain.
* Allow for initiative. As a senior engineer allow me the opportunity or flexibility to refactor code so that I can save you more money than I am worth. Allow me the freedom to devise new solutions that increase your potential commercial offerings or internal automation.
Those qualities also are what differentiate seniors from juniors. Just let me write good original code and hold me accountable for it. Given the choice that is what I, as a senior developer, want or else I will go somewhere that maximizes most pay against least effort.