Ask HN: How do you start contracting?

Source: Close to 20 years consulting at $150/hr.

Yes, usually in a hierarchy, 'leaders' get paid more.

But consultants and contractors are not hired for 'leadership' roles, so I'm a bit confused by that.

I started a new project and our DB guy was young, we were unsure of ourselves, so we hired some Oracle expert to help with that and they were expensive. So 1 or 2 days consulting on our project.

It could have been $1K an hour for all I know, it doesn't matter.

For short bits of key insight, high rates are not uncommon.

Corporate Lawyers will charge $1K/hour - but even then that's going to go to their interns, associates, overhead as well - it's a 'business' not just a person.

Also note that those rates tend to grow exponentially pas a certain point: someone who specializes in international law for mining and gas, who is needed 'right now' because of a flare up between SNC Lavalin and the Peruvian government, can bill $10K/hour etc..

There actually isn't that much of a difference between 'consulting' and 'contracting' but the later usually implies 'work' as opposed to 'expertise'.

If you are providing very specific knowledge that the company really needs to move forward, and the terms are fairly clear that they need it, then you can start billing much higher than contract rates. The bigger the influence (i.e. if it's affecting a giant, $100M contract), then the bigger the rate.

But for 'general leadership' ... that's a much harder thing to put into dollars.

There are folks who become “fixers” but they have a long history of being fixers and have usually worked in multiple different orgs achieving similar results regardless of org structure, strategy and cruft. It sounds like you are itching for such a career, but it requires starting somewhere. Many fixers also take full time leadership positions at the company for a period of time and then move on once the problem is fixed. The leadership position also gives you direct authority over the process and resources, which you will need as both likely need to be tweaked. That the project is failing is likely a combination of poor process and some bad apples, and both usually need fixing. It’s rarely that “everyone on the engineering team is incompetent.” Without the leader title you will not have the organizational authority to fire/hire or change process.

You may want to consider the offer of the leadership position seriously: The company sees the problem within itself, sees you as a fixer and is willing to hire you to do your magic. This is how you build your reputation in this market space. Give yourself three to five years to implement the changes, then move on to a different company with a different problem to fix. It’s also a great way to find out if you’re truly as awesome as you think you are :).

I suspect for many of us, the easiest to find would be what’s called “staff augmentation” - basically you get inserted into an existing team in some capacity, except you’re on a contract basis so not tied down, get to negotiate your terms, don’t get employee benefits etc etc

Such engagements are often quite stable and long term (some companies are even willing to make them open ended!)

The downside is that you have less leverage to set high rates (although I’ve been able to get pretty satisfactory ones), you don’t have as much flexibility because you’re expected to be a regular member of the team and work 9-5ish hours, and you don’t get to escape the corporate/teamwork setting as much (if that was what you were looking for going freelance)

The upside is that you have to find new clients way less often, but still have the freedom to switch around as often as you want if you get bored/want to hunt for better rates etc

Now what most ppl think of freelancing is doing a single project and then either finding another one with the client or needing to find another client (eg this is most of the work on upwork)

In my short consulting career I’ve not found such work (tho haven’t been looking either) and frankly am still nervous on whether I can deliver well in such a capacity without the support of anyone else as it may. And obviously you’ll have to hunt for clients way more often with such projects.

If you reply with your email I’m happy to answer any questions or help if I think I can