$500 per hour for coding up NFT contracts and building DeFi protocols. I offer discounts for longer engagements and projects based in India.
how did you get started in this?
Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?
101–110 of 115 posts
Re: Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?
#102Re: Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, there are a couple components to that: - Because of my focus in particular industries, I tend to start projects already having a baseline of understanding of what my customers need. - You can write a fixed price contract that leaves room for a customer to change their mind / not know what they want. If you articulate very clearly in the SOW what you will deliver for the fixed price, then you leave yourself open…
> Of course, you need to be careful how militant you are here, because issuing a change order for every minor thing won't help you get repeat business. Yep, I also find people don't notice the changes usually go both ways as well, where it's common that some requirements change a little or get dropped in a way that makes your life easier. It's great when both sides can be reasonable and non-adversarial about it all.…
For the arbitrary changes, I mean that I will sometimes add a clause along the lines of: "Includes a maximum of _ additional hours for work not already defined as part of the Deliverables." Where the number of hours is a very small percentage of the overall project estimate.
I find it's an easy way to give the customer more budget certainty upfront and offer some level of flexibility. So as the customer asks for something out-of-scope that's small, I can just draw down the hours pool instead of debating between issuing change orders and eating the cost. And then you have some form of contractual protection saying "oh hey, your 10 tweaks took up the entire pre-agreed contingency, it's time for a change order" which is a much easier conversation to have.
Re: Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, I'll usually do an initial phone consultation for free, but anything more expensive would be billed. The issue is that there is not usually a well-defined problem. There is a general goal that takes some iterations to accomplish, with the customer concocting new features and requirements as development progresses. Of course everyone says to build some padding into the schedule for that, but they think of expan…
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.
Re: Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?
#105Earlier 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…
In my experience, requirements gathering and obtaining project design consensus is a huge part of the value add from a consultant. (1) You're usually better at it than they are, because they're hiring a consultant in the first place. (2) You're outside of their political network, and can thus be a more neutral, objective arbiter. Invaluable! (3) You're looking at the problem with fresh eyes, whereas they're looking a…
Exactly. The Handyman's Invoice/$1000 Plumber joke is a positive anecdote from the standpoint of the service provider, but it's usually stated as something like "Step 1: Know your value," which is deceptively simple.
Re: Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never seen a project where the customer knew what they wanted clearly enough to have a SOW with a fixed scope. The work always expands. Maybe I've been doing something wrong. How are you doing during the pandemic, which makes in-person meetings and on-site work difficult?
Well, there are a couple components to that: - Because of my focus in particular industries, I tend to start projects already having a baseline of understanding of what my customers need. - You can write a fixed price contract that leaves room for a customer to change their mind / not know what they want. If you articulate very clearly in the SOW what you will deliver for the fixed price, then you leave yourself open…
Thanks, this is helpful. I will think about whether any of the stuff I've done could have been spec'd out that way.
Re: Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Holy cow, that is great, I had no idea that trainings paid so well. I taught a Python class for free which makes me think I could do traiinings. Was there a lot of specialized stuff in your Ruby trainings? I had figured doing that type of stuff got at best normal hourly rates. Maybe I should pursue this type of thing more.
Training speaks to the truism in consulting rates -- you can only command up to the value you deliver to the customer. With training, you're playing one of the strongest cards: delivering value to many people at the same time, where your time required scales sub-linearly with the number of people. Consequently, the more people, the more value to the customer, the more they can realistically pay you and still get good…
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 seen, you get paid like a classroom instructor, which is nowhere near as much as you would get as a dev. Clearly I've been looking in the wrong places. Heh.
Re: Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Training speaks to the truism in consulting rates -- you can only command up to the value you deliver to the customer. With training, you're playing one of the strongest cards: delivering value to many people at the same time, where your time required scales sub-linearly with the number of people. Consequently, the more people, the more value to the customer, the more they can realistically pay you and still get good…
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 where testimonials, referrals, previous track record, etc. come into play. Selling that version of you to a customer.
And granted, some of them won't ever be interested in that. They just want a Python trainer at minimum cost. But if you can afford to be choose and pass on opportunities, the higher end work is out there.
Re: Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?
#109I did a couple of Ruby trainings in last 6 months for $8000/day (2 total, so it was a bit more than $30k). I wrote a book (free, 400 page) about Ruby. I do it with my partner, I'm happy to pay 20% for all unrelated stuff (organizing, filling in gaps, communicating with people, etc).
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!
Re: Ask HN: What do you do and what's your consulting rate?
#110Dev Manager or Tech Lead - $150/hr for longer (3+ week) engagements, $225/hr for shorter ones. Focus is generally optimizing delivery + quality, which can take the form of anything from requirements gathering processes to testing pipelines or rebuilding trust. Fully remote in Maine.
Is there a market for a dev manager/tech lead for less than 6 months? Seems like a slow ramp long term engagement
More likely to be a tech lead in those cases, or to be helping hold the project together while they are hiring a full time resource. Also in certain cases the companies are so far from ideal states that a lot of good can be done in 6 months. Overall, I agree that most times it won't make sense for a company to plan on switching dev managers or tech leads after < 6 months, but again that assumes ideal conditions or options.