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Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

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Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#291

Post by ehnto »

birdyrooster wrote: post #146
ehnto wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Venture Capital and FANG pay obscene money because their business models can afford to, they just happen to be powered by software. The actual work of software development isn't somehow worth more to society than your average white collar job, at least in my opinion. It's just another job, and it would be better for the world if the pay came down rather than everywhere get inflated, so that software could thrive in o…

In order for pay to come down it must be inflated first so that people are motivated to saturate the open positions.

I think you are right. I also wonder how many people will still be interested in software after it stops being associated with big money and startup culture.

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#292

Post by dhx »

airbreather wrote: post #286
dhx wrote: post #284

In Australia, the most common scenario is a "contractor" being a borrowed casual employee from a labour hire company and the worker gets paid per hour worked whilst being able to work 40 hours per week until the end of a project (typical durations being between 1 to 3 years). This is generally a better arrangement than being a permanent employee because: 1. Your leave (that most people can never use as they aren't si…

"The second type of "contractor" is where a services business is established that has numerous clients and/or may hire employees or engage subcontractors, accepts risk for work completed, carries a variety of insurances, manages more complex finances, performs a significant degree of business development to find more clients, etc." Yeah so in private small/medium general engineering (eg electrical, mechanical, safety…

Page 54 of a Professionals Australia report [1] despite the low sampling size and less reliable methodology mirrors your comment that engineering contractor rates are much lower than ICT contracting rates in Australia.

I'm a qualified engineer in Australia and amongst those who graduated at the same time as me, almost all of them are working in the ICT field. That is where the demand for workers is, and probably the main reasons driving ICT salaries and contract rates higher.

Defence sector engineers also seem to have high rates on par with the ICT field for various reasons including high barriers of entry (Australian citizenship for starters), high levels of federal government investment and little effort expended in training people to join the sector. There are Civil Engineering degrees offered everywhere, but not widespread "Design some ships for the Navy" degrees.

For the mining boom starting about 2010, engineering was highly sought after but was mostly conducted by engineering firms in Europe, America, etc due to the lack of experienced workers in Australia (partly resulting from a massive lull in investment in preceding years). Given that exploration investment is currently at record highs, perhaps engineers with mining industry experience could again be in high demand soon. Engineering related to the renewable energy sector I assume would also be starting a boom cycle too.

The cooling effect on engineering as a profession though I think is the use of standards and resulting cookie-cutter approach of clients being able to almost get the point of saying "Give me an AS/ISO 1234 bridge" or "Give me an AS/ISO 5678 substation". Hence there is not a significant amount of original nor complex engineering performed for most projects, rather, it is performing minor tweaks to existing standard designs. Then there is seemingly more supply for engineering services than there is demand for the services, and qualified engineers end up performing non-engineering roles such as project management and sales within the engineering sectors.

[1] https://members.professionalsaustralia.org.au/documents/Engi...

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#293

Post by swader999 »

xcambar wrote: post #211
swader999 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, I've never seen a benefit package that gets me excited. With our health care system here, the FTE jobs are a lot less compelling vs the contractor route. About 1/20 that go the FTE equity route seem to hit the jackpot.

Freelancing is as stressful as it can get. No matter where you are an FTE, freelance will get you much further in terms of stress.

I gain security and confidence in my employment by knowing the code base, the stack and the business domain. I pick projects that are core to the success of the company. In twenty five years, I was only laid off once and in that case, 18 of 20 were let go in 2008 when an engineering firm lost all their work.

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#295

Post by ukoki »

dmje wrote: post #166

Everyone here is so incredibly focused on money as the primary motivator, which I guess given the thread question makes some sense. But I'd like to just put in a little word for money not being everything, and client type / work type actually being a really important part of the equation. HN is a forum where increasingly I see posts every single day about the high level of misery in tech / how can I get out of this r…

I think it's tempting to think that higher day rates equate to longer hours and a less cordial and more stressful work environment, but this hasn't been my personal experience as my day rates have grown over the years. I think this is a combination of:

* Your rates themselves are a signalling mechanism to clients of the level of expertise and professionalism you will bring -- how closely would you scrutinise the work of a plumber who quoted £100/hour compared to one asking for minimum wage?

* You are filtering for clients that believe "quality comes at a price", a belief they likely apply in other areas as well. So you're more likely working with competant people who enjoy generous benefits, with managers who care about providing a pleasant working environment for their direct reports.

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#296

Post by wuschel »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #251
dmje wrote: post #166

Everyone here is so incredibly focused on money as the primary motivator, which I guess given the thread question makes some sense. But I'd like to just put in a little word for money not being everything, and client type / work type actually being a really important part of the equation. HN is a forum where increasingly I see posts every single day about the high level of misery in tech / how can I get out of this r…

From my experience in management consulting, it’s more industry related than rate related. Clients in finance tend to be assholes even when you are cheap. The field just tolerates it. Similarly, industrial customers are used to be put under a lot of pressure regarding costs and delays and will treat you as they are used to be treated. Here is my trick: if you want to work in a nice environment, choose a job in an env…

Now I am curious: what kind of environment have you experienced to be nice?

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#297

Post by dmje »

trhoad wrote: post #187
dmje wrote: post #166

Everyone here is so incredibly focused on money as the primary motivator, which I guess given the thread question makes some sense. But I'd like to just put in a little word for money not being everything, and client type / work type actually being a really important part of the equation. HN is a forum where increasingly I see posts every single day about the high level of misery in tech / how can I get out of this r…

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but it's easy to say money isn't everything when you're already earning £120k/$140k pa.

Ha, sadly that's not how a (my) day rate works. I am very comfortable, but take home maybe £60k p/a. It's a very nice salary for me, but in the world of many it's not huge :-)

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#298

Post by rrgok »

joshmanders wrote: post #219
rco8786 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing. Any oncall type of work? What if things go down at 3am?

Nothing I do is on-call worthy. I may build the product but I don't run the product after it's built.

Just be clear, $10K/week only for you or for your whole company time (aniftyco.com)?

Re: Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?

#300

Post by muzani »

trhoad wrote: post #187
dmje wrote: post #166

Everyone here is so incredibly focused on money as the primary motivator, which I guess given the thread question makes some sense. But I'd like to just put in a little word for money not being everything, and client type / work type actually being a really important part of the equation. HN is a forum where increasingly I see posts every single day about the high level of misery in tech / how can I get out of this r…

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but it's easy to say money isn't everything when you're already earning £120k/$140k pa.

That is literally their point - past a certain rate, you should be optimizing for something other than pay.
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