Are those pre-tax and post-tax numbers correct? That's a tax rate of almost 50%, which sounds nuts.
You should definitely be getting more than 37 USD/hour as a contractor. That's wildly low.
My salary as a full-stack developer
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Re: My salary as a full-stack developer
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
IME if location is a factor, it's usually a different of 10-15%, so it's not like you're making $200k in SF and $80k in Ohio. More like 200k in SF and 180k in Ohio. YMMV of course.
I think it can range to a lot more than that. I make 400k as a senior eng in a big tech company in the Bay Area with 6 years of experience. I don’t think I’d make 340k-360k in low cost of living areas.
Yeah, you'd be looking at 80 - 100 here in TN. You might be able to get 150, but if you only have 6 years of experience you probably wouldn't be considered senior here either.
Re: My salary as a full-stack developer
#43You are paid a pittance (assuming US). I have 4 YOE and earn 1.5x your hourly rate, and I don't live in a coastal state. (disclaimer: I'm only backend; I don't know which way that should sway things).
Re: My salary as a full-stack developer
#4450% tax? Where do you file taxes?
50% effective at $72k/yr. I genuinely cannot figure out the geography for this.
Candyland, maybe. There's no jurisdiction in the world that I am aware of where you can both 1) be a remote developer, 2) pay a 50% effective rate on $6k/mo. Even marginal rate is pushing it for that low of an income.
Re: My salary as a full-stack developer
#45Is my salary fine or should I ask more? I feel like I should ask more. Would be helpful to hear about your salary and hourly price?
Toptal salaries for Sr. software engineer range between 41/hr and 75/hr gross, so I think yours should fall within that range. https://www.glassdoor.sg/Salary/Toptal-US-Salaries-EI_IE8820... Edit: See also X-team salaries: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/X-Team-Salaries-E1274500.ht... between 40/hr and 60/hr.
Toptal gets away with massively underpaying Sr Devs by hiring them from relatively cheap countries where that money goes a long way.
A US-based Sr Dev contractor working remotely, making 75/hr, is being massively ripped off if they're capable of working with any even remotely commercially viable technology.
Re: My salary as a full-stack developer
#46If you are paid hourly and it is that low why on earth would you want to be a contractor?
Re: My salary as a full-stack developer
#47To put things in perspective, based on recent experience my company has had getting specialists with 15-20 years of technical experience to work on a fixed-term contract (anything from 6 weeks to 6+ months), $250/hr would be considered a steal.
Usually the buyer company paying this rate is paying for immediacy in addition to the expertise and there’s an agency or consulting company taking a spread, as a market maker would, for providing this immediacy.
Re: My salary as a full-stack developer
#48Is my salary fine or should I ask more? I feel like I should ask more. Would be helpful to hear about your salary and hourly price?
Which country are you in?
Which country is your client in?
Your salary would be low in most markets for software developers.
Re: My salary as a full-stack developer
#49To put things in perspective, based on recent experience my company has had getting specialists with 15-20 years of technical experience to work on a fixed-term contract (anything from 6 weeks to 6+ months), $250/hr would be considered a steal.
Any details? :)
Depends on what you want to know. Of course my company isn't looking for cheap coders to replace full-time employees without having to pay any benefits, but that is sadly how most vendor/contractor relationships in the industry work today.
The author of the post is a full-time employee, despite what he is (possibly illegally) classified as. He should be negotiating as such.
Re: My salary as a full-stack developer
#50I think it's pathetic to moan about your salary in some Hacker News plea for sympathy.
It's a free market, there's a million job ads, recruiters and what else. If you are worth $500k/year, you'll get $500k/year. If you can't take $500k/year either coze you're incapable of putting up with the job requirements or you're just incompetent in general, that's entirely on you.
You're not starving. Just penible.