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Are you an underpaid developer?

blog.goodsense.io

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Re: Are you an underpaid developer?

#5
Salaried positions do include benefits packages, and in the US, the health insurance can be expensive or impossible for certain people to get. That said, if you know of one of those $124 freelance jobs in LA...

Re: Are you an underpaid developer?

#7
SV here as well, independent contractor. 190k a year, ~6 years of experience, was making ~120k 3 years ago, ~40k a year 4 years ago.

Contracts are remote, so I could leave but choose not to for various reasons.

Starting a product and services company soon for developers (the customers) based on the schleps I've encountered. Just need to wrap up the current contract...

Re: Are you an underpaid developer?

#8
I'm a bit higher than average for freelance hourly. I'm thinking about getting more into "charging by value" (as opposed to hourly) because I get a lot of resistance to raising my rate even as I get faster - but I'm not really certain how to do this since I tend to have long-term relationships with my clients and my work generally doesn't tend to have clear start/finish boundaries. Curious to hear if anyone has figured out a way around that.

Re: Are you an underpaid developer?

#9
There is no such thing as an underpaid developer. The key skill is in recognizing your value as measured by the market. And to find that out, you need to test the waters. If you aren't testing the waters, you aren't underpaid (because you've restricted your scope to just the current firm, and are getting the only market price available)

This is a real problem in finance, where a lot of people think they are worth more because they add a lot of value when in fact they only add value to the current firm. Put them elsewhere and they won't necessarily add any value.

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