4 ms·

>(which is conservative if you include benefits, etc.) I've never been able to figure out how my employer says I cost them $280 per hour.

what_ever 10y ago
$280/hour is $280 * 40 * 52 = 582400/year btw. I think your figures are off.
- johnward 10y ago
  I need to bill out at an amount higher that that to be profitable to the company. They don't pay me anything near that.
  - NikolaNovak 10y ago
    Depends what you do. If you are client-facing consultant, your billable rate is paying: - Your salary - Your benefits - Your expenses (travel, per diem, equipment, software, anything else) - And then... Salary, benefits, expenses of all your NON-client-facing teammates: Salespeople, marketing, management, client relationship, administrative, HR, etc. So as a consultant, you are the product, and as such have to be sold at a price that nets enough profit to pay for rest of the organization. Normally when they say "you cost $150/hour", what they mean is, "you, and all the support framework behind you, needs to be billed at $150/hour to pay off". Hope that helps. If you're in-house developer and not client-facing, it's harder to understand and justify cost figures, but typically would be nowhere near that rate...
paulddraper 10y ago
Are you burning $50s? Or maybe just really, really bad at your job?
pkaye 10y ago
Maybe it is because you are burning $20 bills every 5 minutes at work!? They have been trying to make you stop for a long time.
clifanatic 10y ago
It's that extra piece of coal you insist on burning.
matchagaucho 10y ago
Are the stock options involved based on unicorn valuations?
hinkley 10y ago
Because your boss has no billable hours. Nor his boss, nor the boss above him. The front desk guy, the lady in accounting, the payroll people, facilities, most of the IT folk. You need one of each these people for every N developers (different value of N for different classes of service). Therefore the cost of having you includes the 1/N cost of each of these people.
guiambros 10y ago
If you're working on a service organization, your rate is defined by: Billable hour = salary cost + benefits + G&A + overhead Where: - Salary cost = gross salary / 1800 (or whatever # hours/yr your company uses) - Benefits = proportional cost of vacation, 401K, etc - G&A = General expenses and admin (office, equipment, free food, etc) - Overhead = amount needed to cover everyone else who isn't billable (HR, Finance, IT, assistants, President, etc) If you do the math, you'll see $200-300 is a standard rate in high cost markets (NYC, SFO) for someone with a six-digit figure. More junior positions are ~$150, while very senior roles (Partner, Director, etc) would be in the $300-500 range.

what_ever 10y ago

$280/hour is $280 * 40 * 52 = 582400/year btw. I think your figures are off.

johnward 10y ago
I need to bill out at an amount higher that that to be profitable to the company. They don't pay me anything near that.
- NikolaNovak 10y ago
  Depends what you do. If you are client-facing consultant, your billable rate is paying: - Your salary - Your benefits - Your expenses (travel, per diem, equipment, software, anything else) - And then... Salary, benefits, expenses of all your NON-client-facing teammates: Salespeople, marketing, management, client relationship, administrative, HR, etc. So as a consultant, you are the product, and as such have to be sold at a price that nets enough profit to pay for rest of the organization. Normally when they say "you cost $150/hour", what they mean is, "you, and all the support framework behind you, needs to be billed at $150/hour to pay off". Hope that helps. If you're in-house developer and not client-facing, it's harder to understand and justify cost figures, but typically would be nowhere near that rate...

paulddraper 10y ago

Are you burning $50s? Or maybe just really, really bad at your job?

pkaye 10y ago

Maybe it is because you are burning $20 bills every 5 minutes at work!? They have been trying to make you stop for a long time.

clifanatic 10y ago

It's that extra piece of coal you insist on burning.

matchagaucho 10y ago

Are the stock options involved based on unicorn valuations?

hinkley 10y ago

Because your boss has no billable hours. Nor his boss, nor the boss above him. The front desk guy, the lady in accounting, the payroll people, facilities, most of the IT folk. You need one of each these people for every N developers (different value of N for different classes of service). Therefore the cost of having you includes the 1/N cost of each of these people.

guiambros 10y ago

If you're working on a service organization, your rate is defined by: Billable hour = salary cost + benefits + G&A + overhead Where: - Salary cost = gross salary / 1800 (or whatever # hours/yr your company uses) - Benefits = proportional cost of vacation, 401K, etc - G&A = General expenses and admin (office, equipment, free food, etc) - Overhead = amount needed to cover everyone else who isn't billable (HR, Finance, IT, assistants, President, etc) If you do the math, you'll see $200-300 is a standard rate in high cost markets (NYC, SFO) for someone with a six-digit figure. More junior positions are ~$150, while very senior roles (Partner, Director, etc) would be in the $300-500 range.