5 ms·

$100 an hour, so $208k a year (assuming no time off), for a guy with 30+ years working on a critical system in an industry where floor traders can make 7-8 figu

$100 an hour, so $208k a year (assuming no time off), for a guy with 30+ years working on a critical system in an industry where floor traders can make 7-8 figures, and huge bonuses are paid to "analysts". I have plumber buddies that make more than that per hour (and with a crew can make more a year). That's why a couple years ago when I had access to a zseries, and was hearing about how "desperate" the banks were I took a look. What I discovered are salaries that are some of the lowest in the IT industry and a cynical attitude towards hiring. AKA, banks would rather pay $40k a year for a "system operator" which is generally the ground floor for learning anything about a mainframe than hire someone with a comp-sci degree and teaching them the system while promoting them. So, no thanks (you can fill in a less polite version), the banks can go to hell.

movedx 10y ago
Not sure if the $100/hour figure quoted is a hard and fast cash amount banks strictly adhere to, but ultimately this is business, so: set your price and walk away if it's not met. I set my price: AUD$850/day, with a TINY bit of wriggle room, and that's final. I know my worth (from a skills perspective and market/economical one.)
- fratlas 10y ago
  Inc. Super/GST?
  - movedx 10y ago
    No. I don't receive that, the government does. That goes on top. Edit: misread. GST is NOT included in the price; Super is my problem and comes out of the agreed daily rate.
- nstj 10y ago
  You could probably charge higher - this is at the mid range of many client side programmer daily rates in AU and systems skills like this are so much more critical.
  - movedx 10y ago
    Maybe. I'm a DevOp, not a coder. I could charge more.
- amorphid 10y ago
  That strategy works if you have enough demand for your skills, and you don't price yourself out.
  - movedx 10y ago
    If demand for your skills is waning and your daily rate is dropping, it's time to re-skill.
chx 10y ago
Yeah that was odd, already back in 2009 I was making 135K as a PHP sr developer/architect so I am not sure why six figures is such a big deal. This sort of stuff needs to be six figures where the first is at least 2 if not 3. If we are talking of an agency, it needs to bill 500 an hour and hand over half of that.
- braveo 10y ago
  You always have to take into account location. $100k/year in NY and Arkansas are completely different beasts. I've been online for many many years and I STILL do not understand why people miss this simple idea.
  - dllthomas 10y ago
    I see a lot of that, too. But I also see a different error, of treating cost of living as multiplicative. Once you are making noticably more than you are spending, earning 2x and spending 2x means you're keeping 2x.
ascendantlogic 10y ago
Do you really think they quoted the high end of what they make to the reporter for this story? I'm sure that's the very low end of what people make (think "junior" devs in this particular niche). I'd bet the higher end people easily make 2-4x that amount.
arca_vorago 10y ago
You hit the proverbial nail on the head here. I quit college to start an IT support company (back at the degree currently, data science is cool!) and later contracted for myself for a while, so I have seen the inside of all kinds of companies, from fortune 500 oil to 2 man law firms. The number one issues I have seen in the IT industry is lack of incentive, primarily in the form of salary, lack of respect, and lack of a C-level working on their behalf at the boardroom level. I know sysadmins who supported entire 200-250 person, 7 branch companies single-handedly, but get 40k, never had a budget, and got refused for hires and simple stuff like "hey, the cabling here is from the 1970's, we need a contractor to come in and recable the offices", and being told "no, you do it, at the same time you support the whole company, and no- you can't buy the TIA spec book." It's no wonder companies are hemoragging good IT talent left and right. If I could offer a single peice of advice to a company, it would be to create a CTO and CIO position if they don't exist, and get a good one who advocates on the behalf of the IT department. I see most of these issues as management failures first, not technical, so don't come crying about cobol to me.
ben010783 10y ago
Some people make over $100 an hour for this work, and some only do this part time. It's you're a retired programmer that just spends part of your time doing this, it's not a bad deal. I'll also throw in the counterpoint that you get taxed heavily on these earnings and you (usually) don't get benefits.
swalsh 10y ago
I found that to be a pretty low number too (for a consultant). It seems like given the value he's bringing, he should be able justify far higher prices. My own consulting rate is higher than that, and there's way more people with my skill set. One of the big differences is I work with companies that value code as an asset. It sounds like he's working with Banks which view code as a cost of doing business.
koffiezet 10y ago
I know a guy that bills at least 5000 eur/day (this is before taxes, so personally he doesn't see that much) for fixing Cobol stuff for financial institutions. And depending on the urgency, his rate goes up. He's retired, and works at most 2 or 3 months/year and lives a pretty normal life and lives in a very small house. His neighbors were pretty stunned when he bought himself a Tesla, his previous car was a Nissan Note... He told me he was usually called in for projects where they needed specific expertise when writing Java to interface with existing COBOL, or rewriting COBOL parts with Java and adapt other COBOL code to inter-operate with that. Apparently most COBOL stuff now runs in the JVM - which tought me: in 30 years, Java will be the new COBOL.

movedx 10y ago

Not sure if the $100/hour figure quoted is a hard and fast cash amount banks strictly adhere to, but ultimately this is business, so: set your price and walk away if it's not met. I set my price: AUD$850/day, with a TINY bit of wriggle room, and that's final. I know my worth (from a skills perspective and market/economical one.)

fratlas 10y ago
Inc. Super/GST?
- movedx 10y ago
  No. I don't receive that, the government does. That goes on top. Edit: misread. GST is NOT included in the price; Super is my problem and comes out of the agreed daily rate.
nstj 10y ago
You could probably charge higher - this is at the mid range of many client side programmer daily rates in AU and systems skills like this are so much more critical.
- movedx 10y ago
  Maybe. I'm a DevOp, not a coder. I could charge more.
amorphid 10y ago
That strategy works if you have enough demand for your skills, and you don't price yourself out.
- movedx 10y ago
  If demand for your skills is waning and your daily rate is dropping, it's time to re-skill.

chx 10y ago

Yeah that was odd, already back in 2009 I was making 135K as a PHP sr developer/architect so I am not sure why six figures is such a big deal. This sort of stuff needs to be six figures where the first is at least 2 if not 3. If we are talking of an agency, it needs to bill 500 an hour and hand over half of that.

braveo 10y ago
You always have to take into account location. $100k/year in NY and Arkansas are completely different beasts. I've been online for many many years and I STILL do not understand why people miss this simple idea.
- dllthomas 10y ago
  I see a lot of that, too. But I also see a different error, of treating cost of living as multiplicative. Once you are making noticably more than you are spending, earning 2x and spending 2x means you're keeping 2x.

ascendantlogic 10y ago

Do you really think they quoted the high end of what they make to the reporter for this story? I'm sure that's the very low end of what people make (think "junior" devs in this particular niche). I'd bet the higher end people easily make 2-4x that amount.

arca_vorago 10y ago

You hit the proverbial nail on the head here. I quit college to start an IT support company (back at the degree currently, data science is cool!) and later contracted for myself for a while, so I have seen the inside of all kinds of companies, from fortune 500 oil to 2 man law firms. The number one issues I have seen in the IT industry is lack of incentive, primarily in the form of salary, lack of respect, and lack of a C-level working on their behalf at the boardroom level. I know sysadmins who supported entire 200-250 person, 7 branch companies single-handedly, but get 40k, never had a budget, and got refused for hires and simple stuff like "hey, the cabling here is from the 1970's, we need a contractor to come in and recable the offices", and being told "no, you do it, at the same time you support the whole company, and no- you can't buy the TIA spec book." It's no wonder companies are hemoragging good IT talent left and right. If I could offer a single peice of advice to a company, it would be to create a CTO and CIO position if they don't exist, and get a good one who advocates on the behalf of the IT department. I see most of these issues as management failures first, not technical, so don't come crying about cobol to me.

ben010783 10y ago

Some people make over $100 an hour for this work, and some only do this part time. It's you're a retired programmer that just spends part of your time doing this, it's not a bad deal. I'll also throw in the counterpoint that you get taxed heavily on these earnings and you (usually) don't get benefits.

swalsh 10y ago

I found that to be a pretty low number too (for a consultant). It seems like given the value he's bringing, he should be able justify far higher prices. My own consulting rate is higher than that, and there's way more people with my skill set. One of the big differences is I work with companies that value code as an asset. It sounds like he's working with Banks which view code as a cost of doing business.

koffiezet 10y ago

I know a guy that bills at least 5000 eur/day (this is before taxes, so personally he doesn't see that much) for fixing Cobol stuff for financial institutions. And depending on the urgency, his rate goes up. He's retired, and works at most 2 or 3 months/year and lives a pretty normal life and lives in a very small house. His neighbors were pretty stunned when he bought himself a Tesla, his previous car was a Nissan Note... He told me he was usually called in for projects where they needed specific expertise when writing Java to interface with existing COBOL, or rewriting COBOL parts with Java and adapt other COBOL code to inter-operate with that. Apparently most COBOL stuff now runs in the JVM - which tought me: in 30 years, Java will be the new COBOL.