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Super cool, I've been thinking a little about this for CV rather than NLP. One thing that gave me the idea is I (the company I worked for, at the direction of m

Super cool, I've been thinking a little about this for CV rather than NLP. One thing that gave me the idea is I (the company I worked for, at the direction of me) engaged an outside expert on a particular ML domain. It wasn't a freelancer, but just someone at a major company who did some cool stuff. I approached them, told them about what issue we were having, and engaged them for a 50 hour contract @ $500/hr. Completely worth it, but looking at your rates maybe we super overpaid. Not that it matters, but just an interesting data point and got me thinking about freelancing purposely if those are the rates. Thanks for sharing your experience.

gk1 6y ago
You didn’t overpay; OP is severely undercharging. $150-200/hr is freelance marketer manager territory. As an aside, this is one of several reasons I think charging an hourly rate is bad for business: You immediately get compared to other freelancers based on this arbitrary number rather than your abilities.
- ganstyles 6y ago
  I was just reflecting on the rate before you posted and realized OPs rates are around what I made in base salary, plus I get the benefit of things like health insurance, equity, etc. I think I would consider freelance for $500/hr, but $150-200/hr seems low for all the risk, for me personally. But I could see doing it depending on whether I really just enjoyed the freelance lifestyle and didn't have to live in an expensive locale.
  - qu4ku 6y ago
    Working for a rate that you would get full-time is non-sustainable as a contractor.
  - Avalaxy 6y ago
    If anyone is reading this and considers $150 per hour "low", do reach out to the email in my profile. Here in the Netherlands the going rate for a AI engineer is more around $90, so I'd be happy to pick up the work.
    - Ididntdothis 6y ago
      I have almost never seen such a thing. The $500/hr freelancer are probably the same category as the $500k programmers. They exist but are quite rare.
      - zerr 6y ago
        Most senior devs at FNG reach 500k and beyond (US and London).
        nnoitra 6y ago
        For U.S. I understand, but do you have any official info that seniors make 500K of total comp in London?
        slap 6y ago
        Definitely not in London
        zerr 6y ago
        Yes, in London. Facebook is actively poaching devs from the finance sector.
    - j_autumn 6y ago
      I know right? 40$/h FTE here. Not an AI engineer though.
    - unishark 6y ago
      If you look at the person's bio on their website, they have a phd and have written multiple books on the topic, plus have been an invited speaker and regular at conferences in the area. They went to work at a company doing the same specialization, then went out on their own. This is about how to cash in on being a well-known contributor in a very hot niche area. Given all that, I feel like they are still just selling their skills for short term cash while others make the real money off what they produce. As always with contracting.
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    As a general rule to consider freelance you should make at least twice as much per hour as you do full-time employee to make up for the instability of the job. This calculation of course changes in times of instability such as now, I don't think there is any freelance job I could be offered right now that would tempt me to quit my current job - of course it is also unlikely I would get offered twice hourly given my current salary is pretty high up for my region.
    - 1024core 6y ago
      A FTE costs (to the company) way more than their salary; an easy rule of thumb is to double it. The salary cost does not include things like the cost of providing an office, retirement matching, health insurance, etc. etc. If a typical ML engineer makes $250K/year, she costs the company about $500K/year; that means the hourly rate should be at least $250/hr.
      - ledauphin 6y ago
        I've heard this rule of thumb and can't make it make any sense. My company's contribution to my health insurance and retirement doesn't come anywhere near 25% of my salary, and there's simply no way my office space costs more than $500/mo for my share of it.
        semanticist 6y ago
        Plus your share of the HR and internal IT teams, and any other part of the company that doesn't exist to service end users/external customers. It's only a rule of thumb, it doesn't need to be exact, and the more you earn the less accurate it gets.
        EduardoBautista 6y ago
        I wouldn't consider a huge overestimate to be a "rule of thumb".
        mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
  - pedrosorio 6y ago
    400k base salary? Nice. As an individual contributor?
- ScottFree 6y ago
  What's $50/hr then? College student frontend web developer? :)
  - nnoitra 6y ago
    They are BSing.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- mrfusion 6y ago
  Are you a charge by the day person?
  - gk1 6y ago
    By the month.
147 6y ago
How did you find that person at a major company that did cool stuff? Was it through your network or their blog or ?
- ganstyles 6y ago
  Surprisingly, they created a piece of OSS we considered using, but was directly related to our problem.
ma2rten 6y ago
What did they do for you exactly? Did they continue working at the major company while they were working on your project?
nvilcins 6y ago
New to freelancing, and while I get the hustle and pricing according to the value for the client, it's still hard to wrap my head around people charging 500$/h+. Like, what is the value an AI contractor can deliver in ~50h that easily justifies spending 25k (and without much prior knowledge about the product, systems in place, etc.). Honest question, trying to understand the game.
- bitL 6y ago
  Automating away 100 people in some repetitive cognitive task for example.
- twomoretime 6y ago
  Cutting edge applied ML can do things that previously could only be done by humans. You're generating potentially unprecedented insights into your data because neural networks pick up on what I call "nonlinear" correlations - stuff that is missed with typical first order statistics like averages and skews and such. So basically ML when done right is enormously valuable because it horizontally extends the reach of computation into previously humanlike domains. But the caveat is that it's hard to do ML right. You need very much to be a generalist, an autodidact (to quickly learn the nature of the domain you're operating in) and I think a background in math and/or physics, or at least some other quantitative field is indispensable. You can do a hell of a lot more with neural networks than sort cat pictures or target ads.
- cambalache 6y ago
  That is about 1 month cost of an average Engineer at a big company. So as longs as the freelancer provide as much as value as your average employee in 1 monh the company is doing a good decision. It is even better because the expertise of the freelancer tends to be high.
  - jorvi 6y ago
    $500 per hour, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week gives $20k a week, $80k a month or (let's be charitable and say you earn a $40k bonus) $1 million a year. I don't know what the split between benefits and pure salary is in America, but let's put it at 2/3. Does the average engineer at a big corp really pull in $666.000 a year..?
hogFeast 6y ago
It is funny that you think you overpaid. Small company mentality. The right person's time can be worth tens of thousands per hour. The question isn't what you paid but what you got in return (most companies function by vastly overpaying the 95% of average people they employ, and underpaying the competent 5% who don't know their value or will move onto better things soon).
- tensor 6y ago
  There is almost no one that is worth tens of thousands per hour. Most "big companies" overpay for people with fancy titles that produce a lot of noise but not a lot of output. Small companies have no choice but to be highly efficient and that's why they have lower levels of pay inequality. Chances are that 95% of people is what is bringing in 95% of the value of your company.
  - nevertoolate 6y ago
    Agreed, if the top contributors fell in the 95% bucket :) Imo EVERY senior/principal engineer is underpayed if compared to juniors based on contribution value. And this is OK
  - exolymph 6y ago
    > There is almost no one that is worth tens of thousands per hour. Sure, but there are plenty of business problems worth solving even if it takes millions. You're not paying for the person, you're paying for someone to solve your problem.
    - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
      A couple years ago I was approached for a consulting job for a company using DSSSL with some arbortext extensions for generating their user manuals, I was unfortunately already committed on a project, darn the luck. I don't know who they found to take the task, but I have to assume they charged them quite a lot because you're just not going to find very many people to solve that particular problem. Certainly not 10000 per hour, but a significant amount given the Danish market.
wdb 6y ago
As contractor as I was charging £650/day and I thought that was a nice daily rate but $500/hr that's nice. Guess, the ML domain pays well
- Avalaxy 6y ago
  It doesn't. Outside of this HN bubble I have literally never ever met anyone that made such rates with ML.
  - ganstyles 6y ago
    In my experience it very much does, depending on what you're doing I guess. Levels.fyi under the Data Scientist tab seems to verify that this isn't some bubble thing. Well, bubble maybe, but not HN bubble.
    - Avalaxy 6y ago
      Sorry but I have never heard of "levels.fyi". TBH the domain already looks like a typical silicon valley HN-bubble website. Don't you think there is a massive selection bias to the people who fill in their salaries on a website like that? A more reputable site (that's known outside of the HN-bubble) would be the stackoverflow salary calculator. If I fill in "Data Scientists with a master's degree and 5 years of experience in the Amsterdam area" I get a median income of EUR 51K. In silicon valley it's higher of course, but the same profile in San Francisco still 'only' gets you a median income of USD 157K.
      - Der_Einzige 6y ago
        Levels.fyi is way outside of the HN-bubble... Ever heard of blind? Levels.fyi is their holy Grail.
        Avalaxy 6y ago
        > Ever heard of blind No... but just checking it out, and every single post is about FAANG/uber from people who work in silicon valley. You didn't exactly disprove my point.

gk1 6y ago

You didn’t overpay; OP is severely undercharging. $150-200/hr is freelance marketer manager territory. As an aside, this is one of several reasons I think charging an hourly rate is bad for business: You immediately get compared to other freelancers based on this arbitrary number rather than your abilities.

ganstyles 6y ago
I was just reflecting on the rate before you posted and realized OPs rates are around what I made in base salary, plus I get the benefit of things like health insurance, equity, etc. I think I would consider freelance for $500/hr, but $150-200/hr seems low for all the risk, for me personally. But I could see doing it depending on whether I really just enjoyed the freelance lifestyle and didn't have to live in an expensive locale.
- qu4ku 6y ago
  Working for a rate that you would get full-time is non-sustainable as a contractor.
- Avalaxy 6y ago
  If anyone is reading this and considers $150 per hour "low", do reach out to the email in my profile. Here in the Netherlands the going rate for a AI engineer is more around $90, so I'd be happy to pick up the work.
  - Ididntdothis 6y ago
    I have almost never seen such a thing. The $500/hr freelancer are probably the same category as the $500k programmers. They exist but are quite rare.
    - zerr 6y ago
      Most senior devs at FNG reach 500k and beyond (US and London).
      - nnoitra 6y ago
        For U.S. I understand, but do you have any official info that seniors make 500K of total comp in London?
      - slap 6y ago
        Definitely not in London
        zerr 6y ago
        Yes, in London. Facebook is actively poaching devs from the finance sector.
  - j_autumn 6y ago
    I know right? 40$/h FTE here. Not an AI engineer though.
  - unishark 6y ago
    If you look at the person's bio on their website, they have a phd and have written multiple books on the topic, plus have been an invited speaker and regular at conferences in the area. They went to work at a company doing the same specialization, then went out on their own. This is about how to cash in on being a well-known contributor in a very hot niche area. Given all that, I feel like they are still just selling their skills for short term cash while others make the real money off what they produce. As always with contracting.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  As a general rule to consider freelance you should make at least twice as much per hour as you do full-time employee to make up for the instability of the job. This calculation of course changes in times of instability such as now, I don't think there is any freelance job I could be offered right now that would tempt me to quit my current job - of course it is also unlikely I would get offered twice hourly given my current salary is pretty high up for my region.
  - 1024core 6y ago
    A FTE costs (to the company) way more than their salary; an easy rule of thumb is to double it. The salary cost does not include things like the cost of providing an office, retirement matching, health insurance, etc. etc. If a typical ML engineer makes $250K/year, she costs the company about $500K/year; that means the hourly rate should be at least $250/hr.
    - ledauphin 6y ago
      I've heard this rule of thumb and can't make it make any sense. My company's contribution to my health insurance and retirement doesn't come anywhere near 25% of my salary, and there's simply no way my office space costs more than $500/mo for my share of it.
      - semanticist 6y ago
        Plus your share of the HR and internal IT teams, and any other part of the company that doesn't exist to service end users/external customers. It's only a rule of thumb, it doesn't need to be exact, and the more you earn the less accurate it gets.
        EduardoBautista 6y ago
        I wouldn't consider a huge overestimate to be a "rule of thumb".
      - mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
- pedrosorio 6y ago
  400k base salary? Nice. As an individual contributor?
ScottFree 6y ago
What's $50/hr then? College student frontend web developer? :)
- nnoitra 6y ago
  They are BSing.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
mrfusion 6y ago
Are you a charge by the day person?
- gk1 6y ago
  By the month.

147 6y ago

How did you find that person at a major company that did cool stuff? Was it through your network or their blog or ?

ganstyles 6y ago
Surprisingly, they created a piece of OSS we considered using, but was directly related to our problem.

ma2rten 6y ago

What did they do for you exactly? Did they continue working at the major company while they were working on your project?

nvilcins 6y ago

New to freelancing, and while I get the hustle and pricing according to the value for the client, it's still hard to wrap my head around people charging 500$/h+. Like, what is the value an AI contractor can deliver in ~50h that easily justifies spending 25k (and without much prior knowledge about the product, systems in place, etc.). Honest question, trying to understand the game.

bitL 6y ago
Automating away 100 people in some repetitive cognitive task for example.
twomoretime 6y ago
Cutting edge applied ML can do things that previously could only be done by humans. You're generating potentially unprecedented insights into your data because neural networks pick up on what I call "nonlinear" correlations - stuff that is missed with typical first order statistics like averages and skews and such. So basically ML when done right is enormously valuable because it horizontally extends the reach of computation into previously humanlike domains. But the caveat is that it's hard to do ML right. You need very much to be a generalist, an autodidact (to quickly learn the nature of the domain you're operating in) and I think a background in math and/or physics, or at least some other quantitative field is indispensable. You can do a hell of a lot more with neural networks than sort cat pictures or target ads.
cambalache 6y ago
That is about 1 month cost of an average Engineer at a big company. So as longs as the freelancer provide as much as value as your average employee in 1 monh the company is doing a good decision. It is even better because the expertise of the freelancer tends to be high.
- jorvi 6y ago
  $500 per hour, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week gives $20k a week, $80k a month or (let's be charitable and say you earn a $40k bonus) $1 million a year. I don't know what the split between benefits and pure salary is in America, but let's put it at 2/3. Does the average engineer at a big corp really pull in $666.000 a year..?

hogFeast 6y ago

It is funny that you think you overpaid. Small company mentality. The right person's time can be worth tens of thousands per hour. The question isn't what you paid but what you got in return (most companies function by vastly overpaying the 95% of average people they employ, and underpaying the competent 5% who don't know their value or will move onto better things soon).

tensor 6y ago
There is almost no one that is worth tens of thousands per hour. Most "big companies" overpay for people with fancy titles that produce a lot of noise but not a lot of output. Small companies have no choice but to be highly efficient and that's why they have lower levels of pay inequality. Chances are that 95% of people is what is bringing in 95% of the value of your company.
- nevertoolate 6y ago
  Agreed, if the top contributors fell in the 95% bucket :) Imo EVERY senior/principal engineer is underpayed if compared to juniors based on contribution value. And this is OK
- exolymph 6y ago
  > There is almost no one that is worth tens of thousands per hour. Sure, but there are plenty of business problems worth solving even if it takes millions. You're not paying for the person, you're paying for someone to solve your problem.
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    A couple years ago I was approached for a consulting job for a company using DSSSL with some arbortext extensions for generating their user manuals, I was unfortunately already committed on a project, darn the luck. I don't know who they found to take the task, but I have to assume they charged them quite a lot because you're just not going to find very many people to solve that particular problem. Certainly not 10000 per hour, but a significant amount given the Danish market.

wdb 6y ago

As contractor as I was charging £650/day and I thought that was a nice daily rate but $500/hr that's nice. Guess, the ML domain pays well

Avalaxy 6y ago
It doesn't. Outside of this HN bubble I have literally never ever met anyone that made such rates with ML.
- ganstyles 6y ago
  In my experience it very much does, depending on what you're doing I guess. Levels.fyi under the Data Scientist tab seems to verify that this isn't some bubble thing. Well, bubble maybe, but not HN bubble.
  - Avalaxy 6y ago
    Sorry but I have never heard of "levels.fyi". TBH the domain already looks like a typical silicon valley HN-bubble website. Don't you think there is a massive selection bias to the people who fill in their salaries on a website like that? A more reputable site (that's known outside of the HN-bubble) would be the stackoverflow salary calculator. If I fill in "Data Scientists with a master's degree and 5 years of experience in the Amsterdam area" I get a median income of EUR 51K. In silicon valley it's higher of course, but the same profile in San Francisco still 'only' gets you a median income of USD 157K.
    - Der_Einzige 6y ago
      Levels.fyi is way outside of the HN-bubble... Ever heard of blind? Levels.fyi is their holy Grail.
      - Avalaxy 6y ago
        > Ever heard of blind No... but just checking it out, and every single post is about FAANG/uber from people who work in silicon valley. You didn't exactly disprove my point.