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Indeed, that's the range you get if you include PHP devs and corporate IT folk. For specialist iPhone devs who are provably good at what they do, however, $150

Indeed, that's the range you get if you include PHP devs and corporate IT folk. For specialist iPhone devs who are provably good at what they do, however, $150/hr is a pretty good starting point, and there are plenty of companies willing to pay more than that. With that in mind, I don't imagine you'd find many good devs with solid iPhone experience willing to work for less than $75/hr, which coincidentally translates to about $165k/year. Incidentally, if you're a company looking to put out an iPhone app, you absolutely should seek out a guy who's good enough to demand $150/hr. Given the esoteric nature of the platform, you'll probably find you save money in the long run going with a guy who doesn't need to train himself up on your dime. He might be 4x as expensive, but he's probably also >4x as fast.

ig1 16y ago
You can't just compare permanent salaries to hourly rate contract roles directly (you need to take into account downtime, risk, vacation, overheads, etc. in order to make a fair comparison). I don't know what the standard is in the US but in the UK you can generally earn 1.5-2x as much contracting on a day rate as you can in a permanent job.
- Silhouette 16y ago
  That's all true, and even then, basically no-one in the UK pays £90/hour contracting rates for routine software development without specialised skills, not even London banks.
- parasubvert 16y ago
  The rule of thumb with contracting is to take your base salary, divide by 1000, which becomes your hourly rate. This roughly coincides with paying your own benefits and 1/3 of annual downtime. Not that you're planning for 1/3 -- it's risk adjustment.
  - Silhouette 16y ago
    That's a very rough rule of thumb, because it depends a great deal on the tax regime you're operating under.
    - parasubvert 16y ago
      Of course. And I was referring to practice in US and Canada. YMMV of course.

ig1 16y ago

You can't just compare permanent salaries to hourly rate contract roles directly (you need to take into account downtime, risk, vacation, overheads, etc. in order to make a fair comparison). I don't know what the standard is in the US but in the UK you can generally earn 1.5-2x as much contracting on a day rate as you can in a permanent job.

Silhouette 16y ago
That's all true, and even then, basically no-one in the UK pays £90/hour contracting rates for routine software development without specialised skills, not even London banks.
parasubvert 16y ago
The rule of thumb with contracting is to take your base salary, divide by 1000, which becomes your hourly rate. This roughly coincides with paying your own benefits and 1/3 of annual downtime. Not that you're planning for 1/3 -- it's risk adjustment.
- Silhouette 16y ago
  That's a very rough rule of thumb, because it depends a great deal on the tax regime you're operating under.
  - parasubvert 16y ago
    Of course. And I was referring to practice in US and Canada. YMMV of course.