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I used to offer tutoring for C, Go and Python programming for $50/hr. I can’t tell you the number of people who asked me to do work on for their day job... I w

I used to offer tutoring for C, Go and Python programming for $50/hr. I can’t tell you the number of people who asked me to do work on for their day job... I would always accept at $100/hr. Almost every week I’d max out my 15 hours I’d set aside for “tutoring”. So beyond that I’d charge $200/hr, and I’d still get people for both tutoring and day job style work lol $1/min is a fair price, but if you’re good you can make a lot more

padthai 6y ago
This is fascinating to me. Is there any particular kind of profile that hired you as a ghostwriter? Do these people know how to do their work and decide to outsource it or they have no clue and just got lucky in the interviews?
- daniellarusso 6y ago
  There was a story about a developer from IBM that hired somebody, and was only discovered because the inbound VPN IP was from a different country.
  - branon 6y ago
    I would like to read this story!
    - MattGaiser 6y ago
      https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21043693 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21043693 Not the same one in all likelihood though.
      - 908B64B197 6y ago
        That's a failure from the dev and management. Being able to find and get repeatable good results from contractors across the globe and manage them is a skill in itself.
        shawn-furyan 6y ago
        I like this because it's a really off the wall take, but it also feels a little bit like the sort of reasoning that gets you tangled up with a Bernie Madoff type figure. It's true that unscrupulous people are often very effective. But it's also true that they are unscrupulous. Leaning into lack of scruples probably isn't the most stable of pro business strats, but I imagine it works out sometimes.
    - irjustin 6y ago
      Clearly needed to use a jump machine.
- yupnoop 6y ago
  The Onion has a good video about this phenomenon https://youtu.be/rYaZ57Bn4pQ https://youtu.be/rYaZ57Bn4pQ
908B64B197 6y ago
What did they ask you? Did you get to clone their entire code repository?
glaucon 6y ago
I too would like to hear more about the clients. Also would be really interested to know how you viewed the level of difficultly you were dealing with when people were paying $200 out of their own pocket - did you view it as "tough stuff" ?

padthai 6y ago

This is fascinating to me. Is there any particular kind of profile that hired you as a ghostwriter? Do these people know how to do their work and decide to outsource it or they have no clue and just got lucky in the interviews?

daniellarusso 6y ago
There was a story about a developer from IBM that hired somebody, and was only discovered because the inbound VPN IP was from a different country.
- branon 6y ago
  I would like to read this story!
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21043693 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21043693 Not the same one in all likelihood though.
    - 908B64B197 6y ago
      That's a failure from the dev and management. Being able to find and get repeatable good results from contractors across the globe and manage them is a skill in itself.
      - shawn-furyan 6y ago
        I like this because it's a really off the wall take, but it also feels a little bit like the sort of reasoning that gets you tangled up with a Bernie Madoff type figure. It's true that unscrupulous people are often very effective. But it's also true that they are unscrupulous. Leaning into lack of scruples probably isn't the most stable of pro business strats, but I imagine it works out sometimes.
  - irjustin 6y ago
    Clearly needed to use a jump machine.
yupnoop 6y ago
The Onion has a good video about this phenomenon https://youtu.be/rYaZ57Bn4pQ https://youtu.be/rYaZ57Bn4pQ

908B64B197 6y ago

What did they ask you? Did you get to clone their entire code repository?

glaucon 6y ago

I too would like to hear more about the clients. Also would be really interested to know how you viewed the level of difficultly you were dealing with when people were paying $200 out of their own pocket - did you view it as "tough stuff" ?