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Really appreciate this breakdown plus your call-to-action to investigate these numbers yourself. Really fun read. I'm going to take this moment to push back ag

by tr3ntg 5y ago

Really appreciate this breakdown plus your call-to-action to investigate these numbers yourself. Really fun read. I'm going to take this moment to push back against the common figures I hear around how much one "should make" as a freelancer. In general, they seem inflated. You claim that, for a $100k employee, you should be able to generate $75/hr in value. You've also generously calculated that the number needs to be close to $80/hr to break even with a $100k salary. Even crazier, other discussions on HN place the freelance hourly number much higher. Well above $100, sometimes even more. As someone who did freelance for about a year (after exiting a $100k job), I'd say those were not the rates I saw. Towards the end of my time, some of my gigs broke $100, but they were usually just a day or two of work. If I were to average my total rate, the number was probably closer to $60. Perhaps I was bad at finding the right jobs, but the low rates and difficulty in finding the right jobs are the reasons I returned to salaried life. Great writeup!

pmorici 5y ago
I don't think he is saying that $100k is the number he is simply using $100k as a comparison that makes the math easy. The core point is that whatever the going rate for an engineer of your specialty and skill level is in your area that same job as a self-employed person should be paid more on an hourly basis to account not only for those extra expenses pointed out but also because of benefit to the company of the flexibility of the arrangement. That said there is a near infinite amount of people in the world willing to pay less for software engineering consulting services all the way down to $0. You need to avoid those people like the plague. I have personally dabbled in self-employment and really hate the sales aspect that is required to make it work. You really need a deep network and outstanding soft skills. If you don't have that another way is go use a head hunter that specializes in placing consultants/contract employees. The draw back there is they are going to take a cut of your hourly rate so long as you hold that position but it out sources the hard part of sourcing work if that isn't your thing.

by tr3ntg 5y ago

pmorici 5y ago

I don't think he is saying that $100k is the number he is simply using $100k as a comparison that makes the math easy. The core point is that whatever the going rate for an engineer of your specialty and skill level is in your area that same job as a self-employed person should be paid more on an hourly basis to account not only for those extra expenses pointed out but also because of benefit to the company of the flexibility of the arrangement. That said there is a near infinite amount of people in the world willing to pay less for software engineering consulting services all the way down to $0. You need to avoid those people like the plague. I have personally dabbled in self-employment and really hate the sales aspect that is required to make it work. You really need a deep network and outstanding soft skills. If you don't have that another way is go use a head hunter that specializes in placing consultants/contract employees. The draw back there is they are going to take a cut of your hourly rate so long as you hold that position but it out sources the hard part of sourcing work if that isn't your thing.