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>Great programmer who has the skill to answer this bounty get paid at least $200 an hour (extremely conservative estimate) Dang! What do you base this estimate

by andai 3y ago

>Great programmer who has the skill to answer this bounty get paid at least $200 an hour (extremely conservative estimate) Dang! What do you base this estimate on? The Rust aspect, or parsing aspect, or intersection of both?

etruong42 3y ago
I imagine someone who has this skill has a shot at being L4 or L5 at Google. levels.fyi estimates a year salary of an L5 engineer at Google to be 362,248. If we naively divide that by 50 (weeks in a year) * 40 (hours of work a week), we'd get $181.12 an hour. Googlers also get health insurance, free food, other perks that may push the effective hourly compensation even closer to $200. Googlers also get equipment to do the coding, whereas this competition does not provide a workstation, so another possible line item to consider. It's not a perfect comparison/analogy, so I'd rather not get nitpicked, as the overall thrust of my argument is that $200/hr is not outlandish imho.
butterlesstoast 3y ago
Adding this for data. I charge $500 an hour for contracting. It's gotta be at least that as it's costing time I would otherwise spend with my family. Family time / time away from my core job is incredibly valuable.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  For said data... does anyone actually pay that? I mean if you don't get hired for that amount you've got tons of family time so I guess it works? What I'm trying to say, I don't see the correlation between having a huge hourly rate vs family time. 40 hours a week of work is still 40 hours regardless of how much you're paid.
  - ncallaway 3y ago
    I mean, if you work 20 hours a week, then you don't have 40 hours a week of work
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
A freelance developer can easily ask $250/hour, similar for a contract agency, and that is kind of a low amount. It sounds like a lot for a single developer but if one considers all of the non-billed time of chasing leads and bills it's maybe a different picture.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
TylerE 3y ago
Keep in mind as a freelancer you have to make about for $2.50 for every $1 a salaried person makes, as you're on the hook for 100% of taxes, health care, business expenses, etc.
- kccqzy 3y ago
  That sounds about right. On the other hand it does mean that you are producing this kind of work for big FAANG companies you should expect to earn $80/hour. This is around the low end of a senior software engineer or the higher end of a junior software engineer.
  - wmidwestranger 3y ago
    I have heard of a database "engineer" paid $250 an hour to spend weeks creating what is basically a connection string to a database in a corporate virtual lan. The people paying him were never concerned about the cost, just how long it was taking. This was in Nebraska.
    - chefandy 3y ago
      In the right locations, developers can benefit from a profound lack of competition, especially if they have some enterprise software bullshit on their resume and some less savvy company nearby refuses to hire someone to do it remotely.
- EricMausler 3y ago
  Is the 2.50:1 just a broad estimate or based on something? When I was doing pricing for service contracts it was usually around 1.50:1 burdened billing rate vs direct labor (income)
  - bosie 3y ago
    how did you factor in when you can't work (sickness, holiday, increasing your skill, finding the next job etc)?
hectormalot 3y ago
Depends on the geography and/or whether the knowledge is highly specific. As a datapoint, the average Dutch contracting rates I see for IT development (think: Java, Swift, Kotlin) range somewhere from €75 - €150/h. Higher is possible, but then you're talking very specific expertise and typically shorter projects. I'm on the hiring side, this is a figure across some 20 external devs. I think it's representative of the middle of the market.
- pas 3y ago
  but those are for at least a few weeks of engagement, no? 8h/day, right?
  - hectormalot 3y ago
    yes, likely months of engagement at 36-40h per week
  - 946789987649 3y ago
    In London contracting rates of £700+/day are not abnormal and those are usually minimum 6 month full time.
- JustLurking2022 3y ago
  I think most people on here are citing US based conditions, particularly with respect to healthcare costs and various taxes.

by andai 3y ago

etruong42 3y ago

I imagine someone who has this skill has a shot at being L4 or L5 at Google. levels.fyi estimates a year salary of an L5 engineer at Google to be 362,248. If we naively divide that by 50 (weeks in a year) * 40 (hours of work a week), we'd get $181.12 an hour. Googlers also get health insurance, free food, other perks that may push the effective hourly compensation even closer to $200. Googlers also get equipment to do the coding, whereas this competition does not provide a workstation, so another possible line item to consider. It's not a perfect comparison/analogy, so I'd rather not get nitpicked, as the overall thrust of my argument is that $200/hr is not outlandish imho.

butterlesstoast 3y ago

Adding this for data. I charge $500 an hour for contracting. It's gotta be at least that as it's costing time I would otherwise spend with my family. Family time / time away from my core job is incredibly valuable.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
For said data... does anyone actually pay that? I mean if you don't get hired for that amount you've got tons of family time so I guess it works? What I'm trying to say, I don't see the correlation between having a huge hourly rate vs family time. 40 hours a week of work is still 40 hours regardless of how much you're paid.
- ncallaway 3y ago
  I mean, if you work 20 hours a week, then you don't have 40 hours a week of work

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago

A freelance developer can easily ask $250/hour, similar for a contract agency, and that is kind of a low amount. It sounds like a lot for a single developer but if one considers all of the non-billed time of chasing leads and bills it's maybe a different picture.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

TylerE 3y ago

Keep in mind as a freelancer you have to make about for $2.50 for every $1 a salaried person makes, as you're on the hook for 100% of taxes, health care, business expenses, etc.

kccqzy 3y ago
That sounds about right. On the other hand it does mean that you are producing this kind of work for big FAANG companies you should expect to earn $80/hour. This is around the low end of a senior software engineer or the higher end of a junior software engineer.
- wmidwestranger 3y ago
  I have heard of a database "engineer" paid $250 an hour to spend weeks creating what is basically a connection string to a database in a corporate virtual lan. The people paying him were never concerned about the cost, just how long it was taking. This was in Nebraska.
  - chefandy 3y ago
    In the right locations, developers can benefit from a profound lack of competition, especially if they have some enterprise software bullshit on their resume and some less savvy company nearby refuses to hire someone to do it remotely.
EricMausler 3y ago
Is the 2.50:1 just a broad estimate or based on something? When I was doing pricing for service contracts it was usually around 1.50:1 burdened billing rate vs direct labor (income)
- bosie 3y ago
  how did you factor in when you can't work (sickness, holiday, increasing your skill, finding the next job etc)?

hectormalot 3y ago

Depends on the geography and/or whether the knowledge is highly specific. As a datapoint, the average Dutch contracting rates I see for IT development (think: Java, Swift, Kotlin) range somewhere from €75 - €150/h. Higher is possible, but then you're talking very specific expertise and typically shorter projects. I'm on the hiring side, this is a figure across some 20 external devs. I think it's representative of the middle of the market.

pas 3y ago
but those are for at least a few weeks of engagement, no? 8h/day, right?
- hectormalot 3y ago
  yes, likely months of engagement at 36-40h per week
- 946789987649 3y ago
  In London contracting rates of £700+/day are not abnormal and those are usually minimum 6 month full time.
JustLurking2022 3y ago
I think most people on here are citing US based conditions, particularly with respect to healthcare costs and various taxes.