4 ms·

Seems like good advice! Thanks for the article! The one bit I don't think is a good idea is: "An alternative is to negotiate a rate for a trial period for a sm

by almost 14y ago

Seems like good advice! Thanks for the article! The one bit I don't think is a good idea is: "An alternative is to negotiate a rate for a trial period for a small feature, and tell her you’ll pay the full rate if the project goes well" Just pay the full rate! Sure, hire for a trial run but don't insult your developer with old "just do this one thing cheap and there will be properly paid work later" line. For a good developer there is properly paid work available NOW, why should she work for you cheap?

troels 14y ago
Agreed - That part stood in stark contrast to the rest of the section, which otherwise is good advice, imho.
- its_so_on 14y ago
  I don't know. Take contractors. For many types of heavy lifting, a good contractor who is also a lead dev etc may be justified in asking for 100 dollars an hour or more, simply due to the complexity, their accumulated experience, and just how good and fast and right they are in a tech that's in demand. However, for every person like that, there are n who do not justify a hundred dollars an hour. So, isn't an OK compromise to start at 40 dollars an hour and see if they can do the work of 3 days (or a week or three weeks, or 'unusable') of one of the 'other' devs, more quickly or just better and more reliably, and if so, bump their rate to 100 dollars an hour as they're asking for? Think like Oracle/SAP specialists etc who would do something like build a complete database and web shop, front-end, back-end, everything from scratch for a traditional brick-and-morter store. To take an opposite example, consider a designer and logo creator. Short of a portfolio, which many designers are not able to provide except to say, look at this, this, and this web site, which they did not work on alone, it is simply hard to know how much they contributed and how much was the art director, other designers, etc. Some designers are independent and bring customers who pay well and basically justify any rate for themselves. (e.g. fifty thousand dollars for a new worldwide corporate logo for a fortune 500 company). Others are worth fifteen dollars an hour. Don't you think a good compromise might be a decent rate (25-40 dollars) for something small, then bump to awesome rate if, well, they're awesome? Naturally this only works if there is actual trust from both sides. But you would never pay fifty thousand dollars for a logo by someone who only knows microsoft paint and sucks using it -- or even ten thousand or even five thousand -- nor would you pay 100 dollars an hour to a "hadoop engineer" (your requirement) who turns out to not be a hadoop engineer, barely know some html and php, and even with php can't do anything that you want or need. Nor would you pay 80 dollars nor 60 dollars an hour to that person. So if there is trust that you're really looking for top talent -- and the dev's bullshit detector doesn't go off -- why not do this: "Rather than you doing 10 hours of unpaid phone calls, resumes, interviews to get to 100 dollars an hour -- your next gig -- why don't you do 8 hours of work for me and get to the same place. This applies only if you're worth 100 dollars an hour" Then if the person is not lying (they're worth 100 an hour, they're an actual hadoop contributor and ju one of the best in the world), and you're not lying (you really want to pay that, for really such a person), it all works out.
  - jackowayed 14y ago
    No. You have an adverse selection problem. If you're looking to hire really great contractors, then you're mostly looking to hire people who have continuing work with their extremely happy customers, leads that their extremely happy customers referred to them, etc. They don't need you that badly. So, you ask them to work for $40 an hour for, say, a week. They could make at least 4x that if they worked for other clients. Why should they, the super awesome coder, take you on as a customer? You're asking them to pay a big opportunity cost for business they don't need that badly, and you're showing that you're price-sensitive, and are likely to try to get a discount off their full rate after the trial too. The people this will most scare away are the very best, the ones who don't need you, the ones you really want to keep. So yes, do a trial if you're not comfortable committing to a big contract with them. But treat the difference between the rate you want to pay for the trial and their rate as part of the cost of finding great talent. Don't squabble over what's going to end up being a very small percentage of what you pay the person over their whole time with you at the risk of sending the best talent straight out the door. It's too great a cost. Also, if you want great talent, double your expectation of what contract rates should be. $40 an hour as a contract rate in a 1st world country is not a "decent rate".
    - its_so_on 14y ago
      I guess I didn't make what I had in mind more clear, as I didn't finish "if they can do the work of 3 days (or a week or three weeks, or 'unusable') of one of the 'other' devs" correctly." I meant, "in a day". What I really had in mind is about a day's work, like an extended interview, but paid. Basically, someone saying, "Look, I don't know how to tell a hadoop expert from someone who can only code bad html and bad php", so instead of three unpaid interviews before you land your next job, how about one 8-hour paid interview (320 dollars). If you're what I'm looking for I'll hire you on the spot, but if you're just full of BS like the last three guys I couldn't tell were BS artists, when I'll just have to make do with a tiny bit of progress. My point was, interviews are also an opportunity cost, and that not being able to tell apart bad php coders from awesome database engineers is also an opportunity cost. Also I don't know what market you have in mind, but 40 dollars an hour is more than what someone who just does some html and php badly (i.e. couldn't complete fizzbuzz) is worth in almost every city. That would be 80k per year salary. I think the point is to bridge the gap between "completely unpaid interview" and "I have to pay you 100 dollars an hour for a week". How about an 8-hour or 4-hour "free trial" before I take you on full-time at 200k per year? Only instead of actually free, I'll actually pay you 320 dollars for your audition. Seems like this beats the hell out of doing two or three unpaid interviews...

by almost 14y ago

troels 14y ago

Agreed - That part stood in stark contrast to the rest of the section, which otherwise is good advice, imho.

its_so_on 14y ago
I don't know. Take contractors. For many types of heavy lifting, a good contractor who is also a lead dev etc may be justified in asking for 100 dollars an hour or more, simply due to the complexity, their accumulated experience, and just how good and fast and right they are in a tech that's in demand. However, for every person like that, there are n who do not justify a hundred dollars an hour. So, isn't an OK compromise to start at 40 dollars an hour and see if they can do the work of 3 days (or a week or three weeks, or 'unusable') of one of the 'other' devs, more quickly or just better and more reliably, and if so, bump their rate to 100 dollars an hour as they're asking for? Think like Oracle/SAP specialists etc who would do something like build a complete database and web shop, front-end, back-end, everything from scratch for a traditional brick-and-morter store. To take an opposite example, consider a designer and logo creator. Short of a portfolio, which many designers are not able to provide except to say, look at this, this, and this web site, which they did not work on alone, it is simply hard to know how much they contributed and how much was the art director, other designers, etc. Some designers are independent and bring customers who pay well and basically justify any rate for themselves. (e.g. fifty thousand dollars for a new worldwide corporate logo for a fortune 500 company). Others are worth fifteen dollars an hour. Don't you think a good compromise might be a decent rate (25-40 dollars) for something small, then bump to awesome rate if, well, they're awesome? Naturally this only works if there is actual trust from both sides. But you would never pay fifty thousand dollars for a logo by someone who only knows microsoft paint and sucks using it -- or even ten thousand or even five thousand -- nor would you pay 100 dollars an hour to a "hadoop engineer" (your requirement) who turns out to not be a hadoop engineer, barely know some html and php, and even with php can't do anything that you want or need. Nor would you pay 80 dollars nor 60 dollars an hour to that person. So if there is trust that you're really looking for top talent -- and the dev's bullshit detector doesn't go off -- why not do this: "Rather than you doing 10 hours of unpaid phone calls, resumes, interviews to get to 100 dollars an hour -- your next gig -- why don't you do 8 hours of work for me and get to the same place. This applies only if you're worth 100 dollars an hour" Then if the person is not lying (they're worth 100 an hour, they're an actual hadoop contributor and ju one of the best in the world), and you're not lying (you really want to pay that, for really such a person), it all works out.
- jackowayed 14y ago
  No. You have an adverse selection problem. If you're looking to hire really great contractors, then you're mostly looking to hire people who have continuing work with their extremely happy customers, leads that their extremely happy customers referred to them, etc. They don't need you that badly. So, you ask them to work for $40 an hour for, say, a week. They could make at least 4x that if they worked for other clients. Why should they, the super awesome coder, take you on as a customer? You're asking them to pay a big opportunity cost for business they don't need that badly, and you're showing that you're price-sensitive, and are likely to try to get a discount off their full rate after the trial too. The people this will most scare away are the very best, the ones who don't need you, the ones you really want to keep. So yes, do a trial if you're not comfortable committing to a big contract with them. But treat the difference between the rate you want to pay for the trial and their rate as part of the cost of finding great talent. Don't squabble over what's going to end up being a very small percentage of what you pay the person over their whole time with you at the risk of sending the best talent straight out the door. It's too great a cost. Also, if you want great talent, double your expectation of what contract rates should be. $40 an hour as a contract rate in a 1st world country is not a "decent rate".
  - its_so_on 14y ago
    I guess I didn't make what I had in mind more clear, as I didn't finish "if they can do the work of 3 days (or a week or three weeks, or 'unusable') of one of the 'other' devs" correctly." I meant, "in a day". What I really had in mind is about a day's work, like an extended interview, but paid. Basically, someone saying, "Look, I don't know how to tell a hadoop expert from someone who can only code bad html and bad php", so instead of three unpaid interviews before you land your next job, how about one 8-hour paid interview (320 dollars). If you're what I'm looking for I'll hire you on the spot, but if you're just full of BS like the last three guys I couldn't tell were BS artists, when I'll just have to make do with a tiny bit of progress. My point was, interviews are also an opportunity cost, and that not being able to tell apart bad php coders from awesome database engineers is also an opportunity cost. Also I don't know what market you have in mind, but 40 dollars an hour is more than what someone who just does some html and php badly (i.e. couldn't complete fizzbuzz) is worth in almost every city. That would be 80k per year salary. I think the point is to bridge the gap between "completely unpaid interview" and "I have to pay you 100 dollars an hour for a week". How about an 8-hour or 4-hour "free trial" before I take you on full-time at 200k per year? Only instead of actually free, I'll actually pay you 320 dollars for your audition. Seems like this beats the hell out of doing two or three unpaid interviews...