4 ms·

> There seem to be a lot of comments centered on “wow, this sounds great – I wish I could charge more” or “how do I find these high paying contracts”? Actually

by nandemo 14y ago

> There seem to be a lot of comments centered on “wow, this sounds great – I wish I could charge more” or “how do I find these high paying contracts”? Actually, I'm wondering how can I get gigs that pay $100/hour in Japan.

Sarien 14y ago
I can't agree more. 8k as a Rails dev? Converted to USD at current rates I make about 4.9k as a C++ dev. I feel like I am doing something seriously wrong. :/
- sequoia 14y ago
  It all depends on where you live. When I lived in the Southeast US in a non-tech-center people were offering one third of that 96/yr number for an intermediate rails developer (this was considered by the community to be a low offer http://whatyoupayfor.pen.io/ http://whatyoupayfor.pen.io/ ), so you probably couldn't get a full time gig for that no matter how good you were. Now I live near Boston and that number sounds perfectly reasonable.
new299 14y ago
As someone who is currently living in Japan, but only working remotely for companies in the US/UK I'm kind of interested to know how you find work here? Is it hard to get contract work? Where do you look? What is the pay like?
- nandemo 14y ago
  Personal contacts, recruiting agencies, job boards (but not craigslist). You're probably better off working for companies in the US/UK. Freelancing is not as common as it is in the US, large and mid-sized companies much prefer to deal with other companies rather than individual freelancers. But you seem to specialize in relatively rare skills, so you might have better luck freelancing than the average web developer. Feel free to shoot me an email (I'm out of work at the moment so probably not the best person to give this sort of advice, but on the other hand I've been in this country for a long time).
  - gwilkes 14y ago
    I get the impression that most of patio11's high paying clients are not in Japan (please correct me if I'm wrong Patrick). Yes, there is freelance work in Japan, but a look at any job board will show that tech salaries are not as high as US/UK jobs. In my experience that seems to affect freelance rates. I do a mix of US and Japanese freelance work. Personal contacts are the big one for me. Without high level Japanese you may be limited to the foreign tech community. That community is small but it still can take some time to build up a network. Took me about two years here until I started to get a good amount of Japanese freelance work. You may both be aware of it already, but if not, the Hacker News Tokyo Meetup is as good a place as any to start: http://hntokyo.doorkeeper.jp http://hntokyo.doorkeeper.jp For me the biggest advantages of local work are working with people in person (I got tired of remote only work), and the untapped opportunities in web and software from the US/UK being ahead in those areas.

by nandemo 14y ago

Sarien 14y ago

I can't agree more. 8k as a Rails dev? Converted to USD at current rates I make about 4.9k as a C++ dev. I feel like I am doing something seriously wrong. :/

sequoia 14y ago
It all depends on where you live. When I lived in the Southeast US in a non-tech-center people were offering one third of that 96/yr number for an intermediate rails developer (this was considered by the community to be a low offer http://whatyoupayfor.pen.io/ http://whatyoupayfor.pen.io/ ), so you probably couldn't get a full time gig for that no matter how good you were. Now I live near Boston and that number sounds perfectly reasonable.

new299 14y ago

As someone who is currently living in Japan, but only working remotely for companies in the US/UK I'm kind of interested to know how you find work here? Is it hard to get contract work? Where do you look? What is the pay like?

nandemo 14y ago
Personal contacts, recruiting agencies, job boards (but not craigslist). You're probably better off working for companies in the US/UK. Freelancing is not as common as it is in the US, large and mid-sized companies much prefer to deal with other companies rather than individual freelancers. But you seem to specialize in relatively rare skills, so you might have better luck freelancing than the average web developer. Feel free to shoot me an email (I'm out of work at the moment so probably not the best person to give this sort of advice, but on the other hand I've been in this country for a long time).
- gwilkes 14y ago
  I get the impression that most of patio11's high paying clients are not in Japan (please correct me if I'm wrong Patrick). Yes, there is freelance work in Japan, but a look at any job board will show that tech salaries are not as high as US/UK jobs. In my experience that seems to affect freelance rates. I do a mix of US and Japanese freelance work. Personal contacts are the big one for me. Without high level Japanese you may be limited to the foreign tech community. That community is small but it still can take some time to build up a network. Took me about two years here until I started to get a good amount of Japanese freelance work. You may both be aware of it already, but if not, the Hacker News Tokyo Meetup is as good a place as any to start: http://hntokyo.doorkeeper.jp http://hntokyo.doorkeeper.jp For me the biggest advantages of local work are working with people in person (I got tired of remote only work), and the untapped opportunities in web and software from the US/UK being ahead in those areas.