6 ms·

I know but most people on this site use an anonymous handle, which solves most if not all those points: minding disclosing in public,co-workers, employers, or c

by xpto123 12y ago

I know but most people on this site use an anonymous handle, which solves most if not all those points: minding disclosing in public,co-workers, employers, or clients who read this site,plan to change their rate in the future, make enough /bragging, etc. But it's true I wouldn't advise people disclosing their rate if their are not anonymous.

xpto123 12y ago
In general I believe most people are honest and if they reply it will be the truth. In my view there is a whole industry making a huge margin at our expense because we feel uncomfortable sharing this information, I have the impression we all have to gain by sharing this more often I believe. But of course we should take the content as a grain of salt and just an indicator.
jasonkester 12y ago
That alone will skew the results downward. Take a quick look through the "Top Commenters" list here, and you'll notice that nearly all of them use either their own name or a strong pseudonym tied to their real identity. Several of those guys are billing out at the kind of nice-to-have rates that a young dev with any sense aught to make his mission to replicate. The guys responding below with silly pseudonyms, quoting two digit hourly bill rates, don't tell anybody anything interesting. Worse, they might just convince some poor soul that "you know, maybe $65/hour isn't so bad after all", and invite him into a lifetime of being underpaid when the reality is that he could 5X-10X that if he wanted to.
- xpto123 12y ago
  Just to understand, why do you believe using an anonymous handle skews the results downward? Most persons use anonymous handles online, except on places like facebook its a generalized practice. I personally don't see the correlation between those two things. The name of the site is Hacker News, so I would expect a lot of people here to be security aware and in general use pseudonyms anyway.
  - thedufer 12y ago
    I believe the argument is that most top commenters (which I suspect correlates quite well with high rates) are not pseudonymous, and thus unlikely to respond. See: patio11, tptacek, etc.
    - xpto123 12y ago
      OK thanks, I see that that could have been what was meant. But in my view there is no apparent co-relation between top commenters or rates. Most HN posters are likely anonymous independently of their rates, as in most programming forums.
    - patio11 12y ago
      FWIW: I bet you that there exist people with 0 < n < 100 HN karma who have weekly rates which beat Thomas' and my peak career rates, combined.
      - thedufer 12y ago
        Oh, I don't doubt it. Outliers among outliers and all that. I didn't mean to pick you two out as particularly high earners among the top HN users, FTR. You're just the two username/real name pairs I can come up with off the top of my head.
  - surreal 12y ago
    "Hacker" meaning a good programmer, not hacker as in someone who maliciously gains access to systems. http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_%28term%29#Hacker_definition_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_%28term%29#Hacker_defini...
    - xpto123 12y ago
      I agree, it also means at least somewhat security aware. Posting anonymously seems mostly common sense, almost everybody in the internet does it.
- FLUX-YOU 12y ago
  >Worse, they might just convince some poor soul that "you know, maybe $65/hour isn't so bad after all", and invite him into a lifetime of being underpaid when the reality is that he could 5X-10X that if he wanted to. I'm interested in making 5X-10X of what I currently am. What should I do?
  - instakill 12y ago
    Charge more.
    - FLUX-YOU 12y ago
      How do I know I'm worth what I'm charging?
      - geoffw8 12y ago
        You'll either get fired or people will keep paying you your new price.
      - zachrose 12y ago
        By offering your services for a price and seeing if your clients agree.
      - SyneRyder 12y ago
        Try calculating the value that you are providing to your clients. Even an estimate is better than nothing. Don't think in terms of your time, but in terms of the benefit your customers get from your work. If a script you put together in just an hour saves a company $50,000, they're still getting a bargain if you charge $1000 or $2000 an hour. Or more. Try reading Breaking The Time Barrier from Freshbooks (free PDF): https://breakingthetimebarrier.freshbooks.com/ https://breakingthetimebarrier.freshbooks.com/ I've also heard good things about Brennan Dunn's "Double Your Freelancing Rate", though I've not yet read it myself and am generally reluctant to recommend 'courses': http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/rate/ http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/rate/

by xpto123 12y ago

xpto123 12y ago

In general I believe most people are honest and if they reply it will be the truth. In my view there is a whole industry making a huge margin at our expense because we feel uncomfortable sharing this information, I have the impression we all have to gain by sharing this more often I believe. But of course we should take the content as a grain of salt and just an indicator.

jasonkester 12y ago

That alone will skew the results downward. Take a quick look through the "Top Commenters" list here, and you'll notice that nearly all of them use either their own name or a strong pseudonym tied to their real identity. Several of those guys are billing out at the kind of nice-to-have rates that a young dev with any sense aught to make his mission to replicate. The guys responding below with silly pseudonyms, quoting two digit hourly bill rates, don't tell anybody anything interesting. Worse, they might just convince some poor soul that "you know, maybe $65/hour isn't so bad after all", and invite him into a lifetime of being underpaid when the reality is that he could 5X-10X that if he wanted to.

xpto123 12y ago
Just to understand, why do you believe using an anonymous handle skews the results downward? Most persons use anonymous handles online, except on places like facebook its a generalized practice. I personally don't see the correlation between those two things. The name of the site is Hacker News, so I would expect a lot of people here to be security aware and in general use pseudonyms anyway.
- thedufer 12y ago
  I believe the argument is that most top commenters (which I suspect correlates quite well with high rates) are not pseudonymous, and thus unlikely to respond. See: patio11, tptacek, etc.
  - xpto123 12y ago
    OK thanks, I see that that could have been what was meant. But in my view there is no apparent co-relation between top commenters or rates. Most HN posters are likely anonymous independently of their rates, as in most programming forums.
  - patio11 12y ago
    FWIW: I bet you that there exist people with 0 < n < 100 HN karma who have weekly rates which beat Thomas' and my peak career rates, combined.
    - thedufer 12y ago
      Oh, I don't doubt it. Outliers among outliers and all that. I didn't mean to pick you two out as particularly high earners among the top HN users, FTR. You're just the two username/real name pairs I can come up with off the top of my head.
- surreal 12y ago
  "Hacker" meaning a good programmer, not hacker as in someone who maliciously gains access to systems. http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_%28term%29#Hacker_definition_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_%28term%29#Hacker_defini...
  - xpto123 12y ago
    I agree, it also means at least somewhat security aware. Posting anonymously seems mostly common sense, almost everybody in the internet does it.
FLUX-YOU 12y ago
>Worse, they might just convince some poor soul that "you know, maybe $65/hour isn't so bad after all", and invite him into a lifetime of being underpaid when the reality is that he could 5X-10X that if he wanted to. I'm interested in making 5X-10X of what I currently am. What should I do?
- instakill 12y ago
  Charge more.
  - FLUX-YOU 12y ago
    How do I know I'm worth what I'm charging?
    - geoffw8 12y ago
      You'll either get fired or people will keep paying you your new price.
    - zachrose 12y ago
      By offering your services for a price and seeing if your clients agree.
    - SyneRyder 12y ago
      Try calculating the value that you are providing to your clients. Even an estimate is better than nothing. Don't think in terms of your time, but in terms of the benefit your customers get from your work. If a script you put together in just an hour saves a company $50,000, they're still getting a bargain if you charge $1000 or $2000 an hour. Or more. Try reading Breaking The Time Barrier from Freshbooks (free PDF): https://breakingthetimebarrier.freshbooks.com/ https://breakingthetimebarrier.freshbooks.com/ I've also heard good things about Brennan Dunn's "Double Your Freelancing Rate", though I've not yet read it myself and am generally reluctant to recommend 'courses': http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/rate/ http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/rate/