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A comment on Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on? by folkhack on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @02:05PM (#21326801)
My market value is $10-15k/mo USD for just myself (sometimes more if I'm needed in an emergency). If you have a proven track record with a solid reputation you can command that sort of pay without an issue. I also bring a lot of general web development capability to the table, so selling on an easy-to-use interface also does a lot to add to my value.

If you think about it - $35-40k for a 2-3 month dev timeline (which is what I'd say is my average) is worth it if you're cutting the salaries of 5+ people out of the equation, no need to pull out an Excel spreadsheet for the ROI that. All-in-all - you're not crazy, they're the ones who are crazy if they continue to sink money into human robots.

> Charging for value can sometimes feel exorbitant

Just get confident (this is hard advice I know). I'm incredibly confident in the problems I can solve and will put in the hours to get back on a timeline/budget if needed. Businesses aren't buying my "products" per-say, they're buying me.

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Re:Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on? by jcmontx on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @02:54PM (#21327267)
Solid comment. How do you deal with getting the knowledge of the process out of the people you are trying to leave without a job? That must be rough.
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Re:Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on? by folkhack on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @03:06PM (#21327392)
They're entry level positions usually so figuring out their processes is typically not that difficult. Often I will not work directly with them vs. having a big sheet of instructions delivered with a ton of bullet points. I also get a ton of process diagrams as well.

Usually it's better for the business I'm supporting to document their own workflows before it's handed over to me for a lot of common sense reasons.

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Re:Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on? by r34 on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @07:28AM (#21333461)
"Don't worry folks, our people are working on introducing basic income, so you'll have opportunity to develop in more important areas of your lives, instead of wasting time on such a meaningless activities." :)
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Re:Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on? by charliemil4 on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @02:09PM (#21326846)
I owe you a round for this. Hopefully it sticks.
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