Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate?

Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by 0x5345414e on Friday August 26, 2022 @08:58AM (#32606840)

My rate is 165 USD/hr, but I’ll drop it as low as 135 for a long contract (6 months+). I do custom software for the refrigeration industry (mostly simulations, sensor data logging, a lot of web apps, etc.). But yeah like another poster mentioned, I just raise it every time I work with a new customer.

Imo hourly rates are kind of bogus because not every hour is the same and hours can’t determine value. Generally I negotiate a weekly rate @ 35 hrs / week and try to deliver something valuable every week. The amount of hours I actually work in a week varies.

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Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by swah on Friday August 26, 2022 @10:32AM (#32608042)

Excellent. I do bluetooth mobile apps for the refrigeration industry, and currently thinking about leaving my job for something in USD...

I always say the number 50 USD/hour, since I feel like recruiters/platforms expect for a LATAM based dev to charge a bit less..

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Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by anakaine on Friday August 26, 2022 @04:43PM (#32612530)

You're underselling that hourly rate pretty hard. There's a comment above about the fully qualified labour rate. Its worth a read, and from experience you need to be placed higher with the rate than $50 USD.

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Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by TbobbyZ on Friday August 26, 2022 @09:10AM (#32607007)

How do I get into your work?

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Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by halkony on Friday August 26, 2022 @09:19AM (#32607111)

Assuming you're looking for contract work in general and not specifically refrigerators, he sets a good example for how specialization gets you consistent work.

Basically, find a niche industry (refrigerators, greenhouses, toy cars, whatever), find an audience, think about what they could use, and acquire the skills to give it to them. I used to be an actuary before I did software, I plan on going back to my old companies and contracting myself because I know they have data analytics needs I can meet.

If you want an excellent book on this topic, read "Soft Skills" by John Sonmez. Excellent book for shaping your career.

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Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by goodpoint on Friday August 26, 2022 @09:26AM (#32607208)

A lot of niche industries e.g. around embedded might pay less than web development, ironically.

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Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by edge17 on Friday August 26, 2022 @09:31AM (#32607279)

Yea but the metric of success in embedded mught be more clear than web, which tends to be more customer facing.

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Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by NO_CHANGE on Monday August 29, 2022 @01:33PM (#32641003)

I looked up the book and the search engine suggested the search "John Sonmez scam". I guess he's not in good standing in the industry or the Web in general.

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Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by devoutsalsa on Friday August 26, 2022 @09:16AM (#32607068)

You have to be pretty cool.

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Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by xwowsersx on Friday August 26, 2022 @09:58AM (#32607607)

I see what you did there.

When my fridge stopped working, I didn’t think it was cool.

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Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by czbond on Friday August 26, 2022 @10:15AM (#32607835)

Mine was the compressor last week. Daggum LG

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Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by nebula8804 on Friday August 26, 2022 @10:49AM (#32608255)

Don't be so cold...at least it wasn't a Samsung...

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Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by lostlogin on Friday August 26, 2022 @09:57AM (#32607595)

No, you have to be trying to be cool.

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Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by thunkle on Friday August 26, 2022 @11:35AM (#32608845)

Cool I've been working on an algorithm to predict when an industrial refrigerator is going bad for a few months now. I wonder if our work overlaps at all.

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Re:Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? by timtzm on Saturday August 27, 2022 @12:03PM (#32620429)

Hey cool I'm working on power metering for industrial chillers and hope to learn how to notice this too.

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