How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting

Re:How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-wee... by SwellJoe on Monday November 19, 2012 @02:05PM (#4805825)

Do the same things. Get a blog, become well-known for being awesome. I've hired several "third world country" developers at US market rates (not Silicon Valley rates; more like midwestern rates, like $30-$50/hour) because they were good. And, I've passed on $10/hour developers because they didn't convince me they could do the job. It's about value, not price.

That's not to say you aren't at a disadvantage, if you're wanting to charge very high rates while being in a third world country, but it's not impossible. Doing the same things suggested by this post, and by other comments, is how you raise your value. You may be raising it from a lower starting point, but it can be raised, and there isn't really a firm upper bound on how high it can go.

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Re:How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-wee... by debaserab2 on Monday November 19, 2012 @02:27PM (#4805926)

Midwestern rates for a decent programmer should not be lower than $80/hr. If you're finding good programmers in the midwest that are less than that, they don't understand their value in the local market.

Source: I work in an office co-share with a dozen or so web developers in Minneapolis.

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Re:How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-wee... by SwellJoe on Monday November 19, 2012 @02:47PM (#4806023)

Chicago and Minneapolis and other big cities don't count in my estimate. I'm speaking more about folks in places with very low cost of living, and no tech industry to speak of (but there are nerds everywhere). The fact that you work in a co-share with a dozen web developers means you work in a place where developers are a known quantity and have a reasonably high value. There are developers in Idaho, too. They don't usually make $80+/hour, even on contract, unless they're famously good.

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Re:How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-wee... by thisisdallas on Monday November 19, 2012 @03:05PM (#4806107)

Unfortunately, I can attest to this. I am one of those developers who live in a low cost no tech industry smaller city and I would cry tears of joy if I could land a job for $80/hr. I understand my value and I understand what I can bring to the table but that doesn't mean jack when potential clients could "make a website in Word if they just had the time."

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Re:How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-wee... by ryusage on Monday November 19, 2012 @04:54PM (#4806510)

This is exactly correct. I work in a midwest city which I'd consider small/medium sized, and my entry level salary five years ago was only around $20/hr (which, as a single guy with a low cost of living, seemed like a lot). The most I've heard of a developer making here was somewhere on the order of $65/hr, and that was considered very high. If I went to Chicago, that wouldn't be high at all, but my costs of living would also probably triple.

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Re:How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-wee... by pknerd on Tuesday November 20, 2012 @12:56AM (#4807926)

I do second you and there are some good guys like you who value talent rather than saving a few $$$.

Patrick's post is more about consultation rather than freelance work, I wonder whether people prefer to hire remote consultants?

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