Hacker News Reader

Comment by wjg | Hacker News Reader

Wow. This thread is blowing my mind. I'm a js fullstacker who is moving to Europe within two weeks and and I'm having trouble even getting replies to job postings when I offer a rate of $60/hr (I'm wondering now if that's too "cheap"?)! I feel like I'm missing something big on my resume, my approach, something (if curious, github is on my profile)...

How did you all find your jobs? My blindly applying online doesn't seem to be working out well.

View on HN

Just keep in mind that European companies don't pay US rates!

London is bit of an exception, but lifestyle there is crazy expensive obviously

If you want a US rate you have to compete globally, which is quite discouraging to me.

So as a freelancer I'm happy to have a theoretically 'low' rate but which in practice lets me live more than well in Spain.

The rates in London I've seen were pretty much the same as what I make in Berlin (400-500 GBP/day). These are from job postings by contracting agencies like Computer Futures. The only exception seems to be finance. Which, I think, requires domain knowledge.

First time I heard of such rates in Berlin!

I guess they pay that in order to compete with London?

Else they don't seem to correspond with Germany's market and cost-of-living...

Where have you been looking? Examples of companies hiring freelancers at those rates are T-Labs, ImmobilienScout, eBay and HERE. Berlin is actually lower than other regions that have higher cost of living (Frankfurt, Stuttgart, München) so it's not about competing with London.

Check out http://gulp.de/. They have a regular survey among their users with a good breakdown by location, experience and the type of work the freelancers do. You can also browse profiles there or project listings on http://etengo.de.

Great to hear!

Answering your question, I've not been looking anywhere - just what I read or could infer.

500 euros/day/head sounds beyond wasteful to me, at least when not in SF/London.

I can only imagine there's got to be an awful ASAP culture in those environments...

Not really. These are big companies, not hysteric startups where everyone works 12 hours a day, deluding themselves that they get more done that way (dunno how common that is with Berlin startups TBH).

Personally I am much less stressed out doing corporate contracting than I was with the shitty freelance work I did before, subcontracting with web agencies that haggle about every hour.

This is how my rate developed over the years:

* 50 DM/h working for a great agency as a student (that was in 2000) * 15 €/h working for an agency as a student (Yep, I was dense enough to take a paycut. Didn't even occur to me to ask for at least 25. So much facepalming...) * 30 €/h working for the same agency when I decided to do freelancing full-time * 30 €/h, then 40 €/h working for a small software company (First time I got to 40 hours a week of billable time. I was swimming in money! ;) * 45 €/h working for another agency (iOS development) * 50 €/h first contracting gig at $BIGCORP (160 hours a month - 8000€) * 65 €/h second contracting gig at $BIGCORP2 (which is where I still am, 160+ hours a month - > 10k) * 65 €/h working for a friend with a product idea (only a few hours, far from full-time) * a few fixed-price projects in between, most of them were a desaster, one was decent

Regarding "wasteful"; It's supply and demand. For some reason the capitalism game works much better in contracting than with permanent jobs in Germany. I think part of it is that employees are so hard to get rid of and the overhead is high (~40%?).

Since I can't edit it, let me try again to make a bullet list (srsly?):

  * 50 DM/h working for a great agency as a student (that was in 2000)
  * 15 €/h working for an agency as a student (Yep, I was dense enough to take a paycut. Didn't even occur to me to ask for at least 25. So much facepalming...) 
  * 30 €/h working for the same agency when I decided to do freelancing full-time
  * 30 €/h, then 40 €/h working for a small software company (First time I got to 40 hours a week of billable time. I was swimming in money! ;)
  * 45 €/h working for another agency (iOS development)
  * 50 €/h first contracting gig at $BIGCORP (160 hours a month - 8000€)
  * 65 €/h second contracting gig at $BIGCORP2 (which is where I still am, 160+ hours a month - > 10k)
  * 65 €/h working for a friend with a product idea (only a few hours, far from full-time)
  * a few fixed-price projects in between, most of them were a desaster, one was decent

How did you get gigs at BIGCORPs?

The first one through a contracting agency/recruiter (aka pimp), namely Hays. The second one through my personal network. For that I am still going through a consulting company as a subcontractor, just because that was the quickest way to do it.

There are tons more pimps like Computer Futures and in Germany Gulp and Etengo. Just sign up on their website, upload your CV and expect to get spammed with every contract they have to fill.

Searching for them in GMail, I just noticed that many project descriptions are in German, even if the job itself only requires English. They are very formulaic so it shouldn't be too much of a problem if you don't speak German.

Here's an example of one in English:

I am looking for a Frontend Developer for a very well-known exciting client of mine .

Location: Berlin

Start: 01.09.2016

Lengths: 3 Months ++

Technical skills (please also reply, even if some technologies are not part of your skillset):

  * Advanced JavaScript knowledge including modern JS libraries such as React and jQuery
  * Interacting with REST API backends via Ajax or WebSockets
  * Template engines, such as JSX or Closure Templates
  * Automated testing, unit tests with Jasmine & Karma, UI tests with Selenium Webdriver
  * HTML 5, including HTML 5 APIs such as Local Storage & History
  * CSS3, including pre-processors like LESS or SASS Experience with responsive web design
  * Experience with package managers like npm and Bower Build pipelines with Grunt, Gulp or webpack
  * Ideally ext.js experience
  * Team-based collaboration, including pair programing & code reviews
  * Agile software development with techniques such as Kanban
  * Working co-located within an integrated, cross-functional team
  * Close collaboration with user experience & product management experts
  * Distributed version control, Git or Mercurial
  * Lean & data-driven mindset, including analytics review & A/B testing
  * Familiar with tools & systems like Jira, Jenkins, Confluence, GitHub, Gitorious, Gerrit
  * Optional: Performance optimization tactics at build-time, run-time, & server-side

Sounds interesting? Please send your CV and your hourly rate to redacted@example.com. If you know anybody who wants to do this role, please forward the project description.

Interesting. I thought those corporate gigs are onsite only. But I guess in web dev you have more options. I'm particularly interested in C++ jobs.

For the most part they are onsite only, yes. I guess this thread is a bit off topic. Sorry for perpetuating it. We somehow got here when vemv mentioned London in reply to wjg saying he* is moving to Europe. Of course, when it comes to remote jobs, it shouldn't matter where he is moving to. If US companies pay the most and he wants to get a high rate, he should apply at US companies.

Having said that, some project descriptions mention a number of days per week that one can work remote or "remote negotiable". And then I've seen a few that were 100% remote, where the recruiters where really excited about it. For them it's still very rare I guess.

I have a bit of a middle ground with my current team. I'm onsite most of the time. But since I've been there multiple times and earned their trust, I can work remotely as long as I don't stray away too far wrt to time zones. I'll probably make use of that in the fall/winter. Thinking of Barcelona, Tarifa, Canary Islands, maybe Malta.

Regarding C++ jobs: The ones I see are usually Qt or embedded Linux stuff (often automotive). There is definitely a lot of C++ contracting work available and I can imagine the rates are at least on par, probably higher than web dev.

* I assume he is male from seeing his first name and profile picture on github

edit: Example C++ project mail with "remote possible"

für meinen Berliner Kunden suche ich einen erfahrenen C++ Entwickler, der Lust auf ein sehr spannendes und langfristiges Projekt hat:

Start: 01.02.15

Dauer: >1 Jahr (50% Auslastung)

Remote: Nach Absprache möglich

  * Intensive C++ Erfahrungen 
  * Verarbeitung von Sensoren 
  * Linux und Cmake

Bei Interesse senden Sie mir Ihren CV (in Word-Format) unter Angabe Ihrer Verfügbarkeit und aktuellem Stundensatz (All-In).

Thanks for the detailed replies, very interesting!

My pleasure! I love sharing what I learned about this stuff. Had I known about it earlier, I'd have started doing this kind of freelancing five years sooner.

Having a rate that's too cheap definitely doesn't help... After that, it's really networking. I found the first few freelance jobs through people I met at meetups and through the blog I had. From then on, it's mostly been recommendations from people who worked with me before.

Ha, cool. I am actually in the process of writing up a blogpost on building an SPA w/ React/Redux/Node/Postgres/GraphQL front-to-back in hopes of getting some traction. :)

The networking makes sense, I don't have a big one and not a lot of remote stuff within it. I'll have to begin to remedy that. Thanks for the advice.

You're off to a good start with Flytrap. It looks interesting. You should show it here with a Show HN post. Also add somewhere in the doc or readme file that you're available for consulting engagements.

The best clients are the ones who contact you directly so reminding people you're available in your projects is important.

Thanks man, really appreciate your thoughts. I've put it on a Show HN before, but as it's tough to get off the New page, got discouraged and kinda gave up on getting it traction. :)

I'll do another ShowHN and the like, and make it clear I'm available for work on the readmes, etc.

I think it's probably building up a network and just having loads of experience? From what I've seen, most folks in the community kind of get lucky with their first job, build a network, and then just find jobs through their network after their first few years.

Yep, I got all my (good) jobs through peers I interacted with in an open-source community.

"Cold calling" a company by sending in my resume never worked for me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com