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Comment by raincom | Hacker News Reader

Recently, a friend of mine was interviewed for a contract role at Walmart. The first question was some dynamic programming question off of leetcode. He got stuck trying to program it. After 20 mins, he gave up and told the interviewer that he was not the right fit for the role. Sure, if they are paying $250K per annum, yes go for mini programming olympiad. Walmart's staffing company was paying like $75 per hour on W2 in the bay area.

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Not to nitpick, but $75 per hour x 40 hours per week x 52 weeks per annum = $156,000, which isn't exactly peanuts. According to levels.fyi, it's a bit less than entry-level for FANG companies, but still a reasonably high salary that sits squarely between E3 and E4 (Senior Software Eng) pay grades for Walmart Labs. It would be a role I would consider testing for the easier DP questions.

$156k in SF for a contractor is garbage pay. You have to pay for all your own expenses. Maybe you'd net $110k after all taxes and expenses.

There's real contractors and then there's fake contractors which should always be called staff augmentation.

No real senior software dev contractor would accept $75/hour in the Bay area. You're looking at minimum $100/hour.

Although, "fake contractors" or staff augmentation, those can be paid $75/hour or less.

It looks like median wages for a programmer in SF are around $55/hr according to the BLS. So if I was hiring, I'd assume median plus 1/3 for a contractor is plenty.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41860.htm

It is a contract position for a senior engineer, not a permanent role.

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