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Comment by marcusf | Hacker News Reader

This is going on like a broken record; No flack to the author, he got all rights to have his grievances. On the other hand, it feels like I've read this post before.

One thing that always comes up in these posts is: > If we fail fast you have lost almost nothing whereas I have lost months of intense work.

I don't get that...? Presumably, the guy you jump in a boat with will also have invested 6 months of his life in to this, and presuposing he, even the abstract random business guy he in this post, can't contribute anything of value seems inflammatory at best?

Finally, I think that we should recognize that this is a fantastic problem to have. If you're approached weekly about new business ventures, you've probably made a good name and good game for yourself. Which is fantastic.

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> ... have lost almost nothing whereas I have lost months of intense work

Well observed. The problem with good developers these days is that they have too high opportunity costs: a good developer earns as contracter easily between 130K und 180K USD, even more. Compared to a non-techie this is remarkable because there are many high priced offers in this range and developers don't need to present such a polished CV like their business counterparts (they can have white spots, breaks, stayed just few months somewhere, etc. and still get easily high paid dev jobs because of the shortage). And business people usually cannot do contracting work that easily.

This paired with a generally more risk-averse attitude leads to statements like "If we fail fast you have lost almost nothing whereas I have lost months of intense work".

I remember those days when I had a high salary plus a full packages of perks—I was lethargic and haven't followed great biz opportunities because I thought they are too small and will never reach my current income. And comparing opportunities as a founder with your current income as contractor or employee is fundamentally wrong. Even the best brands like Google, free fruit and 180K+ salaries will never give you the same feeling and confidence as when you build own thing. But the most will never make this experience, they even won't realize that they are wearing golden handcuffs all the time.

Easily? The average salary for a google engineer is a little over $100k. I guess we need to define what is "good".

Employees get a whole host of bonuses contractors don't get, hence the increase in profit.

I completely glossed over where he mentioned contractors.

Yes, easily.

Take day rates for average/good Java, Ruby on Rails are at around 700+ EUR in Europe and in the US around 900 USD => 900 day rate x 20 days a month x 11 months (one month off for vacation etc) = 198 K

and demand for good Java and Ruby devs is endless ...

I don't know where in Europe you're talking about those 700+ EUR/day but in Spain I've even seem job offers for those same 700+ EUR per month. Yeap, sad but true. Of course, the average is a bit higher. I'd say 18K - 24K/year on average for web developers. So as a freelance you're definitely not going to be making anything close to 700 EUR/day. Maybe 200, if you're good.

We charge a bit upwards of 1000 EUR per day for our senior consultants, here in Stockholm. We have had people who jumped ship and still charge that independently. With 80% workload, that works out to about 220 000 USD a year (With one month off). So it's not completely unheard of for a senior self-employed contrator.

You charge that much for them... but what do you pay them?

I know it's possible to charge 500-600 euros per day consulting in Vienna since I've done it :)

yea.. because contractors are always fully booked -.-

700 EURS for RoR devs? I get recruiters sending me very impressive CVs of developers looking for £250 - £300 a day.

I interviewed most of those people. We couldn't get a decent JS dev for less than 400-450 a day. We could get people, but one (who cost 300/day) actually didn't know much JS.

>>> 900 day rate x 20 days a month x 11 months

When do you work on your sales pipeline?

You're "facts" are far from that.

The developers we have onsite with the customer (Department of Defense with Top Secret clearances) are paid roughly $40-50K/yr USD.

If there were companies that actually paid the salaries you're quoting there would be a line of people at the front door every morning wanting to get hired.

I'm sure he means self-employed.

What?!?

Maybe they're in their first year, or something, but I wasn't on site and I didn't even have clearance and I was paid significantly more than 50k. In Arizona. (I was doing support work.)

When I said $$$ to BigCo in Silicon valley, they didn't blink, and I don't have the big names on my resume either.

I've worked for 4 companies within http://washingtontechnology.com/toplists/top-100-lists/2011....

The rates that I've seen has actually gone down, Back in 2001 a developer with a TS/SCI/FSP would get around $45K with about 5 years experience (company is in the top 10). Today that same developer gets $40K with the same clearances (company within the top 50).

His numbers may be high but $40-50k/yr is pretty low. My impression is that software developer positions at top companies (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc) pay about 2x that.

2x $40-50k? You are definitely off base, that would be maybe a starting salary for an entry level developer, if that.

Top companies? LOL - I remember being contacted by Google (whatever division they have in the Washington DC area). They wouldn't commit to providing the hardware or software to do the job, or even keep the benefits the same when you move from project to project - so f*ck 'em.

Please see the following salary survey:

http://www.clearancejobs.com/files/CompensationSurvey2012.pd...

It is:

> A comprehensive earnings survey of security-cleared professionals, with 11,436 respondents from November 2011 to January 2012

> Key Findings: Earnings for professionals with an active federal security clearance increased over two percent since the 2011 ClearanceJobs Compensation Report, with an average total compensation of $90,865.

Based on this empirical evidence, it is clear you are a bullshitter who doesn't know what he is talking about as your stated numbers are not even remotely close enough to the real numbers to have the least bit of credibility. Or perhaps you would care to provide a citation to your own 11,436 person survey of those with clearances.

The survey cited here includes low skill stuff like IT support. Breaking out actual developers in one of the report's table we have the following total compensations:

IT - Engineering (Software or System) $113,098

IT - Software (Programming or Web Dev) $101,809

Your reference is like citing Ms Cleo - pathetic actually.

If companies actually paid those amounts listed there'd be a line of applicants at the front door every single morning wanted the job.

...There are. Google, Microsoft, and all the rest get tons of applications. People just can't develop software.

P.S. My Google intern salary would beat that if it were scaled up to full-time levels (and in actuality full-time is much higher).

>The developers we have onsite...

I'm not sure what in particular you are saying, but that is a terrible rate of pay that only the worst (or most naive) developers must stomach. Six figures is not at all uncommon.

Haven't seen, or known, anyone close to that in 10 years of being a DoD contractor.

Haven't seen, or known, anyone close to that in 10 years of being a DoD contractor.

But weirdly this discussion had absolutely nothing to do with being a DoD contractor. I don't know, or honestly care, what a DoD contractor makes. The numbers you have indicated, however, are very low in the general market. That you are oddly holding them as exceptional is extraordinary given that they are exceptionally low.

Your salary numbers are very low.

I think you're claiming it's because of the peculiar type of job (DoD or DoD + clearance). This is not the explanation. I know several people who are doing DoD contract work for software development (cleared and not), in various places across the US, and their rates are perhaps 2x higher than what you're quoting.

And I'm astonished to read your claim elsewhere on this thread that you or people in your organization are not being reimbursed for travel for work. I've never heard of such a policy -- it may not even be lawful.

Sure, they will try to chip away at the edges (Was that cab ride necessary, given that you have a rental car? and, Your breakfast was included in the registration fee). But that's all second-order stuff.

> If we fail fast you have lost almost nothing whereas I have lost months of intense work.

Isn't this part of the problem though - from "their" point of view coding is easy and can just be churned out. From "our" point of view business management, marketing etc is easy and anyone can do it. Its simply not true in both cases. As such, I completely agree with your statement, I don't understand either. If the co-partner wasn't going to be as completely committed, and perhaps more importantly, you trust them to be that committed, then there shouldn't be any partnership - they should be employing you.

Yeah, very true. What I guess I object to the most is the implication and stereotype that all people with a knack for business will take the first opportunity to slack off work and go golfing. From my experience, that's (usually) simply not the case.

> ...If you're approached weekly about new business ventures, you've probably made a good name and good game for yourself.

I don't think that's really true. I'm approached any time I am at an event with a business spin of any sort when people find out that I write code for a living. I am not saying I'm a bad programmer, but I will say that those who have heard of anything I have done are in the dramatic minority. And the number of people who can connect me to all of the projects I've worked on is less than 5.

This includes a recent social event for skillshare. There are zero boundaries. It's completely reasonable to get frustrated.

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