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Comment by vegas | Hacker News Reader

You can and should charge at least $225/hour if you are a competent software person. There are far less competent software people then there are mediocre lawyers, and mediocre lawyers can charge $225/hour.

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HN's patio11 (if memory serves) has made a strong case in the past for charging by the day or by the week or by the job ... pretty much anything other than by the hour. Ex.: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2909480

Not that you're necessarily wrong, but you've only addressed supply, not demand.

"The main reason for the rapid growth is a large increase in the demand for computer software." http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/s...

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/legal/lawyers.htm

How is the stock photo for the software dev page not yet a meme?

That is a glorious mustache.

Edit: I did a Google image search on it. Here's the stock photo page: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-58442602/stock-photo-male-pr.... "computer hacker in black shirt working at laptops" -- I wonder what the annual salary of black-shirted computer hacker is. BLS doesn't seem to have stats on that one.

Here he is looking manic: http://www.123rf.com/photo_7515672_computer-hacker-in-black-...

I'm thinking lawyers might, by the nature of their profession, provide more value than devs though, since they can keep you out of jail or prevent you from being seriously screwed in a deal, while a dev is mostly just increasing your revenue/profits by extending your software. Also, lawyers are able to provide value within relatively small timeframes (compared to developing something meaningful), which makes high hourly rates more acceptable to clients (as clients are mostly interested in "how much for not going to jail" total amount, not the hourly rate)

There's plenty of software required to track / audit what's happening in a business in order to comply with plenty of legislation

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