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Comment by FigBug | Hacker News Reader

On a recent contract I took, the end client told me what they were paying for my services -- about 6x what I was getting paid. They were pretty annoyed, and I was threatened with legal action for discussing financial matters with an end client. I haven't heard from either side since December, so I'm guessing that contract is pretty much dead.

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I live in a country when employees are more protected, and my client told me: I'm ready to pay more so you get a higher salary.

I didn't get a higher salary and left a few weeks later, anyways service at BigCo (230000 names in the phone book) was not my thing, I blew everybody away in the IT department by showing them SVN (it was before git), they were commissioning the development of a custom versioning system.

How is this unusual? You worked for a contracting/consulting firm directly?

The running rate for IT (not programming) work is $150/hr east-coast. That can get cut down, but is often even higher. The industry doesn't pay these techs more than $30 an hour.

For $30 an hour I hope they are employees, not contractors, otherwise they are getting ripped off. Bill out rates for employees are usually a lot higher than their salary. The company has to pay for non-billable hours, office space, medical insurance, benefits, computers, tools, etc. In my previous experience, the bill out rates for sub-contractors is usually a lot closer to what they actually get paid since they need to cover all those costs themselves.

Oh sure, they're hired as salary (or hourly) employees of the parent contracting company. These aren't subcontractors.

As a contractor, you do not enjoy the same kinds of protection that an employee does. Nor is discussing pay with the end client equivalent to discussing it with a fellow employee. Maybe if you had been discussing it with fellow contractor it might match some of what the article was talking about.

I'm surprised that your contract did not include an NDA that prevented you from discussing this kind of information with the end client.

My contract did not specifically mention salary though it was argued it was covered by the general confidential information clause. I'm used to working for the government where salary is publicly available, so I didn't even think twice about mentioning it.

It came up when we were reviewing another consultants report, and he had put his compensation in the report. I made a comment of surprise about how much he was being paid, which pretty much gave away I was getting less and they were paying more.

IANAL, but I know people who went on to freelance directly for the client in similar situations.

Usually you sign some kind of non-compete, but I think it's bad business for the contracting company to follow through on it.

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