Ask HN: Lowest salary for a programmer?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9457401

by shire • 11 years ago

1 5 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

How much should an entry level programmer/web developer charge for work?

I'm thinking either for a company or maybe freelancing at home.

What's the lowest salary ($/hr) you would lower yourself too?

davidw• 11 years ago

In London, Cyanide Springs, Oklahoma, or a rural village in Vietnam?

wsc981• 11 years ago

Depends on the country. In The Netherlands (and perhaps most of Western Europe) I don't think it's wise to go much below 50 EUR an hour (ex. VAT) when freelancing.

tmaly• 11 years ago

back when I was still in the university around 1999, I would charge $15 to $20 an hour for freelance web based projects. I think with a greater demand and the general price of things you could charge a bit more if you are in the US or Western Europe. That being said, $15 an hour is a top rate for a senior software engineer in the Philippines. I recently interviewed a few programmers when I was in Manila.

chrisbennet• 11 years ago

Competing on price is a losing game. The customers that want a cheap price will be the most work and hassle. They simply don't value the product or you i.e. "Why should I pay someone much to type for a few hours?"

It's not intuitive, but raising your price will signal that you and your work are more valuable AND you will get more and better customers. Consider this: when you shop for something (that you don't have a lot of knowledge about) I bet you use the price as one indicator of quality. Same for services: Your customers will think "If he can charge $XXX hour, he must be good."

It is so common to devalue your own abilities as developer that it is a cliche' (Google "imposter syndrome"). In reality, your ability to deliver real value to a business/client happens long before you consider yourself an "expert".

I have 2 rates. (1) Free (2) Full price. In my experience, customers don't appreciate introductory discounted rates. Instead, they feel ripped off when you start charging them the full rate.

I don't have time to find the links now but HN'er Patrick McKenzie "Patio11" has written great stuff on this. See his blog on Kalzumeus Software.

shire• 11 years ago

Seattle, WA

Ask HN: Lowest salary for a programmer?

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