Coder rental

happytechie · 13 Jan 2006 at 13:24

well if you want me to turn up, bought through my employer I will cost you in excess of £1000 a day. and I don't any smaller units than a day.

For most of the projects we do we work with the customer to build the requirements and normally a top level design and test spec. This is paid for by the customer by consultant's time spent. We will then offer a fixed price number to complete the work. It's up to the customer if they want to take this on. If they want to get someone from topcoder to throw it together for £50 then it's up to them.

Estimating how long (and therefore how much £) it will take to complete a development project is not an easy task and takes years of experience to do accurately. Don't discount post delivery support and error correction either, you won't get anything from topcoder.

HT

Dr_Evil · 13 Jan 2006 at 13:31

If it's ASP/VBScript/JavaScript/HTML/SQL you need a Web Developer who knows how to design databases and how to code propery. Going rates are from £15 to £35 I'd say, I would suggest finding somewhere in the middle, depending on your location.

Slime101 · 13 Jan 2006 at 17:14

Dr_Evil said:
If it's ASP/VBScript/JavaScript/HTML/SQL you need a Web Developer who knows how to design databases and how to code propery. Going rates are from £15 to £35 I'd say, I would suggest finding somewhere in the middle, depending on your location.

Which is where i am aiming - i think £25/hour is very respectable for all but the top london based people.

Most of the setting out is already done, the brief has had months of work and input in it and is heading on for pseudo code in some areas now so all that we need is someone to convert it into a working prog/site.

We know our business very well, thats why we are no1 in the uk for this product and produce tens of thousands every year (which considering the product it is a massive number) and this has allowed us to buid a good spec, i've also got previous spec writing experience from my engineering background, and to top it off we have a working prog already, all we want is a bunch of new features added and things tweaked but it seems to be better to start from scratch for this one.

Hades · 13 Jan 2006 at 21:05

Perhaps you should give an idea of the skillset required? If it's to modify an existing system then what language is it in, etc?

Slime101 · 13 Jan 2006 at 22:30

Hades said:
Perhaps you should give an idea of the skillset required? If it's to modify an existing system then what language is it in, etc?

Its not modifying an existing system - its for a new one.

Possibly php, if it is then some perl in there too. Othwise asp, asp.net, coldfusion, java and others are all posibilities.

zetec452 · 14 Jan 2006 at 01:18

If your the number one company for this product and sell so much why don't you invest in your companies software. I have a client who is the number one in the country for a product and they've spent at least 100k in the last 6 months on IT related stuff. Why? Its because they want to stay at the top.

robmiller · 14 Jan 2006 at 02:37

Slime101 said:
Their alternative income is tesco or similar @ £5 a hour - i'd say 4x that is perfectly reasonable!

Without sounding arrogant (and just a general comment), why on earth would the age of the employee be the main factor in deciding said employee's earnings? If a 15 year old can do exactly the same job as a 30 year old (which, in this business, is certainly possible) then why do they deserve less money? It doesn't detract from their work's quality if their apparent "alternative income" is a totally unskilled job that pays £5 an hour.

Slime101 · 14 Jan 2006 at 09:48

robmiller said:
Without sounding arrogant (and just a general comment), why on earth would the age of the employee be the main factor in deciding said employee's earnings? If a 15 year old can do exactly the same job as a 30 year old (which, in this business, is certainly possible) then why do they deserve less money? It doesn't detract from their work's quality if their apparent "alternative income" is a totally unskilled job that pays £5 an hour.

Because age is a massive factor in income all around the world. Simple as that.

Also i dont think you are in any position to comment about being able to complete work, or do exactly the same job as a 30yr old for example, as you clearly failed to do that when i was employing you, and didnt posess the maturity to even talk to me when you screwed up.

robc123 · 14 Jan 2006 at 11:25

What is the project then? It is probably a good idea that you tell people so that they know what the project is

Haircut · 14 Jan 2006 at 11:56

robmiller said:
Without sounding arrogant (and just a general comment), why on earth would the age of the employee be the main factor in deciding said employee's earnings? If a 15 year old can do exactly the same job as a 30 year old (which, in this business, is certainly possible) then why do they deserve less money? It doesn't detract from their work's quality if their apparent "alternative income" is a totally unskilled job that pays £5 an hour.

If you don't think the age/experience of the employee makes a difference to the level of pay then you are going to have a shock when you get into the real world.

robc123 · 14 Jan 2006 at 15:55

Haircut said:
If you don't think the age/experience of the employee makes a difference to the level of pay then you are going to have a shock when you get into the real world.

A younger person who has nothing to lose is more likely to be unreliable

robmiller · 14 Jan 2006 at 18:43

Haircut said:
If you don't think the age/experience of the employee makes a difference to the level of pay then you are going to have a shock when you get into the real world.

Don't twist it by adding "experience" in there, I clearly stated that two people with the same experience should be paid the same regardless of their ages.

robc123 · 14 Jan 2006 at 18:56

that never is the case though

Haircut · 14 Jan 2006 at 19:44

robmiller said:
Don't twist it by adding "experience" in there, I clearly stated that two people with the same experience should be paid the same regardless of their ages.

Well, to be fair you never mentioned experience in your post - you said if they can do the same job.
I've got just over 3 years experience in the IT industry and both I and my manager think that I do a better job than many of the people that have been at the company 10-20 years. They still get paid at least £10K more than me though.
In certain cases some of them actually have significantly less experience than me in the technologies we use on my current project.

z3b3dy · 14 Jan 2006 at 21:21

This is always a difficult one, for me when I am looking for people to work with word of mouth and personal recommendation is really the only thing I go with these days.

Also I am insistent on meeting that person, judgment of skills/competence is just so much easier face to face than by email/phone. If the project is big and means that much to you/the person you are going to employ then a meeting has to happen. I realise that these points can make it difficult to find the right people to work with but in the end it's your money that's involved.

Personally I would offer my services but then that goes against nearly everything I have mentioned above!

28ten · 14 Jan 2006 at 22:54

From my experience of contract management I always go for fixed price for the whole contract, and a realistic schedule for completion/delivery, and call me old fashioned but i also like to meet the contractor and build some sort of communication with them.

Slime101 · 15 Jan 2006 at 11:06

28ten said:
From my experience of contract management I always go for fixed price for the whole contract, and a realistic schedule for completion/delivery, and call me old fashioned but i also like to meet the contractor and build some sort of communication with them.

I agree on all points, however meeting can be tricky, although i am more centrally situated now in staffordshire rather than down on the south coast.

BlackDragon · 20 Jun 2010 at 10:00

I've just set up a profile on rentacoder (now known as vWorker), and I am unsure about the question about whether I am subject to US taxes.

Does anyone know if I would be subject to US taxes if I am not from/in the US?

Thanks

_TubbZ_ · 20 Jun 2010 at 17:05

Wow bring a thread back from the dead! Surely the sites FAQ's would cover such legalities?

regulus · 20 Jun 2010 at 17:23

Adz said:
£20/hour is peanuts for this kind of work, student or not. £40/hour is still rather cheap - I'm not exactly a 'pro' but I recently charged one of our hosting clients £1000 + VAT for a project that took 5 hours. Their original developer at the same price couldn't come up with a working system.

What you need to pay really depends on the complexity of the project and the skillset required .

Back in the days when I was still working as a programmer (very green and very junior), my mum got me a contract to write a workflow system for a small graphic design company that her firm was doing business with. I went in to meet with their IT guy to get specifications and had to talk out of my ass a bit and pad my experience. I got the design document and was like 'No way, this is way, way above what I can do'. I decided to quote them ridiculously high so they could knock me back. Asked for £8000 for the work and £300 'consultancy' fees every time I had to come in to fix something.

They immediatelly accepted

I managed to bribe a top notch coder from Uni to help me out and we delivered within 2 months. It was a fun experience I never want to go through again.