Comments on: The California Guys

By: Antipode - Article - What your time is worth

Antipode - Article - What your time is worth — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 02:01:54 +0000

[...] lot of people who read the story of my poorly-priced development contract have asked me what they should charge as freelancers. I have a simple formula for [...]

By: links for 2009-03-06 « My Weblog

links for 2009-03-06 « My Weblog — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:06:40 +0000

[...] Antipode – Article – The California Guys (tags: freelance) [...]

By: links for 2009-03-06 | acervus.ca

links for 2009-03-06 | acervus.ca — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:04:33 +0000

[...] HOWTO get sucked in on your first programming contract [...]

By: Kamil Kisiel

Kamil Kisiel — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:48:46 +0000

I’ve tried the independent contractor thing several times in my youth, and none of them really worked out.

The first time is when I was in high school. I made a garish looking (well, it looked good when I was 15!) website for a friend of my father’s who sold medical supplies. It was a fixed rate deal for $2000 for a bunch of static pages and it probably took me 20 hours worth of work to finish. However, when it came time to pay, the guy wanted to give me only $400 despite the fact we had agreed in writing for $2000. No matter what we couldn’t convince him to pay up, so we didn’t give him the site and I walked away with nothing.

My second experience was doing work with a friend of mine. We were contracting for a startup that was making USB security keys (somewhat aking to RSA). We refreshed their website and redid a bunch of documentation. I don’t remember how much money was involved, but my friend/partner was the contact on our side. Apparently he took all the money, used it to pay his rent, and I didn’t hear from him for the next few years…

By: Allen

Allen — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:32:53 +0000

$20/hr is ridiculously low, definitely. Consulting rates should be substantially higher than what you’d make at a “normal” job.

You have to account for the time you spend getting clients, managing them, sick time, vacations, the risk you incur, discounts you might give, health and dental, rent, hardware and software, and more. It seems to be a good rule of thumb that if you double what you would earn hourly at a stable job, that should account for those variables.

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:44:55 +0000

Thanks for the great post. I’m an independent contractor, but for each of the two contracts I’ve had thus far, I went through an agency where my corporation was being paid by the agency, and the agency was being paid by the client. So they dealt with the clients on financial matters, while I could just concentrate on the hourly-paid work. This is great from a hassle perspective, but it also means you get the privilege of forking up to 40% of your hourly rate to the agency (though, it’s invisible to you – you get an hourly rate from the agency, and they charge whatever they want/can to the client). I feel fortunate that for each of the two contracts I’ve had so far I’ve had great clients, but reading this post gives me a good sense of what to expect if or when I eventually connect with clients directly.

Thanks again, and best of luck to you in future endeavors!

By: Curtis

Curtis — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 08:24:30 +0000

Allen, you’ve picked a spectacular blog-picture.

$20/hr? That seems ridiculously low.

What would you estimate to be a fair price for professional PHP services?

By: Hugh Buchanan

Hugh Buchanan — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:52:02 +0000

Contract Programming… Fun?…

I recently came across a blog poast (http://www.antipode.ca/2009/the-california-guys/) that was unfortunately not news to me. In summary, the author, one Allen Pike (who I don’t know) writes about some bad experiences doing contract programming…

By: Allen

Allen — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:29:07 +0000

Also, I’d like to welcome all you Redditors and Hacker News folk – so far every comment, message, and remark I’ve received has been positive and/or thoughtful. Keep up the feedback – cheers!

By: Allen

Allen — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:23:43 +0000

Although the project itself was horrible, I’m not sure it was doomed from the outset. If I learned anything from the second California Guy, it was that contract programming’s success has as much to do with how you manage it and what the task is. Maybe I’m an optimist, but I think if the first California Guy came to me now, I be able to make a good fixed bid – on the complete rewrite that was necessary.