This would probably work better as a poll or an offsite, anonymous survey. I don't think you'll get very accurate results from limiting yourself to the small fraction of developers who:
- don't mind disclosing their salary in public
- don't have any co-workers, employers, or clients who read this site
- have a single fixed rate that they charge everybody
- don't plan to change their rate in the future
- make enough to not feel silly disclosing their rate in public
- don't make so much that they'll feel like they're just bragging
I'd personally be happy to tick a box, but I'm not going to quote my rate here.
What Jason said. The "wants to help you" me really, really wants to quote numbers because I think people pervasively underprice their services. The "wants to not be awkward socially" me really doesn't want folks to immediately do "50 * $WEEKLY_RATE = $WOWZA" and assume that I'm loaded, partially because it would be wrong and partially because it might change how people interacted with me in a way I wouldn't enjoy. The rational businessman in me knows that telling my rate or rate range in place where prospective customers are quite likely to see it (hiya, past clients! waves) can only hurt my economic interests.
Which is a pity, because I think this is likely to systematically put a downward bias on answers you get back. These issues don't bite quite so hard when you're charging $20 ~ $60 an hour. If one hypothetically had weekly rates in the $8k to $24k region, they start to matter more. I'd hate for impressionable consultants reading the poll results to think that $20 ~ $60 is reasonably achievable and $8k to $24k is not just because only one of those was written in the results.
P.S. $8k to $24k is not my range. I just 10X and weekified the "relatively inexpensive programmer" numbers I picked out of nowhere.
The other way of approaching this may be to pivot it towards a general discussion on the state of the market in different sectors, regions, etc.
For eg. I know that atm iOS developers based in San Francisco or the valley can charge out around $1500 per day.
I also know that on-site web development work in Australia (Sydney) can fetch $150+
These are both from friends of mine who are experienced developers and who can work and complete a project on their own.
I also learnt today that the discount on working remotely can be large in some instances. (30%)
Interesting takeaways to get from other HN members would be what areas are hot at the moment (for eg. javascript web app dev), where the market is hot, how clients are being found, etc.
I am getting back into the market after a few years of fulltime employment and taking time off, so I am trying to get as much information as possible in order to get back up to speed.
Here in London, the demand for Linux engineers with several years of experience is quite high. This means there are a lot of contract jobs available, usually 6 months in duration, and the rates are around £300-£500 per day ($470-$790 US)
What makes things worse for employers are that changes to UK immigration laws implemented last year, make it even harder to employ people from outside the EU. There is now an annual cap of 20,000 work permits, except if it's an inter office transfer.
How is the daily rate defined. My definition of a day is 8 hours. So $1500/day = 187.5$/h. So if you work 12 hours a day, do you charge $1500, $2250 or simply refuse to work more than 8h?
If you're charging day rates, you're charging enough to not sweat the small stuff. My standard language is "Such hours as are standard and customary at $CLIENT." I've never had anyone abuse it.
I hate how you have to place a vote to see the results. The data can't really be trusted as you'll get a lot of rubber neckers passing through that cast a throw away vote just to see the data.
