NYCPHP Meetup

[Michael Sims]

On Monday 20 January 2003 12:03 pm, Edward Potter wrote:

>   I was just wondering what the going rate for freelance (NYC) PHP
> programmers was? I have a client that says she is getting scores of
> resumes where guys are charging less then $20 an hour. I had assumed
> it was about $40 - $50 these days.

There has been a lot of useful info in this thread.  One thing that I 
didn't see mentioned (besides the hordes of unemployed programmers who 
are willing to work quite cheaply) is that you are also competing 
against overseas people - India, Russia, etc.

I know of one company in NYC who is employing a Bulgarian firm.  They 
have skilled, competent programmers, and the rate is $10/hour - $10/hour 
that the U.S. firm is paying out, so who knows what the Bulgarians are 
getting individually for a salary, but it isn't much.

There are lots of situations where foreign outsourcing isn't really an 
option, and in those cases contract programmers can expect to continue 
to demand decent wages.  But if we invented teleportation tomorrow, 
plumbers wouldn't command $80/hour any more, because you could teleport 
in skilled plumbers from Bulgaria who would work for a tenner and then 
teleport them right back home.  That is happening now with any project 
that can be outsourced overseas.  So watch out, and really cunning 
programmers will look for market segments where they *aren't* competing 
against overseas labor.


-- 
Michael Sims