NYCPHP Meetup

[Rolan Yang]

The real money can be found in cleaning up the mess left behind by these 
$15/hr programmers when they discover they can't complete the job or 
finally realize that the money it isn't worth their time and bail out 
1/2 way through the project (or are fired by the client when they 
discover things are not going as planned).

It is still a rarity to find an experienced consultant who can do more 
than simply convert raw specifications to code. One that can effectively 
communicate with the client, foresee problems down the line, offer 
suggestions on how to avoid them, accurately spec out time and price for 
a job, and deliver quality work within the bounds of the estimate.

If someone is offering you only $20/hr and you know you are worth much 
more, politely decline their offer and move on to find other work with a 
client that is more in touch with reality. In the end, it will work out 
better for you and your client.

~Rolan



Douglas Clifton wrote:

>I'm going to chime in here because this is a topic that I find
>upsetting.
>
>I recently had a guy offer me 20 CD/hour to work as contractor
>doing professional PHP programming work. After the exchange
>rate, paying my own taxes and other expenses, etc., that boiled
>down to doing professional programming work for minimum
>wage. Which is ludicrous.
>
>I'm no expert on these things, but I think there are two things
>going on here. Kids, with no experience or education, that are
>willing to work for peanuts or just for the "fun" of it, and the
>overseas contingent. How is an American supposed to
>compete with that and still have a decent quality of life?
>Especially in a major city like NY, or on the west coast where
>housing costs alone are to the moon.
>
>I keep telling people that approach me with projects, and are
>expecting to be able to get away with a rate similar to what
>I've just described, you get what you pay for. Because I
>don't know about the rest of this group, but I have not only
>seen the quality of the code and database designs from
>folks that are willing to work on the cheap, I've also had to
>throw a lot of it in the trash and start over. I have even
>considered registering domain names and selling myself
>on this very idea: we-clean-up-after-[insert slur here].com.
>
>If anyone reading this list is looking for an experienced,
>well rounded developer (PHP,MySQL,Apache,Perl,Linux
>or BSD Unix,X/HTML,CSS...), then contact me. If you want
>to pay me $15 an hour, then please DO NOT contact me.
>I am in the DC area, but am willing to relocate.
>
>NY would be awesome.
>
>Doug
>  
>