If anyone has specialized skills, great English, and a great reputation, I think they should be able to earn $100+ per hour as a software developer. It shouldn't matter where they are from, where they are currently living, or what their name sounds like.
Unfortunately, there are still racial, cultural, and gender barriers. The sad truth is that someone from Russia, India, or Thailand would find it a lot easier to get high-paying work if they pretended to be a "digital nomad", and used a fake name and a fake profile picture. They would be doing the exactly the same work under a pseudonym.
I don't reduce my rates while living in countries like Thailand. I don't see why someone who is born in Thailand should charge so much less, if they can do the same work.
$100/hr for remote work is not a lot of money. Developers need to take this on board.
I realize that lots of people don't know this. And that lots of people do in fact make less than that. But that's often because they are leaving a lot of money on the table.
Sadly, the standard reaction upon learning how much this profession actually pays if you ask is to call whoever filled you in a liar. If you can get over the initial defensiveness and unwillingness to take on new information, you can get to the important next step where you actually go out and ask for that rate for your next gig.
You'll find that it's less than half what good clients will pay. Long term, not just one day a year, no foolin'.
> Sadly, the standard reaction upon learning how much this profession actually pays if you ask is to call whoever filled you in a liar.
I suspect those people get frustrated because what you're describing isn't something they experience in the real world. I know it kind of ticks me off when somebody says 'just ask for more money!' when I know damned well there's a lot more to it than that. Experiences vary greatly depending on the industry you're working for and the skills you have available to you.
> you can get to the important next step where you actually go out and ask for that rate for your next gig.
I did that once, based on reading what you and patio11 wrote. Long story short, not all companies can afford the rate you're describing and I'd rather take $50/h and pay the bills than hold out for the mythical client willing to pay more than $200/hr.
> I know it kind of ticks me off when somebody says 'just ask for more money!' when I know damned well there's a lot more to it than that.
What else is there to it? The company can afford it, or it can't. If you ask for more, they probably won't cease negotiations just because they can't afford it. If you're in the pipeline with them for a proposal/SOW submission, you can make several attempts at the sale. If you're finding that most clients refuse your higher rate, there are two possibilities: 1) you have actually hit the ceiling you can achieve for this industry and niche, or 2) you're dealing with suboptimal clients.
I'm just okay at sales (or at least, I don't really like it but I do it), but I am particularly good at a lot of billable information security services and software development. Every time I increased my rates, I did it because I decided to on a whim, during the kickoff call, just to see what would happen. I too thought that the mythical five figure weekly rate was preposterous, until I got it.
I know this probably sounds horribly insensitive to you based on what you just said, but when patio11 et al talk about raising rates and people push back against the feasibility of doing it, there's an element of talking past each other going on. There are a set of premises involved in successfully raising rates to the "mythical" scale you're talking about:
1. You are in an industry where you know established players are billing these rates.
2. You have the market outreach, salesmanship or network to capture a percentage (even if its small) or the existing market share from these incumbents.
3. You have comparable skills (both technical and logistical) to the consultants or shops your clients could be going to.
4. You are able to differentiate yourself (this is not even strictly necessary, just helpful).
If you don't tick all or more of those premises, then yes, of course simply asking for higher rates is unlikely to consistently work. But if you re-read much of the advice that is put out by folks like Patrick, you see that the unspoken subtext of, "You need to be good at this" is there, where "this" means technical and sales skills. This is why he wrote Don't Call Yourself a Programmer in the first place - the technical skills are important but insufficient. The "willing to ask" part comes after the fact, and just boils down to reticence.
It's a straightforward formula. If you know other people are doing it, and you know you're as good as them at doing it, you can do it too. In my experience, most of the people who push back against this are either 1) not as skilled as they think they are (to be blunt, but I'm not saying this necessarily describes you) or 2) not very good at sales, generally due to a natural aversion. The point people like myself try to make is that if you have the technical skills, just getting over the sales difficulty will significantly improve your income.
I largely agree with this comment. Can I highlight a particularly important bit:
> you're dealing with suboptimal clients.
It is entirely possible that a hypothetical freelancer charging restaurants $50 an hour for Ruby on Rails websites has maxed out on restaurants' willingness and ability to pay. I assert that the same technical skills command $200 an hour with better packaging for more sophisticated businesses, for example, pitching software companies on how to increase their sales (which can be done by writing fairly pedestrian Rails apps; "ActiveMailer and a for loop paid for my daughter's college education" is a sticker that more than one company owner could affix to their laptop).
You do not owe the economy your services vis a particular niche, particular technology, or particular customer profile. The economy is sending you an engraved invitation, delivered via letters as high as the hollywood sign, that people are willing to pay far, far more than $50 for services which are substantially similar in character to those sold by $50/hr technologists. One should rejigger one's business (prospecting strategies, client mix, etc) to expose oneself to those better opportunities.
> I assert that the same technical skills command $200 an hour
> pitching software companies on how to increase their sales
That's not software consulting, that's sales consulting. If you have the skills to be a sales consultant, then you can make a whole hell of a lot more than $200/hr. Saying that sales consulting (a non-technical skill) applies evenly across the entirety of the tech industry is blatantly wrong.
Let me try to boil down patio11's argument even further.
Premise 1: Technical skills like programming are broadly generalizable to solving many problems applicable to many businesses.
Premise 2: Programming skills are too abstract to be easily marketable, and "programming" devoid of business framing or value-add is a poor pitch for billable hours.
Premise 3: "Programming", as a solution, is equally applicable to problems that are very lucrative to solve and problems that are not very lucrative (swap out "problems" for "clients" too).
Conclusion: If you are good at programming to the skills approximation of a mid-level engineer at a reputable company, you can charge five or six figures per month to solve problems for people.
There is no secret club. If you are good at JavaScript and React, you can earn $250/hour, or $10,000 per week by targeting the right clients and asking for it in return for solving their problems. They don't have to know you're using React, in fact it might be better if they don't. You can also charge $50/hour, or $2,000 per week by targeting the wrong businesses and solving their problems with the same programming skills.
If you want to argue about the semantics of this and call it "sales consulting" - sure, fine. I wouldn't, because that means that all software-enabled consulting becomes "sales consulting." The simple, empowering truth is that you can do the same job with the same skillset and earn more money by literally asking for it and choosing companies that can pay it. You do not need to be a sales wunderkind or rip people off.
If you use Rails to solve a local business' problem that was costing them $1 million/year, and you use Rails to solve another business' problem that was costing them $20,000/year, and you complete both in the same timeframe of a few weeks, target the first business and charge $20,000 per week. They are almost certainly not going to say no, and you will find that there is no race to the bottom for consultants solving six or seven figure problems.
No, it's not. There really is such a thing as a sales consultant, and that person is nothing even a little bit like Patrick. Patrick is a software developer who has taken the time to understand what businesses actually do with software. That's not the same thing as being a salesperson. That's good news, because it's hard to learn to be a good salesperson, but not hard for someone good (or even passable) at writing software to learn how to use it to help businesses make money.
> The point people like myself try to make is that if you have the technical skills, just getting over the sales difficulty will significantly improve your income.
Go read jasonkester's comment again. If this is what he meant, then he has failed at communicating it. He's saying most developers are leaving money on the table because they won't ask for it, then he suggests an hourly rate that maybe the top 1% of our industry can command. He's suggesting that most people can hit that rate and it's just not true. The top 1-10% can hit that, but by definition, that means 90-99% of developers will never be able to command that kind of money.
That's circular. The reason only 1% achieve that rate is not because there is an efficient market that evenly distributes earnings according to skills. It's because most developers are not even cognizant of the fact that they can charge far more than they do. They don't even arrive at the point where they debate doing that with themselves, because the concept is foreign to them.
This is the essence of the problem: the true 1% of the industry in terms of skill (technical and business savvy) earn millions per year. But they are out of sight, and the 1% is artificially dropped down to $200/hour, because the market is not competing primarily on skills, it's competing on business savvy. Many of the most technically proficient people handicap themselves in negotiations, meanwhile many people less technically skilled but still very capable of delivering value earn more than them. There's no sales-y secret sauce here.
People will often charge a daily or weekly rate, and may offer a lower rate if the project will take a long time. But $100 per hour is nothing crazy, and I think it's actually on the low end for a good software developer. It's not uncommon for a remote software developer to charge between $100 and $200 per hour, depending on their experience. If you have some very specialized knowledge and a strong reputation, you might have a weekly rate of $10,000. (But these are typically very short term engagements.)
Unfortunately, there are still racial, cultural, and gender barriers. The sad truth is that someone from Russia, India, or Thailand would find it a lot easier to get high-paying work if they pretended to be a "digital nomad", and used a fake name and a fake profile picture. They would be doing the exactly the same work under a pseudonym.
I don't reduce my rates while living in countries like Thailand. I don't see why someone who is born in Thailand should charge so much less, if they can do the same work.