
Ask HN: How to find contract work in Bay Area? - byebyetech
I have over 6 years of experience in iOS and I think i am pretty good programmer. I am looking for hourly rate of $200+ in Bay Area. 
I get calls from companies that do placements but they don&#x27;t go above $80 (even for Bay Area).<p>What can I do to get this rate?
======
physcab
\- Start with your own network. Reach out to past co-workers and bosses who
regarded you highly. They will pay more for known risk.

\- Do not compromise on your rate. If needed, shorten scope according to
budget, but do not get tricked into lowering hourly rate. One employer wanted
me to work $75/hr for 9 months. I got them to $200/hr for 3 month contract.
Nearly the same budget, just reduced scope to get the work done in shorter
time. Both of us went home happy.

\- As soon as you get your first gig, start working on your pipeline. Reach
out to more ex-coworkers. Once you've exhausted your personal network, you've
gotta start getting referrals. I usually use the LinkedIn leads for FTE and
say "no im not interested in full time, but let me know if you have any
contract opportunities". That sometimes helps.

\- Start a blog, start developing a reputation, do lots of marketing. Rinse
and repeat.

\- Save 50% of your income to weather the lulls between gigs until you get
your pipeline full.

Note: I got opportunities both at publicly traded companies and small startups
with this approach. If you are going for startups, it is sometimes easier for
well-funded startups. In this market most devs are going to the big co's.

Tip: Get OnTheJob
([https://stuntsoftware.com/onthejob/](https://stuntsoftware.com/onthejob/)).
You just press "Start" when working, "Stop" when not. It makes time tracking
and invoicing easy. I just send the output of that to whoever pays the bills.

------
jchoong
200 coming in cold is too high without a solid record / examples / focused
vertical.

Have paid 200/hr easily and was happy for a 2 month project with a specific
scope ( needed a solid RN<>iOS/Android bridge w. a lightly documented video
player + optimization ). In another case, 250/hr (2k / day x 4 day week x 6
mths) to shore up team as it ramped up.

In both cases :- super clear communicators / solid engineers. 8-12 years eng.
experience, 3-5 yrs in specific language.

In both cases, it required 2-3 strong references & examples within the
specific requirement we needed. And it took 2-3 weeks back / forth before we
decided (and we looked/searched hard for other options)

I've also 'taken chances' with folks at the 80-120 range. And that's the
typical range where it's much easier to make the decision and never went much
beyond samples and a quick 30min tech chat. Onboard fast ... and off board
just as fast if things don't work out in the first 2-3 days.

If you're just starting out, placements are fine, build your portfolio up for
2-3 mths, then start looking at the 120-140 range. Once there, 6-12 mths out,
you should see what you're good at / what are the particular trends and then
focus there. Then you're closer to targeting specific companies (eg. do
outreach) and for those specific hotspots, you would be able to command the
180-250 range.

Definitely target companies that just raised their A or B rounds. Else, it's
the standard network + word of month @ those rates. Do try Angel.co as well
(w. specific / targeted messages)

------
gkoberger
Some thoughts as someone who has both done freelancing and now hires
freelancers:

Remember why people are hiring you: to make problems go away. People hire
contractors (and pay them a lot) because they want work completed, without the
drama of an employee. Every email you send, ever line of code you write, make
sure you're thinking about "how can I make fewer problems, not more"?

Freelancing is less about the work, and more about the presentation. Doesn't
matter how good your code is if you don't answer emails within an hour, send
professional invoices on time, and hit deadlines. If being over-communicative
doesn't come natural to you, I'd consider finding someone who is good at it
and giving them 10-20%. (It'll be well worth it in the end)

Specialize in something people need, and have a good, simple website for it.
You aren't "generic iOS" dev, you're now "iOS animations" or "integrate
awesome metrics into your iOS" or "upgrade to the newest version of iOS" dev.

Do fun, viral projects. Explicitly say you're looking for work. I got most of
my freelancing off projects like
[http://2014.startupnotes.org/](http://2014.startupnotes.org/) and
[https://gkoberger.github.io/stacksort/](https://gkoberger.github.io/stacksort/)

Work with other freelancers, especially with other competencies. It doesn't
have to be a formal "company", but you get to share your network and fill in
skill gaps. "Oh, you need an illustrator? My friend Tom is awesome, he can do
that for you."

Cut ties with bad clients ASAP. There's so many great clients out there, and
bad ones will suck up all your time and energy.

Understand why you're doing this. Wanting to make lots of money, wanting to
work less, trying new technologies, wanting to finance a startup... all valid,
but optimize for what you want out of this.

I'd aim for $120/hr at first. You need to get your foot in the door at some
great companies. You can always say you charge $200, but give a discount
"because you really like them". Then slowly raise as time goes on. The more
work you get, the easier future work is (due to referrals). I know everyone
says charge more, and I agree eventually, but early on I think building up a
strong network is even more important. It'll lead to higher rates (from other
companies) as time goes on.

Charge by the day, not per hour.

~~~
fygwtclub
Why the /day and not /hour? Just curious.

------
joeld42
Email companies looking for iOS full-time employees (not recruiters) and ask
them if they would consider contractors. You'll need to have a pretty solid
and impressive portfolio and be able to work independently to get that kind of
rate, e.g. not just do the programming but manage the project and deliver
things without having the client break it down for you, possibly
subcontracting the art and design yourself.

I'd suggest setting your rates high and offering a "per-project discount" if
clients will let you blog about or show off work instead of keeping it behind
NDA.

Most work comes from word-of-mouth and networking. If you need to build up
your portfolio or contacts, offer to build (small, well-scoped) apps for
nonprofits or organizations that you support, and build them in your off hours
that would be unbillable anyways. If you do this, take it seriously and don't
drop the ball, you're basically working for your reputation instead of cash.
Or build your own app store app to use as a showcase rather than expecting app
store windfalls.

------
alaskamiller
The placement companies are getting $150/hr, which is about going rate for dev
agencies here in the valley. You just get the 60% cut.

Some other routes to take:

Management. You get 2 or 3 other remote guys and bill at $200/hr then split
the take. You'll get your needed billable hours to make it worthwhile for
everyone but lots of headaches and lots of sales.

Consulting. You design the architecture or analysis or technical reviews of
projects. But won't hit 2000 billable hrs a year at that rate.

Otherwise no one's going to hire an individual contributor at $200/hr.

Email me if you want to talk shop over coffee.

~~~
theli0nheart
I'm based in Austin, am an individual contributor, and I bill out at $300 /
hour (and have been for more than a year). I work anywhere from 20-25 hours
per week. I'm quoting new inbound at $350-400 / hour and work has no signs of
slowing down.

~~~
byebyetech
I live in Austin too but here no one agrees to pay me more that $40/hour and
thats why i am considering moving to Bay Area. What kind/field of work do you
do sir?

~~~
theli0nheart
I do iOS, Android, and full stack web development (devops, frontend, backend,
etc.)—basically whatever tech is needed to solve the business issue at hand.
Hit me up if you want to talk shop, I’d love to help you out if I can!

~~~
byebyetech
Great! just sent you message on LinkedIn :)

------
myinitialsaretk
Lots of very good advice in this thread so I'll take a different approach.

What's your goal? Why are you looking for a $200 rate?

Do you want to make 400k a year? Do you want to make 160k a year but only work
for 20 weeks? Do you want flexibility in schedule?

As a contractor, you'll spend way more time than you think you will developing
contacts and trying to sell the ways you can provide value to a client.

I quit a job when a former employer offered me close to that hourly rate to
work on some very specialized software. Worked for about 9 months, then I
spent the next 4 trying to look for more incredibly lucrative freelance work.
Eventually met a startup who gave me an full-time offer I couldn't refuse so I
took it.

I'm much happier not intermittently searching for work and sinking my teeth
into helping a company grow.

------
compumike
At Triplebyte we're currently looking for experienced iOS engineers to be
remote interviewers, who help us evaluate other iOS applicants. It's not
exactly your rate, but we pay $200 per 2-hour technical interview, and it's
fully remote and flexible (after two weeks of training at our office in San
Francisco). If you're interested you can apply here:
[https://triplebyte.com/remote_interviewer](https://triplebyte.com/remote_interviewer)

Edit: a few advantages compared to or when combined with traditional
contracting. First you can throttle up or down as you wish -- do 1 interview a
day or 4. Second is once you've finished grading an interview, you've finished
-- no remaining to-do tasks. Third is you don't have to go out and find work
-- we fill your interview slots. You also get to help smart people from all
over the world make life-changing career leaps, which is pretty exciting.

Edit 2: contact peter@triplebyte.com -- Peter runs our remote interviewer team
and can give you more details.

~~~
rahimnathwani
"after two weeks of training at our office in San Francisco"

If you're happy to share, I'd love to know what you cover in those two weeks.
Most companies spend more like 4 to 8 hours (5%-10% of your 80 hours) training
new hires on how to interview.

~~~
compumike
Sure. It's a mix of:

* technical topics (review to substantial depth on every topic we cover)

* interview management (being friendly and helping candidates get through as much as they can in the time allotted)

* grading calibration (so all of our interviewers give repeatable, consistent scores on every dimension of our rubric)

* a lot of practice (mock interviews with other interviewers, taking over one section at a time from existing interviews, eventually flying solo)

~~~
rahimnathwani
Thanks for sharing!

And, BTW, I took your initial online test just for fun+research. I really
liked the mix of question types. And it was clear a lot of thought went into
picking the answers for the multiple choice questions: apart from the best
answer, there were answers that were way off base, but also 1-2 that sounded
plausible to someone who had _some_ knowledge of the topic.

EDIT:

One more thing: On the page that describes the process
([https://triplebyte.com/company_faq_learn_more](https://triplebyte.com/company_faq_learn_more))
it says there are two steps:

\- Quiz (10% pass rate)

\- Technical Interview (30% pass rate for those who passed the quiz)

But when I tried the process, I saw 3 steps:

\- Programming Questions (i.e. the quiz I mentioned I tried)

\- Programming Problems (it says it will take 30 mins, and I haven't tried
yet)

\- Technical Interview

------
bb88
Yeah, so body shops aren't going to pay that great. The placement companies
typically use Indian labor in call centers, and negotiating can be pretty
painful. Two companies will routinely call me about the same position, but
have wildly varying pay. Usually the company using the Indian call centers pay
around 20% less, and they're very unwilling to negotiate pay.

Large corporations will typically use trusted vendors to find people.
Unfortunately that is where a good chunk of the money/jobs are. But you're not
likely to get $200/hr there.

Currently $120/hr is much more likely through a body shop than $200/hr, but
keep in mind the body shop is going to get $180/hr. The body shop carries
insurance, and has to recruit new people for a contract, and they have to pay
their recruiters, etc.

And even expectations can vary wildly. I would think that at $200/hr, you
should save me from having to pay 3 people $66/hr (about $133k/yr). Then
you're a bargain, comparatively.

~~~
sampl
Body shops? Does that mean staffing agencies?

~~~
justboxing
Correct. The term 'Body Shop' came about in India in the late 1990s when
Middle-men Indian staffing companies with shell LLCs in US would advertise and
hire Y2K programmers from India.

I think they were called 'Body Shops' because they would literally hire
'bodies' in India, apply for their H1Bs and get approval (back in Bill Clinton
days it was very fast and easy), bring them over and shop these bodies out to
American clients. In some sense, you could say this was 'Programmer
Trafficking'

It's not the 'Body Shop' in the American sense, which is an Auto repair shop
lol.

------
acconrad
I had to do something similar when I started my consulting business. I was
very aggressive about finding work, and it breaks down like this, for every
week day:

1\. Reach out to 5 contacts in my network. Ask them if their company needs any
contracting work. If they don't, can they recommend 3 people who might even
remotely need it OR if they ever worked with consultants before and used a
firm.

2\. If there are leads, follow up with up with them (usually around 3) asap.
Get to a conversation in person or over the phone.

3\. If there are prospects, promise them a 24 hr turnaround on an estimate and
get them a statement-of-work/proposal in that time. Building trust is about
doing what you'll say. You'd be surprised at how many people will not follow
through on super simple things like this.

4\. If there are potential buyers, you should have put in your SoW/proposal
that you'll check in within 48 hours. Make sure you check in! Do revisions,
get on the phone, do whatever it takes to ensure that they feel special and
valued and you want the business to be mutually beneficial.

I was able to close multiple six figure deals with this strategy.

In terms of the money part - stop charging an hourly rate. Do fixed price
projects or charge by the week/month. Yeah, it still comes out to a "per hour"
amount if you amortize over 40 hours in a week or 160 hours in a month, but
sell on the intangible benefits. Your customers don't have to sweat phone
calls any longer. And YOU don't have to worry about being on the clock all of
the time. Focus on results instead of minutia in billing.

$200 is going to be tough to get with any regularity if you're brand new to
consulting. Brennan Dunn is a great dude but in my experience the whole
"double your rate" thing doesn't just come out of thin air when you already
have a high starting point. Easy to do if you're doing commodity work like
CMSs or basic data entry. Not so easy to do if you already have a high salary
and you're in a specialization like mobile.

Start with $200. If you only get nos, drop it to $150 or $175. Drop until
someone bites, but realize the more potential closes you have because you're
reaching too high, the less time you'll spend earning a buck. You can always
work up to that with every subsequent deal - maybe start at $125 or $150. Get
cash coming in, and then continue to source deals for when this gig ends. Keep
turning down folks that won't meet your STARTING_RATE * 1.1 to 1.25, or
whatever. Easier to stay in business and keep the lights on that way than just
start throwing out what is effectively $400k a year when no one knows who you
are.

------
ransom1538
Dude. If you do contracting leave the bay and do remote contracting in the
bay. You will be much more competitive. The 200$ rate I have only paid for
serious engineering problems - and all day the team tries to find a way to
stop paying that rate.

Eg. I am not going to pay that for setting up uitableviews.

------
dlevine
There is some pretty solid advice on this thread, but will add a few things
that I haven't seen elsewhere.

When I was freelancing, I had good luck going to meetups and talking to
people. A lot of companies are willing to hire freelancers. It can take a
while to build up a network, but it's worth it in the long run.

Also, I would suggest that you offer a weekly/monthly rate rather than an
hourly rate. That's sometimes easier for people to stomach, and you focus on
getting the work done rather than working X number of hours.

------
JBerlinsky
It's all about your network and supply/demand. Be picky with your projects,
and leverage them into your next contract.

On that note, if you happen to have immediate-ish availability, shoot me a
message (email in profile).

------
CosmicShadow
Don't charge hourly. Charge by the project so they look at total cost and
agree it's cheaper than alternatives, especially where wages are very high and
they need something specific done. You make sure you price so you can get it
done _safely_ where it would end up being $200/hour if it actually took as
long as you quoted. More than likely you'll make a lot more per hour
($300-$1000/hour), get it done early and everyone is happy.

~~~
karmajunkie
This is really difficult to get right unless you've done the same kind of
project a few times and have code you can reuse. You also have to manage scope
creep, be crystal clear on definitions and what's going to be delivered, and
tactfully keep the client from trying to add big features at the margins.

------
mdocherty
You will find the very high contract rates where the demand for talent is very
high and the supply is low. Unfortunately it would appear the demand for IOS
isn't too high or the supply is too high.

I would suggest re-skilling to something more in demand or searching for work
where there is lot's of IOS jobs posted but no senior level talent.

------
bitL
Learn Deep Learning and go for $400+/h. You missed Blockchain train when it
was possible to get $700/h quite easily (usually way more while it was
growing).

~~~
lylecubed
Don't you need a PhD for that?

~~~
adamnemecek
It might help but like most businesses don't have phd level problems. It's
mostly application of tested algos.

~~~
lylecubed
Do you know any companies that have hired programmers to do deep learning who
don't have a relevant PhD? I'm not trying to be insulting, but it's hard for
me to determine who has actual, practical, first-hand knowledge of hiring
practices for deep learning/ML and who doesn't.

