
Ask HN: Machine learning contractors, how much do you charge hourly? - reiinakano
Also, how many years of experience do you have? What are your credentials? Where do you live?
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aspectmin
Okay. I’ll throw in. I live in the Pacific Northwest and have been in tech a
long time, about the last 4/5 years with a heavy focus on data science and ML
with a particular focus on cyber security (and robotics/IOT (think like
datacenter energy system monitoring). Not a PhD. Pretty much self taught.
Worked for one of the big tech companies for many years, which gave me a lot
of cred to build on (and a great platform/environment to focus on learning).

When I bill hourly, it’s somewhere around the 200-250 USD range, but I much
prefer to bid by the project. I also do a fair number of talks around machine
learning/security, AI and the future of work, and consult with policy makers
on the impact of tech (esp. AI) to jobs and rural workforces. The latter
generates me significantly more revenue than the hourly billing.

As to the projects themselves, to use the adage, ML is probably less than 10%
(maybe even 5%) of the actual projects. Most of the work is finding the data,
cleaning, and doing things like figuring out how to get their IOT devices
regularly reporting to the cloud or Messing with things like SNMP and
monitoring infrastructure.

Hope that helps. Feel free to ping if questions.

~~~
cw_ds
The robotics/iot stuff is a pretty heavy interest for me. Where did you start,
being self-taught, to get into the field? Or was working at a tech co enough
already

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krm01
It’s been said numerous time here on HN and elsewhere (read patio11’s
kalzumeus.com) but just to repeat what others and myself have found to work
best: dont charge per hour. Charge per day/week or month.

Your goal is to work efficiently and fast. When you do this, it means you get
to make more money for less time and the client gets the benefit of getting
work done faster.

~~~
beagle3
This makes no sense mathematically - changing the unit of measurement (and
perhaps rounding) cannot make a real difference unless substantially all of
your results are between 0.5 and 1.5 unit.

If you said “charge by project/milestone”, your reasoning makes sense.

The people who charge a lot by hour (lawyers, tax specialists etc) will often
charge in 15 minute increments. Even if you charge by day, tou’ll find you
have to charge in 0.25 day increments or so.

~~~
vannevar
You're assuming that in order to bill one day, you have to work 8 hours, which
is more or less how hourly billing works, particularly in the cases you cite
where the actual billing unit is 15 minutes. But a day rate works differently;
it basically says that for the duration of the contract, you will get paid
each day you're on contract, regardless of the actual number of hours worked.
You might work more than 8 hours a day, you might work less. Either way, you
get paid for the day.

~~~
seanwilson
> But a day rate works differently; it basically says that for the duration of
> the contract, you will get paid each day you're on contract, regardless of
> the actual number of hours worked. You might work more than 8 hours a day,
> you might work less. Either way, you get paid for the day.

Can you explain the advantages daily billing has overly hourly billing when
the client has a constant stream of work to keep you busy?

Sounds like the main benefit is if a client interrupts your day with only a
single hour of work to do, you can bill them more? Apart from that, doesn't it
still have the downsides of having to keep timesheets, having to justify your
hours and working faster means you earn less?

~~~
mac01021
If you get a stream of tiny tasks from your client, maybe hourly billing is
the way to go.

I'd they present you with a project that you agree to deliver in 6 weeks and
then mostly leave you alone in the interim, it's probably a different story.

~~~
seanwilson
In the 6 weeks scenario, when would you consider fixed price over weekly? With
fixed price, there's a large incentive to be efficient and you can juggle more
than one project at a time if you want to.

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ritoune
250\. Never had a client tell me it was too much. East Coast. PhD. 10yrs in
semi-related industry before.

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shishy
Commenting so I can find this thread easily later... as I'm also curious :).

I would also ask if you have a rough idea how much of the ML work is
implementing basic models to production versus actual data scientific work in
coming up with/tuning the underlying models themselves.

~~~
ageitgey
My experience at a very high level:

\- 1% true research / original ML

\- 29% figuring out clever ways to apply existing approaches to new problems,
understanding how clients business works and thinking of new twists on old
ideas to solve those unique problems, etc

\- 70% helping the customer understand what ML can do, how to manage their
data and how to convince the rest of the company and IT to let them actually
do it

~~~
tixocloud
Interesting regarding the 70% - do they actually you bring you in as a
consultant to help them map out their ML strategy?

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snicky
I'm wondering how one converts to a data scientist or ML engineer from a pure
web development background without going back to school? I've been a backend
developer for many years and I'm already a bit bored with working on software-
only products. Would love to move on with my career to a point where I could
have some more influence on what's happening in the real world off the web.
Where did you start?

~~~
aspectmin
I went from Cybersecurity (Infosec) to Data Science/ML. If you have
interest/passion, it's totally doable. I get asked this kind of question a
lot, so I created a listing of the stuff I've found most useful (books, online
classes, etc). You can find it at

[http://www.atomicml.com](http://www.atomicml.com)

If you have stuff you think I should add, please let me know! (jan
@ghostbytes.com)

~~~
snicky
Good stuff, thanks.

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vannevar
You're probably going to get significant selection bias here. Few people are
going to admit to a rate they're afraid is low, and other people who respond
may be doing a bit of humble bragging. In my experience both contracting and
hiring, $100-150/hr is typical for an experienced person.

~~~
DamnYuppie
This seems WAY low to me. I ran many projects for companies. $150 is the rate
they pay for 3-4 years experience from consulting firms. You should start at ~
$240 and let them negotiate you down.

Never be afraid of letting them pay you more!

~~~
drugme
So after "letting them negotiate you down" \-- what's the actual, final,
median rate we're talking about here, please?

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DamnYuppie
I would say $180-$200.

~~~
aspectmin
I would agree with this. I have a number of friends doing Data Science
consulting (PowerBI/Tableau/etc), and it seems like they average out around
the $180-200 range. I think they're undercharging, and I've had no problems
getting business/repeat business up to around $250. Beyond that and you're in
the bailiwick of the Accentures and their ilk.

The more projects you do, the more repeat business, the better you get, and
the more you learn to not underprice you work (which helps you focus on the
good projects where you can have the most impact). It pretty much compounds.

For the hourly stuff, I've had very little pushback until I get much above
$250. Most of that work is break/fix. As above, I much prefer to do project
based work and bid on a project by project basis. (Gives me incentive to work
harder/faster, and gives the customers a predictable price. I've found a lot
of them are wary of open-top ended contracts).

~~~
seanwilson
What's your effective day rate using on an average project based price if you
don't mind sharing?

~~~
aspectmin
Ooo. Good question. I will admit I haven't run the numbers recently. Will do
so and post.

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harvester5000
As a follow up - how do you all find work? ML engineer here, working in
Toronto for four years.

~~~
tixocloud
What kind of work are you looking for?

~~~
harvester5000
Regular short contracts, less than 8 week projects.

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quickthrower2
Contractor or freelancer? To me a contractor does short gigs 3-12 months with
a daily rate and are usually being hired by a technically knowledgeable
person, who says I need x,y,z tech skills.

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wilshiredetroit
I charge $10,000 per day. It would be silly to charge per hour.. Never really
understood that approach - but that's just me

