
You Get the Talent That You Pay For - praveenscience
https://thriveglobal.com/stories/you-get-the-talent-that-you-pay-for/
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distantaidenn
This of course extends to software. I’m a engineer and consultant and have
been turned down on some projects a few times due to them finding what they
believe is a better deal. Software (like shoes) is one of the absolute cases
of “you get what you pay for.” Sure enough after hiring a dirt cheap offshore
that promises the world for a fraction of the cost, they come crawling back
with a buggy mess, asking me if I’m still available. My rates are what they
are because I’ve been in this game for over ten years and I know what I can
do.

For anyone reading this that’s currently in this position. You are not saving
money. You’re increasing both cost and development time in the long run.

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sokoloff
You rarely get _more_ than you pay for, but you also don’t always get what you
pay for...

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distantaidenn
Of course, I'm being anecdotal. But I have seen this play out far too many
times. From huge multi-nationals trying to cut corners to solo founders trying
to get something built.

Heh, reminds me of a time at said huge multinational. We were building a team
in Thailand, and one of the execs knew that I had worked there in the past
doing just that. He calls me over and says, "We're trying to figure out how
much to pay the team. What are engineer salaries like in Bangkok?" I made sure
to give the team a nice bump, based on my "estimate."

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econcon
And I've paid many people way more than I ever got back. Just because someone
charges more doesn't mean they'll be great at their craft. It just takes a
dillusional person who isn't living in grounded reality to charge you through
the roof and offer you rock bottom quality of work.

Anyone who thinks they'll magically get great work by paying higher prices is
here for a suprize.

I had people charge very less give me great work and I had people charging a
lot to give me shoddy work. It's always your responsibility to figure out what
the quality of work you'll get for a given price.

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ken
Is this still feasible advice in the current economic climate? Everyone I know
is either firing or shutting down. I have no problem saying "pay me more", but
that's hard to follow up when there are no other jobs to be had.

I imagine the response might be "that's fine, there's over a million people in
this state on unemployment I can get instead".

~~~
chillacy
I've noticed that the longer your career is, the harder it is to find someone
who can replace you. E.g. if a company wants you because you grew MS Office
for 5 years and then did the same for Google Sheets, and they want you to help
them do the same, there are few substitutes.

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camjohnson26
Reminds me of the Picasso napkin story:
[http://blog.brianbraun.net/wisdom/picassos-napkin-wisdom-
on-...](http://blog.brianbraun.net/wisdom/picassos-napkin-wisdom-on-
experience-and-pricing)

~~~
praveenscience
Reminds me of the ship story: [https://www.buzzmaven.com/old-engineer-
hammer-2/](https://www.buzzmaven.com/old-engineer-hammer-2/)

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chrisbennet
I'm a software developer/consultant.

A good client was asking if I could do something for a cheaper rate. I
explained that neither one of us was a "commodity engineer" [we both have 3
decades of experience]. And that there would be some jobs that just didn't
make sense for us to do economically speaking. They are still a great client.

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mythrwy
You get no more talent than you pay for.

