I don’t do this anymore, due to my employer looking unfavorably towards it, but I was charging between $600-900 an hour for my industry advice on spaces I’d worked in. I could have charged less and done more hours, but I found there was a lot of cancellation and rescheduling and misunderstanding at lower rates, and charging more just limited things to high intent clients.
It was never a significant percentage of my income, but it was a nice low 5-digit uplift a year. Separately I met a guy who advised on a very narrow sector of the energy market and charged $1800/hour a couple of hours a week. The more niche your expertise, the more you are worth.
$100/hr is really low in the bay area; most SWE generalist contractors can walk in and get $150 no questions asked, anywhere. $200 if you're more experienced in the specific area and $250+ if you "have a name for yourself" online.
Rule of thumb at least around here is take your base salary in thousands per year, and that's your hourly rate. If you're getting $200K base, charge $200/hr for your contracting time. The extra that yields is to help you offset the fact you won't always have work and the extra you have to do to keep your pipeline full. Many startups pay $150K for senior engineers so have no problem paying $150/hr for contractors.
I'm always curious how contractors get hired by startups. Most of my work has been one-off jobs with non-tech companies, and I feel like I rarely see contractor gigs for solid technical startups.
Usually through network. Frequently it's people you've worked with in the past that end up at startups, have worked with you before and need your help on something. That'll get you through the door. Management often looks at it as a potential "contract-to-hire" opportunity and if they like you will try and sell you on full-time employment.
It was just various software spaces where I had first hand knowledge. I just kept asking for more money, and they kept trying to talk me down, and then I would offer to walk away, and we would negotiate something. I also made it very clear to a few platforms where I was unwilling to work with them due to price.
In general, in my very limited experience, if you have experience in spaces they are getting inquiries about, you can make a strong case.
It was never a significant percentage of my income, but it was a nice low 5-digit uplift a year. Separately I met a guy who advised on a very narrow sector of the energy market and charged $1800/hour a couple of hours a week. The more niche your expertise, the more you are worth.