As a junior developer I'm really interested in this answer.
If you convert salaries to hourly rates, the greater portion of us (outside SF/NY) make between $35-$70/hour.
How did you get to such exorbitant rates? Is your work very uncommon, or require an extremely refined skill set? Or is just "I charge whatever I want because I know they'll pay it"?
Just wanted to chip in that $150 is not exorbitant, because of your latter reason: people can and do pay it all the time.
$150 an hour can be quite reasonable, given the right situation. For starters, if a regular employee makes $50 an hour, they are really costing the company more like $100 an hour when you add in benefits, taxes, insurance, and other perk costs. So $150 for a subject matter expert on short notice is not a stretch at all.
But more importantly, do a cost/benefits analysis. Let's say there's an important project coming up, and you lack the internal expertise. Let's say it could be done in 3 months by an expert you know. Now, 3 months of $150/hr is $72k, which seems like a lot, but if your alternatives are 1) spending 6 weeks trying to hire an expert and hoping they agree to a low salary, 2) spending a month training internal people to do it, and then having them do a novice job at it, or 3) missing a crucial business opportunity that could easily run in the millions... you get the idea.
Anyway, the moral of the story is, learn enough tech to get the job done, learn the business realities of your industry, and then charge what you are worth to the company.
If you convert salaries to hourly rates, the greater portion of us (outside SF/NY) make between $35-$70/hour.
How did you get to such exorbitant rates? Is your work very uncommon, or require an extremely refined skill set? Or is just "I charge whatever I want because I know they'll pay it"?