When you pay a Freelance Developer
Why pay so much for code?
The other day, a prospective client and I, had a heated discussion regarding why I couldn’t “just deliver an application boilerplate for free”, without first settling on my hourly rate. This is my response.
When you pay a Freelance Developer, you expect their code — robust, tested, modular, high-quality code. But under the surface, you are paying for more — much more.
Education, Trainings & Conferences
Where did they learn to code in JavaScript or Python? Maybe it was at School or College. Possibly an online course on Udemy or Coursera? Sure — a lot came from YouTube and Tech Blogs, but it is highly unlikely that they acquired all of their skills without significant monetary and time investment.
And this is hardly a pay once use always domain. You need to keep up to date. Yesterday I sneezed, and thus missed 3000 new JavaScript frameworks.
That was exaggeration. I missed maybe half the number.
There are Conferences and Trainings that you need to attend, to be at the cutting edge, and neither is cheap. Your Web App scored 99 on the Lighthouse PWA audit because your Web Dev attended a bunch of JS Conferences with $500 entries (and no included food), watched, learnt and upped his PWA game.
Hardware and Software Licences
Do you remember that deliverable that you missed because your Python developer’s old Dell Inspiron contracted the BSoD before he could check in his code into GitHub? Well I’m pretty sure he didn’t particularly enjoy that either. So he went ahead and bought a new MacBook Pro shelling out $2000 of his own money. I want to believe that had some part to play in all these recent deadlines that your team hit magically.
Plus, your Mockups aren’t going to be as pretty if your UX Designer choses to use MS Paint instead of Sketch or Adobe CC.
Utilities and Benefits
Surprise! Your NodeJS Dev needs to pay for her own utilities, including that blazing fast Internet connection that enabled her to pull those giant Docker images in seconds every time someone created a new MicroService.
And, she needs to get her own Medical & Dental Insurance — you’re not paying for them, remember?
Sleepless Nights
All of the above mentioned items are more or less quantifiable. But you know that Production Outage you had last week that your DevOps guy debugged, triaged and fixed miraculously in 5 minutes? That is years of effort, sleepless nights, missed parties, bags of chips, and innumerable Red Bulls (or some some less lethal alternative).
The Iceberg Metaphor
Here is a metaphor? Think of the delivered code as the tip of the iceberg, and your Business Problem as the Titanic. I’ll leave the rest to imagination.
Rant complete! Happy coding!