Interesting post to read. With a lot of useful information for folks on both sides
Myself I wrote my first programs in 1969, and started working as a programmer in '75. Multiple titles from senior to manager to director up to 1986. And then to full time consulting work after that.
From a hiring prospective I do take a close look at the type of projects that they have worked on. An OOPs game programmer might work OK in a graphics enviroment, not so much in a business enviroment.
And in Canada the educational tracks between university & college tend to be pretty different.
Case study - college - Inventory DB system
Case study - university - Towers of Hanoi
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Originally Posted by datatank
Wow
Generally speaking, a quality in-house programmer should start somewhere in the range of $70,000 USD per annum. Anything less and you face a number of obstacles:
Do mainstream programmers even make that much?
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Some of us make a lot more. Actually I was making about that in the mid 1980s.
And even though I've been in the management levels a few times I much prefer cranking code to trying to figure out how much I have to budget for pencils for the next year. Doing CBAs & ROIs for systems specs is about as close as I like.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Varius
I agree, but as long as the code is clean, well-structured, standardized, modular, functions well named and there are project specifications, actual documentation (while always appreciated) isn't as necessary. Most programmers, even great ones, hate to document. Of course, you may argue they do that for their own job security heh.
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After so long, I now automatically document within the code as I go. I've even looked at code that was +10 years old & then realized that I wrote it originally.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Varius
However, I remember years ago when I worked on someone's code where every variable was named after their girlfriend, their pet's names, what they were watching on tv at the time, etc... What a mess!  |
One of my first projects was working with a system that had been developed in France. Try figuring out what those shorten french field names mean.
And then there are those programmers that insist on doing everything with single character field names like $f = $x + $a. Really time for a Gibbs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeS
What I have found is it's difficult to find a skilled reliable programmer who can also add suggestions to improve your application or site and bring up things you might have overlooked based on their own past experiences. Find someone like that and indeed do what you can to keep them happy!
Joe
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That is another reason why an experienced programmer is so valuable. Been there, done that. eg. "This payroll app. that you spec'd also needs some mandatory government reporting for their labour market analysis."
Or one time the xVP explaining to somebody that he only has to tell me he needs
"something", and I wander off for a few days and it's done, or a team has all the specs and are working on it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Varius
I think the only time per-hour should apply for freelancing, is when a task estimate is fairly impossible. Let's take the case where you have a MySQL problem where under certain circumstances, queries are very slow, mysql crashes, or some other form of undesired behaviour yet you cannot manage to pinpoint the cause. It would be very hard for a programmer to estimate exactly how long it would take.
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Strangely, most of the work I do nowadays is on a per hour basis.
But then I'm in the process of retiring, and only taking on a few projects for long term clients. There are a whole bunch of other areas that have started to catch my attention.
Also partly because I'll be working on critical projects and likely to do 20hr days & +120hr weeks. I remember one project where I put in about 80 hour over 4 days. It was worth about $20 million a year extra profit to the company.
Or maybe I'll just be demolishing a bunch of smaller projects that aren't worth the time to spec individually.
Plus, quite often I'll fly half way across the country. So I charge an hourly rate based on $100hr + whatever expenses like hotels, meals, plane, etc. that I have to pay directly.