Stop and think. Suppose that you have have a $120k full-time dev. (This is by no means the top of the dev market.) Once you get through benefits, office space, HR, etc, at a typical company you cost 2x your salary, so that dev is costing you $240k/year. If that person works 50 weeks a year, 5 days a week, 6 hours a day (just because a person is present 8 hours does not mean that they worked 8 hours) the cost of that full-time dev is $160/hour. Day in. Day out.
Contractors avoid many of those costs in return for higher direct pay. And you only hire that contractor when there is a good fit between what you need and what that contractor can do. A smart contractor who knows what to ask for is therefore able to get surprisingly good rates.
And step #1 is knowing what you are worth. Step #2 is knowing how to negotiate. There are a lot of good books you can pick up on the topic. I personally picked up Start With No and Bargaining For Advantage a few years back. A 2 digit investment in materials, and a 2 digit expenditure in hours has easily been worth over 6 figures to my bank account. I expect it to have paid off 7 figures before I retire. Can you think of anything else with an equivalent ROI?
Stop and think. Suppose that you have have a $120k full-time dev. (This is by no means the top of the dev market.) Once you get through benefits, office space, HR, etc, at a typical company you cost 2x your salary, so that dev is costing you $240k/year. If that person works 50 weeks a year, 5 days a week, 6 hours a day (just because a person is present 8 hours does not mean that they worked 8 hours) the cost of that full-time dev is $160/hour. Day in. Day out.
Contractors avoid many of those costs in return for higher direct pay. And you only hire that contractor when there is a good fit between what you need and what that contractor can do. A smart contractor who knows what to ask for is therefore able to get surprisingly good rates.
And step #1 is knowing what you are worth. Step #2 is knowing how to negotiate. There are a lot of good books you can pick up on the topic. I personally picked up Start With No and Bargaining For Advantage a few years back. A 2 digit investment in materials, and a 2 digit expenditure in hours has easily been worth over 6 figures to my bank account. I expect it to have paid off 7 figures before I retire. Can you think of anything else with an equivalent ROI?