[ale] Current contract market rates for LAMP programmers

[Fulton Green]

The subcontractor vs. indie contractor rate depends on whether or not you
found the opportunity for the prime contractor and whether you're paid
on a W-2 or 1099 basis.

It doesn't surprise me that $10 is a low, given the number of CS students
willing to work for that amount (and it obviously beats min. wage gotten
at your typical fast-food joint).  $20 for the high-end seems a bit low;
$25 is probably more like it.  It is possible to get higher rates than
that, but only if you also have other niche skills such as ERP and OLAP or
you have a deep knowledge of the client/employer's industry vertical.

In other words, if LAMP is all you're expected to know coming in, you're
most likely fighting a commodity market.

For comparison, last year I talked with someone in the Atlanta area about
a $15/hr. internship to develop software in C++.  And a quick search on
Monster.com reveals a few LAMP fulltime gigs in DC that max out at $50K.

Good luck.

On Wed, Mar 26, 2003 at 08:31:25AM -0500, Greg wrote:
> Does anyone know what the current market range of rates for programmers
> doing contract work with 2 years of LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) experience
> and about 5 years of web development overall would be ?  Someone told me it
> is $10/hr to $20/hr and I find that really really low.    I would like
> anyone's opinion of both the independent contractor rate and what a
> contractor would get if they were a subcontractor.
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