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The problem with patio11's blogs is that he seems to exist in a different world from most programmers, I feel.

> So $100 per hour, even though it is not a market rate for e.g. intermediate Ruby on Rails programmers

Uh, $100 an hour is $208,000 annually full-time. Unless Patrick is referring exclusively to the Bay Area upper crust, I don't know how he reaches the conclusion that $100 an hour is "not even market rate for intermediate programmers."

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$100/hr is only that much if you bill 40 hrs per week, every week. It does not account for non-billable time, vacation, sick time, etc. You are also taxed higher and have to provide your own benefits. You are taking on higher risk due to the temporary nature of most engagements.

If you're billing $100/hr you're not making bad money, but it's nowhere near equivalent to a $200K W-2 job.

consultant that wanted to aim for the same as a 200k pa job would be charging around the $500 an hour rate to allow for down time holidays etc

$100 per hour for an 75% loaded contractor is $53 assuming a 1.5x overhead for payroll tax, healthcare, office, etc.

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