I think the reason why rates fluctuate so much is that developers don't know their worth (positively or negatively). It's nothing you can truly measure. There are shoddy developers with $150 rate and great developers with a $70 rate. In all kinds of different cities and situations.
Sure, you can throw in a collection of achievements, but then you could just as easily end up with that whiz kid and spaghetti code while your best developer works under NDAs and has nothing to show for it.
So how do you even value yourself? You say that you're better than average but how do you know that? Are you faster? Better at architecting apps? Is it the business side or communications?
I honestly don't know about myself but balk at the idea of trying to find out and push my rate at that range. Either I'd be positively surprised (and subsequently depressed because high-paying full-time work is difficult to find) or negatively surprised...which would just suck.
> I think the reason why rates fluctuate so much is that
> developers don't know their worth (positively or
> negatively). It's nothing you can truly measure. There
> are shoddy developers with $150 rate and great
> developers with a $70 rate. In all kinds of different
> cities and situations.
Yep. Which is why only an insane person would allow open salary discussion in a team they were managing, let alone open-salary policies some places have.
Sure, you can throw in a collection of achievements, but then you could just as easily end up with that whiz kid and spaghetti code while your best developer works under NDAs and has nothing to show for it.
So how do you even value yourself? You say that you're better than average but how do you know that? Are you faster? Better at architecting apps? Is it the business side or communications?
I honestly don't know about myself but balk at the idea of trying to find out and push my rate at that range. Either I'd be positively surprised (and subsequently depressed because high-paying full-time work is difficult to find) or negatively surprised...which would just suck.