[geeks] Any jobs?

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Apr 23, 2009, at 22:36 , Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:

> Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
>> Anyone know of any reasonably secure jobs available?  I can write  
>> code
>> in many, many languages.  I can admin AIX, Solaris, Linux and BSD.
>>
>> Thanks.
>
> I would encourage every geek, especially one with your tremendous
> skills, to try to figure out how to get off the wage treadmill,  
> where in
> order to earn twice as much you have to put in twice the hours.

That's a good gig, if you can make it happen.

In years past, it was not uncommon for me to do jobs based on price  
alone, and the faster I was the more money I made.  I made a lot of  
good money like that and saved it.

Now though...

I've noticed a lot of companies are frequently paying the same rate  
for a contractor as an employee, and few will pay enough over W2 wages  
to cover the increased expenses of running as a contractor and/or  
small business.  The time period of contract-to-hire is often longer,  
and frequently you find the contractor status is permanent.

Years ago, it was not hard for me to make twice as much or more as a  
normal W2 employee, even if I was W2 myself.  If I was good at  
providing my own benefits and handling expenses, I could make a good  
bonus on top.  I even frequently managed to negotiate benefits from  
clients even if I was 1099.

Even in good times, if I want to earn the same as a $70K/year W2  
employee, I probably need to charge at least $100K/year to cover the  
difference in my own costs.  This difference has increased, and client  
are not paying as much of it as they did.

The end result is I make less money now, quite a bit less if you  
account for the massive expansion in fiat currency and direct taxation.

Employee benefits are nowhere near as good as they used to be at most  
companies, but are still worth quite a bit of money, so it stings when  
a client refuses to pay extra for a contractor, and you don't have  
other options.

On top of all this, this year my federal taxes went up to 28%, after 8  
years of being around 21%, a 7% increase for this year, and likely to  
go higher next year.  Not really related, but painful anyway.

I'm also trying to work out ways around all this, even if it means  
ultimately getting of this rat race and jumping into another.

The idea is to gain more control over costs and your payment, either  
by increasing your ability to scrap, or changing to a different  
business with those as features.

> I have not figured out a way to fully do it either, so we're all in  
> the
> same boat... although the colocation and web-hosting I do, sort-of  
> lets
> me start doing that.

I've found that to be a fickle business though.  Can be really great,  
but I'm not sure I would want to depend on it.



-- 
Shannon Hendrix
shannon at widomaker.com