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How much should a programmer charge?
- Thread starter rw2nascar
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Depends on where you are, the developers credentials and expertise, and your available alternatives given your app's requirements. All the way from below local minimum wage to well over $150/Hr.
Around here for a good iOS developer (not senior), it's around 540 a day, that's in Euro's, so about 700 dollars. You have cheaper to, but I mostly don't tend to believe those credibility's.
You can find sites that people will do contract work. You can post what you are looking for and discuss costs with the prospects.
Also, how are you estimating this 100 hours of programming time? Cause you aren't talking about writing documentation, write the code, clean up the code, learning about the technologies needed for the job and debugging, etc.
Also, how are you estimating this 100 hours of programming time? Cause you aren't talking about writing documentation, write the code, clean up the code, learning about the technologies needed for the job and debugging, etc.
Is is usually a very bad idea to hire an iPad programmer who has not already proven that they've learned the iOS technologies required for the job and know how to debug such. Any candidate should have apps in the App store that you can download and run yourself to check for bugginess, etc., as well as general quality level. Then you can ask them how long it took to design, build and debug such.
I would completely disagree with you. I would check the educational background of the programmer. Mainly checking to see if they have a computer science degree, mainly in BS (bachelor of science).
Programming ideas and methods are very easy to be transferred from one language to another. When you do program, it is important to learn about different technologies to implement your idea in the best possible way.
It is really not hard to teach yourself new languages and the technologies they use on a given platform after you know how the development cycle works.
Rubbish. As a former hiring manager, I saw plenty of recent BS CS job candidates who can't code their way out of a paper bag. I have also seen graduates who can code, but take many weeks to come up to speed sufficient to develop a marketable iOS app. You normally don't want to hire a consultant and pay for those weeks of learning curve. N weeks * 40+ hours * $100+/hr = a lot of paid training, over and above the time it would take a developer with existing and proven iOS development experience to finish your project.
iOS development is not so much about learning Objective-C as it is learning how to work in the iDevice world.
We have all of our new hires go through the Stanford podcasts as an introduction to iOS development, and this helps get them started.
New CS grads typically get assigned to a project afterwards along with several senior developers and rarely contribute much on their first project.
If someone applying for a job has an app in the App Store, we do a code review of their app under non-disclosure to get an idea of their skill level.
We have all of our new hires go through the Stanford podcasts as an introduction to iOS development, and this helps get them started.
New CS grads typically get assigned to a project afterwards along with several senior developers and rarely contribute much on their first project.
If someone applying for a job has an app in the App Store, we do a code review of their app under non-disclosure to get an idea of their skill level.
For longer term job hires (so-called permanent... until they quit or are fired/layoff'd), it's often very worthwhile to invest in the training of a potentially talented developer in a new technology or product area.
For a consulting job of less half a year, investing in much training on a inexperienced consultant may not be that a good cost/benefit trade-off, unless you have no other options. You end up training them for their next client. A higher-priced consultant with directly relavent iOS experience. who can hit the ground running, is usually a better deal in the end for short term projects.
I assumed the OP was asking about the latter type of job (a few weeks worth of work).
Consult-to-hire is more like a potential long-term hire with an easy way out (at end-of-contract date). You take a gamble that they'll work out, invest some, and hope you guessed right.
For a consulting job of less half a year, investing in much training on a inexperienced consultant may not be that a good cost/benefit trade-off, unless you have no other options. You end up training them for their next client. A higher-priced consultant with directly relavent iOS experience. who can hit the ground running, is usually a better deal in the end for short term projects.
I assumed the OP was asking about the latter type of job (a few weeks worth of work).
Consult-to-hire is more like a potential long-term hire with an easy way out (at end-of-contract date). You take a gamble that they'll work out, invest some, and hope you guessed right.
Seems like a pretty cool deal. I have always day dreamed about developing full time.