IT folks - switching career to finance

[rmitz]

Oh, OK. Even so, consulting rates are usually only about 30% or so higher than salaried rates, from my understanding. So $100/hr is probably a "good" consulting rate for the majority of software engineers. I'm talking about an independent person doing consulting. If you're a part of a "brand-name" consulting shop, you can get billed at a higher rate, but you're not getting that rate into your pocket.

 

If you're only 30% above what you'd be making at a job, you're basically making the same amount.  A rule of thumb we use for benefits is add 1/3 onto base salary.  Then you have to consider work pipeline, stability, etc.  If you aren't at least 50-100% above what you'd make at a regular salaried job, you're not really compensating for the risks.

[turar]

Right. By consulting, I more meant corp-to-corp (i.e. incorporated individual), or just individual contractor. I haven't seen rates above $100/hr for your average run-of-the-mill software dev contracts, say programming in Java. But it looks like people were talking about billing rates as part of a larger consulting shop. Then I agree, if you're working for IBM and they contract you out, they can probably easily charge $300/hr, but my point is it, it doesn't make a difference to you, since you're an employee making your fixed salary of $100K. And if you decide to go off on your own and starting independent contracting, good luck finding that $300/hr gig. So it's apples to oranges, I guess. And again, this is just my understanding, which could be wrong.

 

[muscleman]

I must be out of sync with the latest rates then. Muscleman, where can I check up on these opportunities in Seattle or Bay Area? I have a number of friends across the West Coast in software dev, they are usually quoting much lower rates, per my post above.

 

I only have a few data points. The rates jumped since 10 months ago. My rate includes everything, and assuming that you work for the company for 4 years.

It is hard to get the data points, because all the salary websites only show stale data. The rates have jumped up a lot. 100k a year is kind of typical Microsoft pay, which is way too cheap compared to other competitors.

[LC]

My gut tells me...if we're arguing over 100K salary vs 200k salary vs possibility for 6 figures....well, then there are options. and one should be doing what you enjoy doing. i'd rather work at a fund for 100k/year than make 200k doing software dev...because i hate software dev and suck at it :)