[LRUG] [JOBS] Ruby market rates.

Tue Jun 24 13:16:50 PDT 2014

Just seconding this. There's a lot to be said for having a steady pay
cheque, paid leave, paternity leave and (in some cases) private health
insurance. If it was a simple choice between contracting/permanent at
current market rates, I'd take a job at the first opportunity.

On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 9:00 PM, Glenn Gillen <glenn at rubypond.com> wrote:

> Re the "if you look at SF" comment: health insurance is a non-trivial cost
> if you're based in the US. Plus as a contractor I needed a stupidly high
> level of indemnity insurance to meet the requirements for some contracts.
> Factoring in just those two items made perm employment the financially
> better option for me.
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 8:41 PM, Louis Goff-Beardsley <
> louis at infinitiumglobal.com> wrote:
>
>> [I wrote this for a client, might be of relevance here.]
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi x,
>>
>>
>>
>> Hope this makes sense and doesn’t come out as some stream of
>> consciousness waffle.
>>
>>
>>
>> Basically what you’ll find is that if you did a survey of all the Ruby
>> teams in London which have perm Senior developers you’ll find they will be
>> on anywhere between £55 & £80k. The average will probably be £65k. So
>> everyone then makes the assumption that they should be paying £65k for an
>> onsite perm developer. The problem is that they don’t come onto the market
>> (and most of the time when they do it’s to switch to going contracting) so
>> if you have an open vacancy for a Senior Ruby developer @ £65k it will
>> likely remain open for many months. What teams then do from there is:
>>
>> ·         Drop their expectations and hire a Mid-level developer into a
>> senior position at senior money. The mid-level takes the role as its more
>> than the £45-55k that they are getting offered from other companies.
>>
>> ·         Hire Mid-level developers @ Mid-level money. While it’s still
>> a tough market, mid-level perm isn’t as tough as senior perm.
>>
>> ·         Hire onsite contractors @ £400-600 /day as a stop-gap until
>> the perfect developer for them comes onto the market; will take a while.
>>
>> ·         Accept remote/semi remote developers as they are more
>> plentiful, affordable and loyal (they don’t move jobs anywhere near as
>> often as onsite do as there aren’t as many opportunities constantly being
>> presented to them. Generally if a company offers them what they want to fit
>> in with their life style of why they want remote in the first place they
>> are content)
>>
>> ·         Offer above market rates: (i.e. £80k for a senior developer,
>> somewhere towards what they could make as contractors.). Interestingly
>> enough companies most of the time refuse to take this option as they don’t
>> want to feel like they are over paying, however they then go on to take
>> onsite contractors and it ends up costing them even more.
>>
>> ·         Wait and let it impact development, stressing out the
>> developers they have, in turn making them want to leave.
>>
>>
>>
>> My opinion of why the market is like this is: when development is
>> business critical companies will pay whatever the market rate is for
>> contract developers to do the work until the point where they physically
>> can’t afford it. Whereas there is a collective consensus on what Permanent
>> salaries should be based on what they have been historically, what other
>> technologies are at, what a lot of permanent developers who have not had a
>> salary rise are at. The problem lies in the collective consensus of what a
>> permanent salary should be is so out of whack with what the market rate for
>> contract rates is (which is closer to developers true value) that it’s got
>> to the point where by being perm developers are essentially walking away
>> from £20k (perhaps more if you consider that contractors can pay close to
>> 20% tax).
>>
>>
>>
>> If you look at SF, you’ll see that the contract rates and perm salaries
>> are much closer and thus there isn’t such a draw towards contract work.
>>
>>
>>
>> I personally think the new developers coming onto the market will cancel
>> out the mass adoption of Ruby in start-ups and established companies, and
>> that on the whole, permeant salaries will go up as the consensus of what
>> permanent developers salaries should be becomes more in line with their
>> what true value is. This will happen to the point where contract &
>> permanent developers will separate into distinct groups based on
>> individuals personalities better suiting contract or permanent work. Right
>> now I think there are a lot of developers who would be happier in a
>> permanent job more than in a contract role but economically it doesn’t make
>> sense for them to be perm.
>>
>>
>>
>> That being said, the above only takes into account the economics of
>> salaries. Relationships, buzz/hype surrounding the company, other perks etc
>> play some role in attracting developers to perm.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best, Louis.
>>
>> -
>> * Louis Goff-Beardsley*
>>
>> *Ultra-specialised Independent Ruby Recruìtment*
>> https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisbeardsley
>>
>> *"I just can’t stop thinking about Ruby on Rails"*
>>
>> *Mobile:* 07449 324 851 *BBS:* 0118 327 1821
>>
>> *Skype/Googletalk*: LouisGB1/LouisRoR at gmail.com
>>
>> @LouisRoR <https://twitter.com/LouisRoR>
>>
>> irc.freenode.org - LouisRoR - #Ruby #LRUG #NWRUG #Pokemonchat
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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