I’m a long time rentacoder user. Since back when it was just a spin off of planetsourcecode. Recently, I came back to use it to hire a few people to do some small jobs for me.
I put up my project, which was about a two week project, with a maximum bid of $200. Soon enough I had a good number of bids, and a few qualified people. I selected my programmer, a guy from the phillipines, and we started working. I regularly collaborate with China, and I use foxclocks so I’m always ambiently aware of the timezones of the people I’m working with.
So it struck me as very odd that my freelancer was working by 4am in the morning his time. After a while, I asked him about it. He told me that he was actually based in London.
Over the next couple of days, I put up two or three other projects. On my next project, I picked another worker, this time from India, and we started work. After a while, he remarked that he was based in Oregon.
At this point, I got very curious, and asked – why does your profile say India then? He replied: If you knew I were from the U.S, would you have picked me? I thought about it and realised – no, I would not have picked a U.S based worker who was willing to do a two week project for $200. Because I knew this was not a sustainable salary, and the person would move on to better things as soon as he could. I was strongly biased towards picking cheaper countries.
I asked the second guy, and he told me that it was getting difficult to find jobs for people living in expensive countries. The project owners preferred cheaper workers. I looked at the profiles of the other bidders on the other projects I put up and I noticed a similar trend.
People from western countries were pretending to be from poorer countries in order to get jobs.
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Follow me on twitter, I’m interesting.
@MaxAre these guys arbitraging your work to people actually located in India?
Patrick: there’s no margin on $200 for a 2-week job. That’s a REAL two week job. Would not be worth it to do that.
Why is this suprising? The main benefit of globalist capitalism is that labor prices must collapse first. Once the majority of labor is squashed you won’t have any customers. It’s a win, win!
I’d be curious to know how this realization changed your opinion of your own pricing. Now that you know some of the “foreign” coders are domestic, will you continue to pay $200 for a 2 week job, even though you say it’s not sustainable for a salary?
In Argentina, were I live, $200 for a 2 weeks job is what you’ll expect a i-live-with-my-parents student to earn. It would not be considered abusive to hire a unexperienced, young employee for that amount.
Ok, your project is done in 2 weeks, but how many hours did they work? 40 hours a week?
@Carolyn I do not try to underpay. I pay what I think a tool is useful for me for. I have to look at my margins – if it is worth $200 to me, and people are ready to do it for $200, that’s the amount I put. If nobody wants to do it then I leave it.@Esteban For people in Asia, $200 is good for a two week project@Richard I don’t think they work 40 hours a week, maybe 3 hours a day? That’s just my estimation.
Right now 200 dollars twice a month is what is sustaining my family of 8 in the US. It would be kind if you chose people that are desperate for any work, no matter the country. Think of it this way. May be they have 3 coding jobs in two weeks. That is doable. They could survive. Pick people from the US if they will do it for the pay. People are hurting right now.
so $200 for an estimated 42 hours of work, or $4.76 an hour for, you mentioned, a “qualified” coder. /me wouldn’t want to be your waiter or do your lawns.
If the work you can offer someone is something that can be farmed out so easily it’s time to train yourself in a new skill, or, create some added value that cant be so easily farmed out…..then you wont be in this position.
I find this strange.I am an Indian and it would be impossible for me to find any half-decent, inexperienced programmer for this pay here in India. So I’m not really sure what kind of *job* and what kind of *programmer* you are really talking about here.
As a NY, US-based independent technology consultant, I find the non-US perspectives on this fascinating. Thanks for the enlightenment.
Try paying some people a fair wage fuck fucking cheapskate scumbag cunt
#3 Mister Wilder – too right. Note for the record that American workers going to other countries don’t get any better treatment, either from American or (newly) local companies; the capitalist idea of “free access to labor” is a one-way street. The net result of this is that, whenever I talk to a young person in a developed country who is thinking about going into software or Web development, I try hard to talk him out of it. The irony is that I’d probably have had a more stable, portable career had my folks not decided that teaching music, history or English was no way to make a living. Several teachers I know are doing significantly better than most developers I know.
Couple different thoughts…Normally you get what you pay for. Even in a “global economy/marketplace”, this is still true to a large degree. I know someone who outsources work to India through elance. He pays $8/hr for work that should be upwards of $35/hr (low end of the scale) in the US market. He gets what he pays for too. It’s all crap. I’ve seen this with several other companies as well. Now, I’m not saying this is universal. I’m sure there are great deals to be found. But…What about this “knowledge-based economy” that everyone keeps talking about? Remember the one that everyone says will be the thing that helps the US economy going forward? Well, if knowledge is a product and the marketplace is global, the US will inevitably lose in such a economy. Labor prices are far cheaper in other countries and the Internet makes labor exploitation very easy.This whole model will result in the collapse of labor prices. Collapse of labor prices will have “devastating” effects on the US population. So-called capitalists are succeeding in diminishing the cost and value of labor just as they did with exploitation of natural resources in third world countries. Basically the so-called capitalists are the ones driving the world toward socialism, despite all the rhetoric to the contrary. Why? Socialized expenses and privatized profits is a GREAT business model for those in the position to make it a reality.Anyway, lots of thoughts and I could ramble for a while. But I need coffee. No doubt from a South American country.
people always need a job even for a small amount of money, you can always find a cheap price, even more closer than you think.
That is alot of $$ for an american, you could buy 100 Big Macs while living in your tent city and uploading your code from McD’s free wifi hotspot.
$100/week!!? I don’t know, maybe you do a 3-pages form and you pretend it takes a week to finish. I’m having a really hard time to believe there are people in US who know how to program bidding much lower than a guy in India.I’ve worked on RentACoder for about 4 years. The rates are around $250-$300/week. You can find plenty of jobs at this rates. If you know an E-Commerce platform (Magento, PrestaShop, OsCommerce) you can make at least $500/week.
I actually make a good amount of money by promoting the fact that I’m an American worker. Some people prefer it to help our economy, some people don’t feel like dealing with language barriers. Either way it works for me.
“People from western countries were pretending to be from poorer countries in order to get jobs.” Author…Yes, I believe you! It’s people like you that got this the way it is! Bargaining… Exploitation.”@Esteban For people in Asia, $200 is good for a two week project”"is good”… enough??
I think you should seriously ponder your position here. This post actually made me angry.Your nation’s economy is failing, you have ANY BUDGET AT ALL to purchase services and you are carefully, deliberately, trying to send it out of the country?Nice to meet you, I always like to identify the source of my problems.
“For people in Asia, $200 is good for a two week project.”The poster that said this is extremely ignorant. There are some parts in Asia with living standards that are way higher than any of us in the west, and the people produce extremely high quality work. We seem to be taking it for granted that the West is always mightier than the East.
And you think this is a good thing ? It’s specifically because the bias espoused within the US towards utilizing it’s own resources ( and paying …to use your own words “Sustainable wages” ) that the economy in this country is down in the toilet.
what is often forgotten is that it is the market and competition within the market that sets the price – not the fact that one person may have more bills to pay every month than the other. If competition is the source of anyone’s “problem” – they aren’t doing it right.Either offer a unique product and raise the price, stay the same and match the global price, or get into another business.
Well, you have to admit. If it works, it works right?Jesswww.internet-anonymity.se.tc
$200 bucks a week – for what? A 14 yr old? Matt, you are really full of shit.
@DougFor two weeks, it’s $100/week – $2.5/h.
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“@Esteban For people in Asia, $200 is good for a two week project”That’s a gross generalisation. I’m in Asia. $200 is maybe about 3 *days* worth of pay, back when I was a fresh graduate. My housekeeper earns more than that. Even McDonald’s pays more than that. And that’s assuming 8hr/day, 5 days per week; I think most programmers work far more than that (if only because it’s so hard to tear us away from our computers once we’ve got momentum).
I work as a professional developer and am sometimes looking for odd jobs. As such, $200 would be fair for me; as long as it comes with understandings related to quality, responsiveness, punctuality, and complexity. Typically, if you’re looking for those things, you’re not outsourcing your labor.As far as the numerous comments about sending money out of the country… the long term effects of this strategy are likely to be catastrophic indeed. However, if the economy fails and prices drop, those capitalists who’ve compromised their clients and consumers by maximizing their profits will be situated all the better. This has always been an issue with inter-market trade. The effect is frequently to homogenize the markets while lining the pockets of those who arrange the trade. Sadly, it’s not sustainable as homogenization requires that the “rich” market become less rich and thus cease to command the purchasing power required to make the venture profitable.
80 hours of work for $200? Wow, I hope karma comes back to bite you in the ass. This is selfishness and greed at it’s finest.
Well, this made me feel bad. I earn about $175 for 80 hours a week, and I thought I was getting a pretty good deal when I signed the contract. I’m a damn good writer at that. :\
Whoops, meant to say 40 hours a week.
$200 dollars a week is actually more than a lot of young professionals in the Philippines currently earn; many of them start with minimum wage which in Manila is about 8 dollars a day. On average they earn about $167 to $250 a month at 8 to 5 jobs, Mondays to Fridays or even to Saturdays. BPO workers earn more at about $300 a month and up, and those are already considered cushy salaries. I’m already not on minimum wage and I’m earning $200 a week; that’s bigger than my dad’s salary.
Wow $200 for a two week project? full time 40 hours a week? shit no!!!I am Web Developer from the Philippines and i can earn that in 2-3days if i worked on the project full time. it will be ok for me to accept it for 2 weeks if i will be only working with it 1-2hours a day haha…Maybe someone starting can accept that but if you are looking for a quality work you can’t get it for that rate..”@Esteban For people in Asia, $200 is good for a two week project”Yeah maybe if the project is baby sitting, house cleaning and other easy task..hahah but $200 for a two week straight web development project? that’s a no no..
The problem is currency manipulation by Asian countries. Both China and India deliberately keep their exchange rate at a completely silly level and the effect is to drain money out of the US. If the currency were allowed to free float, the Asian programmers would suddenly be about the same cost as the US programmers.
To all of you slamming the author here for paying less, or choosing a programmer outside the US because that is cheaper – come on, everyone tries to keep their costs down. I am sure a lot of things that you buy are from China or wherever else, because that is cheaper. In fact, many of the things your American companies would be selling you would be made outside America. Remember your bible – Let the person who has not sinned throw the first stone.To the author – this was an interesting but disturbing article. Disturbing because of the unconcious bias you have against giving the work to someone from US/UK. Ideally, you should not care where the person is from as long as he/she is competent and offering to do your work at a price you are willing to pay. If you suspect the person might not be serious enough about your work, that is where things like contracts, and/or referals come in.
In some parts of china you can live like a king for $100 a week.
@murray: “offer a unique…”.I’ll give you unique. Unique education from better schools, unique experience within the culture, and no language barrier. Regardless of what one’s “standard of living” are. Don’t be clown, murray. code isn’t code, unless it’s: 1+1 = 2And no project on Rentacode, oDesk, LimeExchange, or any of those e-Sweatshops is 1+1=2. If it were, you’d be doing it yourself.Silly clown, no one’s saying to be socialists, but this concept of “globality in engineering” is utterly ridiculous.
This is a wise move by the freelancers, because they are quite correct that their prospective employers prefer to use foreign-born freelancers. With that said, RentACoder is still a very productive place for freelancers of any country to go for work.
Things you mention in your blog (I read around 10 articles) are “practical” but severly lacks of ethics and values in general ; is “success” worthwile when using people as “tools” ? One day (and I hope it for you to realise what you were doing), you will be victim of the same “economics model” that you currently use and ponder. Hopefully on this planet, there are still idealistic people who will never underpay others and utilize globalisation to do so while still thinking they are so “smart” when looking at their image in the mirror. In my opinion, the real MAN is the one who manage to do what he wants without stepping on other’s heads. The creative and human people will leave deep mark in history and the ones you put forward may be on the short term praised but will one day loose their Aura. Please check what is currently happening to the “businessman” Edison VS Tesla …http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704362004575000841720318942.html
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