[mark_l_watson]

I don't get why someone who is older should get/expect a higher salary, all things considered. To me, it seems like this should be a free market thing. And by free market I mean on a global basis. On the other hand, I am in my late 50s, and I don't think that I have ever suffered from age discrimination (but who knows).

Experience over the last 14 years as a consultant, working with a few very skilled people in Russia, Brazil, India, Vietnam, etc. has convinced me that salary or consulting fees should be based on value provided, not location, age, etc. I offer a 60% discount when I work remotely because frankly remote workers are not as effective as having everyone in one location and I see little difference between myself telecommuting in the USA or someone equally talented half way around the world, assuming that people are willing to time shift their work schedule as needed. Age does not have too much to do with it either, except that I find myself unwilling to work long-term more than a certain number of hours per week - and this is probably common with older workers.

[mattmanser]

Experience.

That experience means you don't have to pay for your worker to be spending half the day trawling google or api documentation to learn how to do x when they could be writing code.

You also pay for the code to be maintainable, well written, flexible, robust. An inexperienced programmer will write shitty code, no matter how good they think they are, regardless of the number of books they've read.

Finally you pay for experience within the same domain as your company's problems. I don't care if a guy's been programming since 12, there's a 99% chance they've never touched business software. They will not know the right questions to ask.

As for the 60% discount, if that's what gets you gigs, fair play.

But to offer it on principle? That's just bad business.

[mark_l_watson]

Hello Matt, I agree: experience factors heavily into value.

re: 60% discount just on principle: not the case. I have had a reasonable amount of customer feedback that they feel they get better value at the higher rate when I am on site. I would be curious if a good percentage of consultants are able to get the same rates regardless of working on site or remotely. One big win for me with my setup: I like to work early in the morning and often at night, and I like to hike during the day (I live in the mountains, 2.5 hours from the nearest International airport - fairly remote) and this allows me to work hard (and do a lot of writing) without burnout. That said, it is a lot of fun to work on site also, even if it cuts into my lifestyle.