[parasubvert]

I'm from a large city (but not the largest) in Canada and $200/hour or higher is common for high end devs, architects, and project managers. I charged $200/hour twenty years ago. These days I'd charge $250-300/hour if I was a contractor. It is not extravagant in most of North America, but again, it is a rate for higher end talent. I have not charged less than $150/hour since the 90s.

I once had some contractors in my team that were paid $500/hour due to vendor markup. I consider that extravagant.

[fnordpiglet]

Yeah when I was a contractor in 1996 Mountain View $200 was table stakes for someone with non trivial technical skills.

[wredue]

I’ll second this that even in Canada, which has quite low tech pay, the lower end of quality dev work is $180/hr. Most of us managing contractors wouldn’t blink twice at $200/hr. Many of the bills are much higher.

[jihiggins]

where are you finding these rates at? i have rarely seen anything even passing $100/hr in canada, contract or not

[parasubvert]

IT developers are often around $100/hour outside Toronto, Toronto being a bit more. Upwards of $150-200 if its speciality work or you're a team lead.

It varies though, the market also exists for $80/hour java developers, which tend to be new grads

Contract Developers going to technical companies will earn more like $180+.

[jihiggins]

every time rates come up on this website, people come out of the woodwork claiming "most" developers in every north american country make half a million or more a year. it's hard to not feel like this is just a few people using this as an opportunity to brag about their rates in niche industries (or people are just lying)

i have been a contract developer, and have worked at technical companies in canada, and have never seen rates that are even close (and im not a jr / have never used java for work outside of small amounts for mobile.) there's no way these rates are as common as you are all making them out to be, unless it's some niche, or you're talking about extremely short contracts, or there's some other missing piece of context

[parasubvert]

Well if you've never used Java (or c#), that might be your main problem. I'm telling you my experiences hiring as a manager over 10 years ago - all the senior Java devs on the program (about 8) were $90-120/hour. Architects were $150. PMs were $150. All independents through an agency with minimal markup ($3-4 per hour). I'm also speaking as an IC at times that's charged $150-250 an hour for over 20 years depending on the role. Rates these days are even higher.

These rates are at financial services , banks, transportation / logistics, manufacturing, telecom, etc. in Canada, US, and Japan.

You should read patio11's posts on this topic on HN or his website, for example : https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/09/21/ramit-sethi-and-patrick...

[fooster]

Dude I got $1000 a day in Canada in the early 90s. You just need the right skills and contacts.