[roc]

> "I did all the work there, didn't I?"

The negotiating work, yeah. Which is why you're getting 10% of every hour of work that someone saw fit to pay $300/hr for, despite your effort being of a fairly fixed quantity of time.

And regardless of your negotiating, the client has the option of choosing from more than one candidate. So if they look at the $300/hr candidates and they choose hypothetical me, then my $100/hr ask and the huge delta is far more a function of my ignorance/naivete than your skill. [1]

> "I don't think agents can take advantage of coders who understand their value, as they are able to leave."

You wanted to minimize feelings of being taken advantage of. Which is simply not a concern of people who understand their value. So who else were you concerned about wronging, if not the people who do not understand their value?

And I'm not saying good relationships couldn't be had under the system you proposed. Just that you have some perverse incentives built-in that makes the antidote seem worse than the disease.

> " Take that incentive out entirely by showing your employees/contractors the invoices that you are billing the company."

That's a solid move. Though if you put the person who is advantaged by information mis-match in charge of erasing that mis-match, don't be surprised when short-cuts are taken. But that's simple enough to avoid by having administrative staff handle that directly.

> "[if] a recruiter is able to negotiate a rate well above market value, that isn't taking advantage of the coder - that is taking advantage of the company paying the higher rate."

Yes, but as we all know, one of those tasks is far easier and more common than the other.

[1] And I'm not trying to write off the value of skilled negotiators. I'm just saying that competition means you simply don't get huge deltas on negotiation alone.

[fecak]

Points well made, and in my position I'm able to argue both sides on this one. I should probably preface my comments with the fact that I have done contract work in the past, but for the last couple years I've focused almost entirely on permanent placement, and part of the reason is this lack of trust between coders and recruiters and this whole dialogue.

In perm placement the incentive of the recruiter is usually to maximize the coder's income (fee = n% of salary), but contract placement is the opposite (margin = bill rate - pay rate where minimizing pay rate leads to higher margin). I don't remember ever being accused of gouging by any coder as our margins were pretty low relative to others, but I would hate to have to explain/argue in the real world to a coder why my ability to negotiate a ridiculously high rate deserves to be rewarded (and as I said earlier, I'd split the reward, but I don't feel splitting at a flat rate is fair to the recruiter).

You seem to be downplaying the value of the negotiation work just a bit in my view, and you say as much at the end with the 'we all know...one of those tasks is far easier and more common than the other'. You say you are not writing off the value of negotiators, and competition should mean that there are no huge deltas, but as long as you are truly getting at or above market rate I'm not sure I can see the fault in a recruiter getting a huge delta.

You are correct in that I can't do what coders do, and I can do things that coders can't do also. On a site like HN, frequented by coders, everyone here will agree that what coders do is far more difficult than what recruiters do. There is not point in arguing that, particularly here where most people seem to equate recruiting with the lowest form of humanity. But I can assure you that I help people get jobs and solid comp packages that probably lacked the tools to do it on their own. It's a symbiotic relationship with many of my candidates, at least in my case.

You keep alluding to the fact that if I negotiate a huge delta that it is a function of your naivete - couldn't it be the naivete of the company that is paying that rate? If you pay $200K for a car that can be had for $20K elsewhere, you as the buyer are the 'victim' if there is one (certainly not the car). Of course cars don't care, but hopefully you get my point.

Who is the true victim here if a coder is being fairly compensated based on market rate? The victim, if there is one, is the company that is being overcharged - yet the coder seems to think he/she is the victim when they are being paid a fair wage.

Again, we stress coders need to know market rate, and the ones that are 'victimized' are the ones that don't know market rate. They are victimized by recruiters who gouge. But if the coder is getting market rate, and the recruiter is able to negotiate a higher-than-market hourly rate (with a high delta), you seem to believe that the coder is a victim - it's not the coder, it's the company.