ES of History wrote asking for ballpark hourly costs for software developers. Took the opportunity to do a little research. I gave him the following:
- $20/hour for a junior developer (someone that would work from a complete specification and require technically competent supervision). That's in line with the numbers for Co-op students in Computer Science/Mathematics posted at
http://coop.uvic.ca/index.php?page=prospective_employer_average_salary
- $30/hour to $40/hour for an intermediate developer (someone capable of working autonomously from any half-decent spec for all but the most complex projects)
- up to $60/hour for the most senior developer/analysts who could do use analysis, write specifications and/or do complex coding in humanities computing
with the following considerations:
- length of contract (longer contracts are cheaper in per hour rates),
- whether you are hiring the person more-or-less as an employee at your worksite rather than as a contractor who has to provide some or all of their own worksite infrastructure ("employee" type arrangements are cheaper)
- degree of specialized knowledge required in addition to coding skills (stats, natural language, historical or other content)