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I am a junior level web developer with 1 yr experience. At the moment, I have some options to work remotely for agencies, and need to negotiate hourly rate.
Having never worked remotely before, I want to know how much the standard rate is for juniors. I am a full-stack developer using either Rails or Meteor.
Donโt charge hourly, it bins you as a replaceable cog, leaves a lot of money on the table, and gets you lower quality clients.
I understand this might not work for everyone, but Iโm a huge fan of charging clients based on the value I provide โ not just writing software, but helping them solve their business problems.
patio11 on why and how he started billing by value
https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consulting_1
step-by-step guidance on how to raise your rates
If itโs contract work, then about $50/hour for a junior developer. The thing is, itโs difficult to know what someone means by โjuniorโ level. Thereโs a huge spectrum of skill between โcan fizzbuzzโ and employable at a tech company.
Whatโs your github username?
I am not sure if GitHub account is an accurate measure of a coderโs level but my github name is sungwoncho. Am I junior enough?
At the very least it shows that youโve been really active and youโve had contributions accepted to forem and avatar, albeit small things. Just having spent like 5 minutes looking at your github presence, I would feel at least confident that you know something about Meteor, especially. If you doubled down and made some larger contributions it would help more.
Assuming you have the basic CS fundamentals and can pass a technical interview, I think you could get hired as a junior dev by a bay area company. They donโt usually like more jr people as contractors, but there are a lot of companies out there. Iโd try for $50 / hour (or better yet, go on a day rate) and if you have difficulties then take something a bit lower, make a good landing page / blog to highlight your abilities.
FWIW, I got my first job at a SV tech company (~125k/year with bonuses) purely through a game I wrote and put on github. It definitely helped that I used a bunch of technologies they care about.
I think there are too many factors which can determine that for anyone to give you a definite answer.
Factors which may influence it is your location, your clientโs location, your clients industry, the type of technologies used, where you got the clients (word of mouth / oDesk / previous clientsโฆ), etc.
This article is a few years old, but it gives you an idea of how wide the salary gap is between different countries:
Those rates are ridiculously low. I suspect those are primarily for people working in non-software companies.
I can only compare the South African rates as those are the one I have knowledge of. And yes, for South Africa those rates mentioned are a bit on the lower end, but not ridiculous.
In any case, the purpose of the article was to demonstrate how much salaries differ across the world, and not as a reference for what can be earned. The original poster asked a question which has no context in terms of where they are from or where their potential clients are from. Without that information they cannot expect a proper answer.
So even your quote of $ 50 an hour does not mean anything as it does not give any more context.
I can tell you for a fact that you would be hard pressed to find a local programmer in South Africa contracting to a local company earning that sort of money - theyโd have to be some sort of programming god to demand that money.
Itโs a global talent market.
If someone in a country with poorer rates is English speaking and a demonstrably good dev, why would they work for a local company instead of just working for a US company that hires remotely (e.g. Github, StackOverflow, Automatticโฆ etc)?
And that just goes for a good dev. If theyโre โprogramming godโ they can work for a shockingly higher rate, even for a lot of companies that donโt normally tend to hire remotely.
I agree on the global talent market. It should not matter where you are. In practice however it does not work that way in the majority of cases. Maybe someday it will, but I doubt because there will always be someone will to work cheaper, and someone wanting to pay cheaper.
Without @sungwoncho stating at least where these "agenciesโ are that he is speaking to all one can work on is assumptions and very little fact. If those agencies are located in lets say the Philippines they are probably going to laugh in his face when he starts saying it is a global market and therefore he must be paid $50.
It should not matter where you are. In practice however it does not work that way in the majority of cases. Maybe someday it will, but I doubt because there will always be someone will to work cheaper, and someone wanting to pay cheaper.
Thatโs not a game that a good dev will play. The problem with competing in a race to the bottom is that you might win! Some people online ask for contractors to clone an entire billion dollar start-up for $400. Those are not the people you should work for.
Just for a point of reference, Iโm a solid mid-level dev and the last remote contract I took was for $1100 / day. It was for a mid-sized profitable company, though, not for a bottom scraping agency in the Philppines. When I was more junior level and in a less desirable tech stack, I charged $50 / hour. In both cases, I had to spend some time looking for clients and not 100% of project proposals I wrote were accepted but most were. YMMV.
Edit: also to clarify, Rails and Meteor are both what I would consider hot skill-sets. Meteor is still a bit new, but with Rails especially, there are a lot of profitable companies willing to pay up for the right talent.
Where are your clients located though?
That surely makes a massive difference in what they are willing to pay? Why would a South African company, for example, be willing to pay a remote developer $100+ when they can get a very good local developer for ยฑ$30?
And as far as the location of the developer is concerned, employers do take that in mind. As an example look at the salary formula for Buffer, which is arguably one of the more forward-thinking companies in terms of remote work. Even they pay their employees significantly more or less based on their location.
Where are your clients located though?
That surely makes a massive difference in what they are willing to pay?
I think at a junior level, the clientsโ locations surely have impact on the salary because there are a great deal of undifferentiated supply of talents.
FYI my potential employers at the moment are located in Australia and USA.
I would suggest you get on job boards for those countries and see what the going rates are for junior developers in each respective country and price yourself according to that.
i would also suggest that if you want to eventually start commanding rates which are higher than average you start doing things which raises your profile. Start blogging, start contributing to open source, get involved in the developer community, look for opportunities to start speaking (start of with code camps, bar camps, local user groups etc and work your way up to larger conferences).
@jerriep Thanks for your advice. Sydney has some great developer communities. I will try to get more involved.
To answer your first question: The US, China, and Canada.
To answer your second: In China, developers can be found for even less than in South Africa. Nonetheless, they sometimes import talent from Silicon Valley and in the case of Baidu have even opened up a local office in the bay area to hire very expensive engineers. Clearly enough of the people who really are good devs are salary sensitive enough that businesses canโt get all the work they want done locally. Or perhaps theyโve found it cheaper to go with the higher priced engineer. One Beijing startup where I worked had not only hired an engineer from the bay area, but also a designer and a marketer from Sweden!
Iโm familiar with Bufferโs blog post and have met their founder at meetups in SF. I wouldnโt work there. Anyway, this thread is getting a bit long and Iโm not sure if itโs helpful for the OP so Iโm going to stop here.
Iโm looking for any recommendations for services or people others have used to get answers on the best place to set up their businesses based on their personal circumstances.
Leaning towards Singapore after a ton of research, but would really like some concrete advice before jumping in.
Appreciate it!
When reopening for tourism, Bali says it will focus on attracting remote workers to choose the island as their workplace:
"We will focus on a new pattern of how Bali is not just for leisure, but indeed to work in Bali as well"
thebalisun.com/bali-tourism-will-target-digital-nomads-and-those-who-work-online/
Transactional Attorney with a focus on US Immigration. Burnt out doing the law firm thing. Trying to leverage skill to get on this digital nomad tip. Love the traveling experience, hostels, seeing new places, new cocktails etc etc.
What do you use to work together remotely with your team?
I know Slack, Hipchat and Hall.
Which ones do you guys use and why?
My interest in DN lifestyle started when half of our company have been taking 1 month for remote work @ Ko Samui. It was truly cool but we observed quite some communication challenges. Communication seemed just โriskierโ when online.
What were your worst situations caused by misunderstanding while communicating online with your teammates? What do you do to avoid misunderstandings?
Hi everyone and nice to e-meet you!
finally, after so long I found a job that allows me to work remotely.
But now? Do you have any practical advice that I can use to approach this new world?
In particular, I have to put my tax situation in order, do you know a good tax advisor from whom I can ask for advice? (Iโm Italian but I live in FranceโฆI donโt know how long it will beโฆ) )
Beyond that, any advice is welcome.
Thank you!
Maria
Looking for recommendations for reliable accountants who understand how remote businesses with off-shore freelancers and clients work. Thanks!
Iโm currently doing some work through Upwork, but itโs sporadic and Iโm keen to get more active on other platforms like Freelancer, Toptal, CodeMentor, Fiverr etc
Currently Iโm managing leads in a Google sheet. Basically itโs just a list of projects I pitched for, how much I bid, what I did differently from the last pitch/bid, how much time went by before I got a offered a job etc.
Iโm not actively following up anybody, and Iโve in fact โlostโ a few jobs where the client was keen, but then disappeared without a trace. I guess I need to keep in touch with those people to ensure that they remain focussed on our agreementโฆ
Iโm also keen to take on more small projects concurrently, without dropping the ball on any of them.
Iโve done a quick Google and turned up a few names including Salesforce, Zoho, Nutshell, HighRise, Base, Nimble, etc etc. But testing out all these products isnโt all that appealing, so I thought Iโd ask here first 
Ideally Iโd like something that integrates with remote job boards in some way.
Iโve done some research and currently have this feature list:
Cheers,
Dan
I have an commerce website. We get around 1000 orders per month and this is going to get quite a bit bigger in next few years.
I am British. I live in Thailand.
Im not allowed to majority own a Thai business and small foreign entrepreneurs are not really welcome. So i need an offshore company.
I need PayPal and an ecommerce internet merchant account. Also looking at alternatives like worldpay. 2checkout etc
Does PayPal need me to be a resident to the country i register my account to? Are there complications being a non resident to get other payment solutions?
Apparently in Hong Kong you need 2 years trading history to get an Internet Mechant Account and they generally turn their noses up at those with less than $1m(us) a year turn over. Singapore seems a bit easier.
I really want to avoid paperwork and book keeping. I hate it.
So i was looking at Seychelles, Panama, BVI, Belize.
Does anyone have experience with payment providers in these countries?
Most nomads i see donโt really have a high volume of small monthly transactions which i do. Im going around in circles and donโt know where to start.
Ill also need a bank account for business and a personal bank account to pay my salary into
Is there an affordable way to incorporate in Singapore?
I asked an agency and they charge around SG$11000 for the whole package.
Iโd like to find a cheaper option since Iโm just starting out.
Any recommendations?
Every accountant is going to tell you that you really should be keeping separate accounts for all your businesses and even projects that may one day become businesses. But in my experience setting up a new account associated with an actual business entity is a pretty annoying process involving an in-person visit to a bank branch, proof of residence in that branchโs region, etc. Has anybody seen a bank that letโs you easily create a simple business checking account online and more importantly that would let you add additional accounts and transfer funds between them?
Hi all,
I am moving to Amsterdam in January and looking for advice regarding legal status.
I work for a small French company. They agreed to let me move to Amsterdam as a remote worker starting January. 
However, they have no business entity and no employee in the Netherlands, so we have no idea how to set up the whole thing legally speaking. Should I remain an employee of the French entity, should I charge them as a consultant/contractor?
Of course, I am looking for a solution that is both simple and with minimum taxes 
Thank you for your help!!
Steph
PS: If you can recommend a good accountant that is competent on the topic, I an happy to pay for the service too!
I have this dream scenario in my head, and Iโve searched for a while without figuring out how I might best achieve it. I donโt need many places, just one or two that I can go back to over and over again. I want to be working on my laptop while being surrounded by nature; for example a place right on the ocean where I can hear the waves crashing and look up and see them, then look back down and go back to work (but it would have to be very close by to achieve this feeling, not a distant sea view).
In itself this might not be so hard but my total list of requirements makes it difficult:
So far I thought of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: there seem to be some flats with a nice ocean view, although Iโm not sure how close to the ocean they can get. And maybe also Valencia?
Anyway, Iโm not sure if anybody else has had this kind of dream as well. But I would very much appreciate any tips for places I can check out
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/vermont-pay-10-000-move-110056645.html
Hello All,
Saw Vermont rolled out an incentive to get more remote workers to live there, Does anyone plan on applying and If so why? Reason Iโm asking is I work for an organization in Tulsa, Ok that wants to also bring in Nomads, and would love to hear your thoughts on what such a plan should look like
Any help would be Awesome!
Ben
Hello! Does anyone have experience teaching music remotely via Skype or another form of Video Chat?
Anyone want to share their strategy/tips for finding out what to do when you arrive at new location, and/or finding about ongoing events (for example when staying for longer term)?
Im looking to make my first venture into nomad living this September and keep leaning back towards Bocas del Toro.
Does anyone have experience setting up shop there? Iโm open to other warm weather surf towns as well
Starting a SaaS company that assists the operation of service based industries so being near some other SaaS people would be wonderful. (First time starting a tech company)
Greetings!
Me & my gf holding not very strong passports, so have to apply for a visas quite often.
Soon need to make a visa applications from the countries we have no ties with.
The problem is that by the moment of making an applications, a bank statements will be outdated and the banks we currently use donโt send the paper statements internationally. That cause quite a lot of problems with visa applications. (the way i see it now is to open new account in each country, transfer funds to it and wait for 3 months)
Any suggestion on probably some fin tech banking startup where one can both open the account remotely (with using a local mailbox service i suppose) and get a paper statement delivered internationally?
Hope there is a solution to it
Hi all,
For those of you who work remotely, I think the community would love to hear about your problems โฆ I know I would.
When working remotely what problems do you face with your day to day work and/or employer(s)? โฆ Please list anything and everything that comes to mind!
Some topics that might trigger some inspiration for reply. 
Cheers,
Steve
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