Do my homework, LJ!

[rivka]

I'm Googling around trying to find an answer to this question, but it occurred to me that some of my friends probably have the information at their fingertips.

What's a fair hourly rate to pay a database engineer to write a script that pulls information from an already-established database? He estimates that the task will be "easy" and will take a few hours' work, less than a day.

Comments

[bosssio.livejournal.com]

You didn't mention three key factors - language/script (i.e. php, java, .NET), output requirements (HTML, excel, PDF), and database (Oracle, Mysql, sql server). The combination of the three will significantly impact price.

Andy gets paid between $95 and $110 an hour to do this sort of work. He is probably a lot higher level than what you need, however. $75 an hour is not unreasonable in DC metro - you might get cheaper in Baltimore, however. I would look for someone who is doing this as a side gig - they usually charge less b/c it is not their main source of income.

Most contracts are hourly rate/expected LOE with cap - i.e. $75 per hour for 40 hours, billed based on actual time spent. You will not get an invoice for under the cap, btw.

Some people will take a FFP contract but only if they are very familiar with the requirements (i.e. have seen the database, very familiar with the output requirements, etc).