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

[dragon3.livejournal.com]

Something that small on a research grant I would just handle casually, as in "Hey Joe, what would it cost to do this?" "$350? OK, please do it and I'll run your invoice through the system." I don't know if your system will let you do that, but remember that the overhead cost exists on both sides of the fence and the time you spend figuring out what to pay him and how, is also time *you* don't have for doing useful stuff.

[txobserver.livejournal.com]

Since Rivka apparently has a person available who already knows the schema and the surronding infrastructure, she should just ask how much he would charge, and if it isn't outrageous, let him do it. Anyone else will spend more time getting used to the environment and take more of Rivka's time trying to optimize the last $100 of the contract cost. Not a good investment, in my view.

As a consultant, it is my experience that people spend too much time thinking about the hourly rate and not enough time thinking about the total cost. A more experienced resource may do the job in half the time. In this case, it sounds like what is wanted is well defined and thus well suited to a fixed price. Write down a detailed description of what's wanted, make it the "Statement of Work", and get him to tell you a fixed price. If it's under $500 you are wasting your time doing any more than this. Otherwise, send it to one or two other trusted people and pick the lowest bid.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

It's not that I want to shop around, it's that the head of the clinic asked me how much I was willing to pay the guy, and I didn't have the faintest idea of what to say.

I have subsequently done what I should've done in the first place, which is call my grant's financial administrator and ask her to find out how much he charges and set it up.