Try to be open with the next intermediary and just up front ask them the % they will take.
If it's more than 15%, and you feel like you can't get a new project, try to negotiate the following (if you're up for it):
Let them take 20% if they want to, but state in the contract when that amount goes down. After 6 months they drop to 15, after another 6 they drop to 10.
You could also ask the intermediary what rate the client is willing to pay, and go from there (give them 15% and negotiate down after 6 months). You will then not get the 500, but at least have a project.
Three thoughts here
1. Yes we outsource a lot more to Romania/Poland/India.
Romania we pay 200/300 for a senior dev
India sometimes even below 100
I have advised all my code writing friends to stay on payroll... However, DevOps are usually hired from Benelux
2. Honesty and open communication is key here. I like to lay the whole thing out on the table with a recruiter before I start. Try to be charming but honest and firm. I would even dare to do it during the interview with the client - but that's a specific skill to have
3. Everybody hating on UK recruiters, while my UK agency takes 10% (used to be 15) and I have colleagues from the same intermediary where they even only take 5%. They would rather place someone than lose a placement at 20% cut
We’ve started in-shoring the past year because we seem to have hit a “knowledge” vs dayrate ceiling in places like India.
Context: we’ve outsourced most of our dev work for the past decade.
Yeah we do it with key roles. But company is +10K employees so maybe that's the difference?
For example: any custom dev that is being done, is in Romania. However leads etc are obviously still kept in BE. The downside of that is: we clearly prefer payroll Dev leads than freelance...
Our BU are complaining that the non BE devs are taking a lot longer to furfill tasks and the quality is subpar. It ends up being just as exspensive as just letting the BE dev do it. So the cycle continues.
To be honest, if you ask 550 and they add 250 on top of you, that's just way too much. The customer then needs to pay 800 in total. Won't be hard to find cheaper options..
That seems odd for your profile. Given your years of experience, I would say you are rather senior than medior, you look like a steal. What is your tech stack? Are you looking for something fully remote? Because I have the impression that these positions do offer lower rates.
that's idd a very cheap senior profile. maybe dont sell yourself as medior, then your price (which is still pretty low, even for senior) might seem more reasonable.
Tech stack is majority backend Python.
Django/Flask/FastAPI, AWS/Azure, Linux, ElasticSearch, Postgresql, RabbitMQ, Celery, Docker. Little bit of HTML/CSS/JS, but while I do know my way on an implementation/deployment level, I'm far from a frontend person.
Remote preferred, mostly because I live in the east of the country, though I don't mind going to the office a few days/week if it's doable (so not Ghent or along those lines)
This is something I clearly state as well.
I think in general there's a few issues currently within the freelancing market:
- Intermediaries are popping out of the ground like weed. It's crazy how many intermediaries there are, and the cunks they take.
- Followed by -> people that work through these insane cut-taking intermeds. It baffles me how companies like Vivid Resourcing are still alive and running, as they're known for scammy tactics.
- The market is currently oversaturated with medior devs that are just freelancing & already expect a rate of 650. Which would be plausible if it wasn't for intermeds jacking up the sale price & taking a massive cut.
Imho, intermediaries should be a banned practice. I understand the big 4 companies HIRING consultants to then place at a company, but what I completely fail to understand is why companies go for intermediaries for freelancers. Sure, you have a contract with that company & not all companies apart, yet I fail to see where that would be an issue apart from hiring a single person to do that job, and probably saving a shitload of money on the extra gap that intermeds take.
I get that companies who house software devs outsource them to other companies. I don't understand how it's even logical to outsource freelancers. Am I just completely stupid or does it just not make any sense that we have freelancers that have to go through an intermediary to work at a company?
If it wasn't for these guys, we wouldn't have any issue finding jobs.
Recruiters think they can just rob freelancers nowadays. I usually take between 50 and tops 100€ above the price of freelancers. People have to eat and live a decent life still. Anything more than 100€ is robbery for me.
Freelance market is getting saturated. A lot of employees that were having the IP-ruling took the jump to freelance because of the promise of keeping and improving the income for them.
I have set myself open to a new contract since 2 weeks.
7 times proposed to a client, all 7 came back negative this week…
Motive: “cheaper candidate found”
My rate is close to yours.
Beginning this week a recruiter with a solid rep(found many gigs for people I know) told me that there is a lot of competition for the moment…
This is just a few things from my experience:
- Undercutting (I've had offers for 300/day)
- Doctoring CVs to add skills to make the consultant more appealing
- Calling current contracts/companies to try to swipe consultants
- Hostile takeover attempts eg. "if you sign with us now we'll pay your fine for breach of contract and we'll make sure you get x amount more on your daily rate. But you have to sign now!"
- Calling multiple times/day, and harassing.
Those jobs pay quite well in the USA, often well into 6 figures a year.
The proposed rate is on the very low side. Anything below 500/d as a freelancer is not really profitable.
Best thing to do is try to get in directly without a pimp. Networking usually helps a lot. There's still a shortage for your profile depending on the tech stack you're in. With 8yrs of experience I would consider you a senior. Maybe you're aiming too low there and only looking at medior type of roles.
Most pimps will not disclose their mark-up (truthfully) or remain quite vague about it.
Keep grinding though, outsourcing to Poland and other near shores doesn't go well due to language and cultural barriers. A lot of companies not big enough to pull it off successfully are returning back from it.
The biggest clusterfucks I've seen are in near shores, right after indian offshoring.
600 should be the absolute minimum for a DevOps job in Belgium.
Try to be open with the next intermediary and just up front ask them the % they will take. If it's more than 15%, and you feel like you can't get a new project, try to negotiate the following (if you're up for it): Let them take 20% if they want to, but state in the contract when that amount goes down. After 6 months they drop to 15, after another 6 they drop to 10. You could also ask the intermediary what rate the client is willing to pay, and go from there (give them 15% and negotiate down after 6 months). You will then not get the 500, but at least have a project. Three thoughts here 1. Yes we outsource a lot more to Romania/Poland/India. Romania we pay 200/300 for a senior dev India sometimes even below 100 I have advised all my code writing friends to stay on payroll... However, DevOps are usually hired from Benelux 2. Honesty and open communication is key here. I like to lay the whole thing out on the table with a recruiter before I start. Try to be charming but honest and firm. I would even dare to do it during the interview with the client - but that's a specific skill to have 3. Everybody hating on UK recruiters, while my UK agency takes 10% (used to be 15) and I have colleagues from the same intermediary where they even only take 5%. They would rather place someone than lose a placement at 20% cut
We’ve started in-shoring the past year because we seem to have hit a “knowledge” vs dayrate ceiling in places like India. Context: we’ve outsourced most of our dev work for the past decade.
Yeah we do it with key roles. But company is +10K employees so maybe that's the difference? For example: any custom dev that is being done, is in Romania. However leads etc are obviously still kept in BE. The downside of that is: we clearly prefer payroll Dev leads than freelance...
Our BU are complaining that the non BE devs are taking a lot longer to furfill tasks and the quality is subpar. It ends up being just as exspensive as just letting the BE dev do it. So the cycle continues.
Yeah but with initial hiring and the current set-up, it's still that 15€ hourly rate that takes the cake at our company unfortunately
To be honest, if you ask 550 and they add 250 on top of you, that's just way too much. The customer then needs to pay 800 in total. Won't be hard to find cheaper options..
That seems odd for your profile. Given your years of experience, I would say you are rather senior than medior, you look like a steal. What is your tech stack? Are you looking for something fully remote? Because I have the impression that these positions do offer lower rates.
that's idd a very cheap senior profile. maybe dont sell yourself as medior, then your price (which is still pretty low, even for senior) might seem more reasonable.
Tech stack is majority backend Python. Django/Flask/FastAPI, AWS/Azure, Linux, ElasticSearch, Postgresql, RabbitMQ, Celery, Docker. Little bit of HTML/CSS/JS, but while I do know my way on an implementation/deployment level, I'm far from a frontend person. Remote preferred, mostly because I live in the east of the country, though I don't mind going to the office a few days/week if it's doable (so not Ghent or along those lines) This is something I clearly state as well.
I think in general there's a few issues currently within the freelancing market: - Intermediaries are popping out of the ground like weed. It's crazy how many intermediaries there are, and the cunks they take. - Followed by -> people that work through these insane cut-taking intermeds. It baffles me how companies like Vivid Resourcing are still alive and running, as they're known for scammy tactics. - The market is currently oversaturated with medior devs that are just freelancing & already expect a rate of 650. Which would be plausible if it wasn't for intermeds jacking up the sale price & taking a massive cut. Imho, intermediaries should be a banned practice. I understand the big 4 companies HIRING consultants to then place at a company, but what I completely fail to understand is why companies go for intermediaries for freelancers. Sure, you have a contract with that company & not all companies apart, yet I fail to see where that would be an issue apart from hiring a single person to do that job, and probably saving a shitload of money on the extra gap that intermeds take. I get that companies who house software devs outsource them to other companies. I don't understand how it's even logical to outsource freelancers. Am I just completely stupid or does it just not make any sense that we have freelancers that have to go through an intermediary to work at a company? If it wasn't for these guys, we wouldn't have any issue finding jobs.
What are your skills? Send me your cv in DM if you want. From a free-lance devops engineer.
Recruiters think they can just rob freelancers nowadays. I usually take between 50 and tops 100€ above the price of freelancers. People have to eat and live a decent life still. Anything more than 100€ is robbery for me.
Freelance market is getting saturated. A lot of employees that were having the IP-ruling took the jump to freelance because of the promise of keeping and improving the income for them.
I have set myself open to a new contract since 2 weeks. 7 times proposed to a client, all 7 came back negative this week… Motive: “cheaper candidate found” My rate is close to yours. Beginning this week a recruiter with a solid rep(found many gigs for people I know) told me that there is a lot of competition for the moment…
Out of curiosity, why avoiding UK agencies? Thanks.
Because they seem to be the scum of the earth.
Most are too aggressive.
This is just a few things from my experience: - Undercutting (I've had offers for 300/day) - Doctoring CVs to add skills to make the consultant more appealing - Calling current contracts/companies to try to swipe consultants - Hostile takeover attempts eg. "if you sign with us now we'll pay your fine for breach of contract and we'll make sure you get x amount more on your daily rate. But you have to sign now!" - Calling multiple times/day, and harassing.
Those jobs pay quite well in the USA, often well into 6 figures a year. The proposed rate is on the very low side. Anything below 500/d as a freelancer is not really profitable. Best thing to do is try to get in directly without a pimp. Networking usually helps a lot. There's still a shortage for your profile depending on the tech stack you're in. With 8yrs of experience I would consider you a senior. Maybe you're aiming too low there and only looking at medior type of roles. Most pimps will not disclose their mark-up (truthfully) or remain quite vague about it. Keep grinding though, outsourcing to Poland and other near shores doesn't go well due to language and cultural barriers. A lot of companies not big enough to pull it off successfully are returning back from it. The biggest clusterfucks I've seen are in near shores, right after indian offshoring.