Any tips on finding/learning a highly profitable subspecialty? I've changed niches and increased my rates before, but I don't even know how to begin getting to $400.

Ideally you would want to be in a niche that will directly influence revenue, makes it easier to sell your service for a high price.

patio11's post in this thread is a good example (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5769870), increasing conversion rates for X will directly effect the bottom line by Y. As long as the price you charge is lower than Y, you should be able to sell it.

Other than that, specialized knowledge is always handy of course. I know of consultants doing compliance/IT systems for banks, highly profitable since the banks only change IT systems every 10 years or so and therefore it makes no sense to keep the cutting edge expertise in house but there are enough banks so they always have work.

It does vary depending on where you live though, I don't know of many charging $400/hr (or equivalent) in Sweden. Same rings true for the limited experience I have in The Netherlands.

Edit: Edited for clarity.

Edit2: Looking at your HN profile: why not consulting in Big data or such? Big data is all the rage at the moment and it is a new niche that everyone wants in on.

Thanks for the advice. I do work in Big Data (and have consulted) but perhaps I need to specialize further?

This post brings up 2 ideas:

1. Look into marketing or other areas where applied Machine Learning would make a direct impact to the bottom line. I'm guessing it's a lot easier to charge more if your value proposition is "increase sales/revenue by $X" vs. "increase the lift of this random model by Y%".

2.It might be worth looking into banks/hedge funds. They presumably are much more willing to throw large amounts of money at the right problems.

I think both seem like very valid ideas, though I have little knowledge regarding Big Data so I cannot tell you for sure.

It is still up and coming so I think there are large opportunities for those with enough knowledge how to handle Big Data. If you can visualize the data in a clear and coherent manner you should be able to make some big money :)

Best of luck!

I'm asking WHAT specialties are charging this rate in the technical fields, because I haven't seen them, so I'm curious.

Admittedly, my lawyer is general practice, so, yes, what they charge is based on that. But, still, $400/hr for a long term contract for a programmer/developer is very high for the majority of the US market from what I have seen unless you are working on Wall St. as a specialized Quant or something.

Add to "expert developers with domain expertise in finance" also "cryptographic security specialists", "hardware reverse engineers", and "high-end SEO". There, you have 4 subspecialties of software development. Can we agree that the poll tops out too low now? :)

Ok, that kind of specialization may make some sense then for that rate. I was just inquiring because I had never seen a rate like that on a long-term contract before. I've personally run the typical gamut of development and project management contracts charging anywhere between $100/hr and $220/hr, but nothing heavily specialized (yet, anyway).

Thanks.

There may be some communication issues here. Do companies even contract the services of reverse engineers for very long periods? I wonder if perhaps they are on some kind of agreement where they do an hour or three a week, or don't work regularly but are "on call"?

Reverse engineers, no. High-end software security? Yes. But high-end/hardware reverse engineers can keep themselves utilized year round, too, just at multiple clients.

Since you are on a related field. How much do you think we must charge for specialization in reverse engineering, application virtualization, and windows drivers?

In my experience, dealing with US companies from abroad, it is difficult to sell at very high prices. It happens but my company cannot loose prospective customers if the price is lower but convenient.

Absolutely no less than $1600/day. If you're doing reversing work or special-case driver stuff (can't speak to virtualization, but I'd assume similar), at least $2000/day. This sort of work is very niche, which means that if you're established, you can bill quite high up.

I'm pretty sure if you just ask anyone who has ever contributed a driver to the Linux kernel you can find someone who is willing to do "revesing work or special-case driver stuff" for WAY less than $2000/day.

The person who does driver reversing for less than $2k a day is egregiously shortchanging themselves.

Very possibly. And either they're going to take 10x the time (and cost you far more at the end of the day) or they're way underpricing themselves.

Thanks Daeken. Can I contact you in a couple of weeks about this for a brief talk? I saw that you are in hnofficehours.

Sure, any time!

wlsh, be sure to make it short. We now know what his rates look like... :)

hnofficehours?

(he enquires curiously)

Site down? I was curious about checking what it is

Hmm, indeed. I checked the site before I posted the link; it wasn’t responding then, but I figured it was temporary. A day later, still nada.

Was also curious. Found this: http://blog.bitemyapp.com/projects/

HNOfficeHours Designed to allow people to offer advice/expertise, or seek people offering advice for a given problem/specialty. Includes scheduling and search. Fun weekend hack from 2.5 years ago. Now deprecated in favor of better alternatives.

I too wish to learn more about this.