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Ask HN: How much would you pay an undergraduate full-stack developer?

11 points by blockwriter ↗ HN
I run a small literary publishing operation and I have been writing a little Flask based web app to augment the operations. I am in correspondence with a local university near Chicago that I reached out to about hiring a student. I am hoping to learn a lot about hiring a developer and developing a product. In time, this product may become public facing and commercial. How much would you pay an undergraduate? Would you pay them hourly or on a longer term basis?

If you want a little more context about the stack and etc., a brief write-up can be found here: https://www.broadaxepublications.com/home/2022/1/1/song-of-the-broad-axe-publications-is-hiring-a-full-stack-developer-rzzsn

Edit: I should say that I am not a professional developer. I think I did a pretty good job with the project, but it is the work of an amateur.

9 comments

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uberman
Just a heads up that some students may be restricted by hours/pay due to Visa requirements.

I recommend you work with the career/placement department. They can likely give you feedback on pay.

blockwriter
I ran into the visa issue with a non-developer hire. I'll ask if they have an opinion about pay. They probably know the student's capacity better than I do.
killingtime74
Are you trying to save money by hiring an undergraduate? Or giving them an opportunity to break into tech?
blockwriter
I guess I should have mentioned in my post that I am not a professional developer myself. I think I did a pretty good job with the project, but it is certainly amateur. This will be the first developer I hire, and I suppose I would feel a little overwhelmed working with someone that had already worked as a professional dev. I thought my level of experience would match theirs.
yuppie_scum
Wait, you want to reduce the amateurism of your project by hiring another amateur to work on it? So you’ll just have two amateurs doing probably non best practices rather than one skilled professional who maybe knows how to do things the right way.

You don’t have to be the smartest guy in the room.

blockwriter
Point taken. If you were someone with few personal contacts in the world of professional developers, where would you look for candidates? How much should I expect to offer the one skilled professional?
errantmind
I started a full time job with regular (junior) developer pay while in my senior year of college. IMO I delivered as much work as anyone else. I wouldn't have accepted less than a full salary but that may be just me.

If you are looking to be 'cost effective' I'd find someone actually interested in software engineering and not one of the many people who went into CS because of the pay.

Not knowing the specifics of your situation I'd try to find a student with some experience very similar to the work you are doing. The further away their experience is the lower your chances of success, as a student isn't likely to have a wide and deep skill set.

blockwriter
That's helpful to know. I suppose I am looking to be cost effective only due to my inexperience with starting a technology venture. From what I found on the internet, an entry level salary would be well within my budget. I'm highly motivated to hire a developer now because I am going to have to turn a lot of my attention toward a recent real estate purchase and the establishment of a brick and mortar business therein. Even if I end up in the red on the developer's first year, I think it would be worth it to have the application continue to improve. I could reassess after a year. Thanks for the advice.