>If you can really find someone who truly provides twice the results of >a $75k developer (good luck), then it's even better. The HR overhead >of an employee is an important factor to consider. A $75k-salaried >employee may be costing the company $150k/yr in total, so two >$75k-salaried would cost the company $300k/yr. A single $150k-salaried >employee would cost the company $225k/yr.
In order to fully take advantage of a $150 K guy, you need to let him work in an environment where his skills are used properly. It is unlikely that he would be able to produce twice as much code in the same amount of time. However, he can come up with a way that solves a particular problem using 1/10th of the code volume that you would have had to write without him. He can also write the kind of code that gives you the same performance on 1/10th of the cost of hardware/software. He can also write the kind of code that requires only 10% of your support resources to deal with. But you must give him a chance to do that. If you make him write large volumes of trivial code, he will be bored and actually be producing less than his less expensive peers.
I would like to take advantage of the opportunity to offer a suggestion to all the business decision makers that are reading this. Treat hardware/software/business supplies/office space/etc as a commodity. Do not treat people as a commodity. Extra $10K per year spent on a salary is worth much more in many ways that extra $10K spent on hardware or software licenses.
-- Sasha Pachev AskSasha Linux Consulting http://www.asksasha.com .-----------------------------------. | This has been a P.L.U.G. mailing. | | Don't Fear the Penguin. | | IRC: #utah at irc.freenode.net | `-----------------------------------'
