[Cadre-politics] numbers for programmer time

[Dan MacNeil]

Eric Bryant wrote:
> 
> dan I'm not sure where your figures add up to:
> 
> $35/hr figures out to about a 70k per year salary. if we take out 20%,
> it's about 60k per year.
> 
> please get back to me immediately about this. as an action item, give me a
> salary per year that you are comfortable with to get someone good.


I've cadre-politics as our billable rate is a subject of wider 
interest and wider past discussion.

The $35/hr billable rate assumes:

	1) 4 weeks of vacation, holiday, sick time, etc per year

	2) 30 hours a week doing actual work

	3) 10 hours a week going to silly meetings,
	   cleaning the desk, futzing with screen savor
	   reading manuals, etc

	4) paycheck of $30K/yr in cash ( pre employee tax)

	5) 10K for health insurance & employer share of taxes
	
	6) 20% off the top for overhead (paying me,
	   buying computers, books, paying a
            fundraising dude(ette), etc)

So in rounded figures:

	$70K = $35/hr * 52  weeks *40 hours per week
	
	$64K = $70K - $6000 (4 weeks vacation/sick/etc)
	
	$48K = $64K - $16K (10 hrs/wk slack * 48 weeks)

	$40K = 50K - $10K (overhead)

	$30K = 40K - 10k (benefits)
	
Thirty thousand per year plus benefits is what various talented 
people (David Siegal, Josh, etc) have said is what they need to 
work for us.

I suppose you could argue that the effective engineering time (48 
weeks a year, 30 hours per week) is too low, but that's about 
what people (other than me) have been able to consistently put in 
over the course of a year at the CSL. It is also consistent with 
the literature.

This might be too complicated for the grant.

It might be easier and about as acuraete to say we need a salary 
of 60K (market rate for new CS grad with good grades & 
references) and overhead of 20% (12K for equipment, supervision, 
benefits, etc)