student contract engineering (projects)

[A Reinke]

hey guys, how many of you have done a project or work for a company while in school? can i ask what rate's you make, per project or hour?

i've had four internships, and i know what i made per hour, but a past employer wants to contract me to do a simliar job i did when i worked there full time for a summer. i am not sure if i should go at an hourly rate (on top of school, FSAE, and my campus job) or go at a set rate 'contract' to deliver a finished product.

basically i'm making a troubleshooting guide for something.

just curious what you guys think.

~Adam

[A Reinke]

hey guys, how many of you have done a project or work for a company while in school? can i ask what rate's you make, per project or hour?

i've had four internships, and i know what i made per hour, but a past employer wants to contract me to do a simliar job i did when i worked there full time for a summer. i am not sure if i should go at an hourly rate (on top of school, FSAE, and my campus job) or go at a set rate 'contract' to deliver a finished product.

basically i'm making a troubleshooting guide for something.

just curious what you guys think.

~Adam

[Igor]

What I have done is take a normal monthly engineering salary and divide that by the number of working hours in a month. This is way below what an outside contractor would ask, but as you don't have overhead and other troubles to worry about, it's good money for your effort.

The company will be much happier with a lump sum than an hourly rate, as you are pretty inexperienced in estimating hours. A lump sum will prevent any surprises that will mess up your relationship and thus exclude future work.

Try to divide the work into small tasks to estimate the time you spend on the complete project. When added up, add 25% because you will always run into unforseen problems. You will probably still take more time than you estimated, but it's still good money for a student. Next time you will make a better estimate.

Depending on your relationship with the company, you could even ask them to reimburse you for the extra hours you went over your estimate when the job is done. If they were pleased with the work they will also try to keep a good relationship with you. (otherwise they risk that you will add 200% to your next estimate :-)

Enjoy,
Igor

[A Reinke]

thanks Igor, sounds like a good plan. I kind of estimated how many hours it would take for each part...and added some.

hoping to talk to them this week so i can figure out how much to put in a bid for.

~Adam