are the top 10% of software developers merchs?
James Knight recently made an unorthodox career move for a 27-year-old coder: quitting a well-paid gig writing software for Google to go freelance. No more catered lunches, gold-plated benefits or million-dollar views from the search giant’s Manhattan office.
Knight is willing to sacrifice those perks because as an independent he’s pulling down about twice as much as he did at Google. Plus, he has more freedom. In March, Knight and his wife plan to travel to Spain and hopscotch across Europe—all the while writing code for a dating app and a self-portrait app, among others.
"I’d rather control my own destiny and take on the risk and forgo the benefits of nap pods and food," Knight says.
Amid an accelerating war for tech talent, big companies and startups alike are paying top dollar—as much as $1,000 a hour, according to a person who gets coders gigs—for freelancers with the right combination of skills. While companies still recruit many of the best minds, they're turning to independent software developers to get a stalled project moving or to gain a competitive edge. In some cases, the right person can be the difference between a failed and successful product.
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Independent software developers like Knight represent an elite echelon of the so-called Gig Economy—a 53-million-strong army of freelancers who now account for one in three workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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With the tagline "genius on demand," 10x Management typically represents about 100 software developers, though the New York-based agency receives thousands of applications every year. Co-founder (and former entertainment manager) Rishon Blumberg likens his clients to movie stars: "The demand for Tom Cruise is very large," he says, "but the supply is very small."
Martin Langhoff, 39, typifies the elite freelance coder. Having taught himself programming at the age of nine, Langhoff went on to become chief technology officer at the non-profit One Laptop Per Child program, where he managed a software and hardware team, industrial design, manufacturing and prototypes. Burned out and wanting to spend more time with his son, he joined 10x, which he says is akin to qualifying for the Olympics.