Rephrasing the Questions

[Bill Wood]

On Wed, 20 Sep 2000 07:12:29 -0700, Steve Lamb wrote:

>On Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 06:48:37AM -0700, Bill Wood wrote:
>> I think we're talking of a whole lot more money than the trivial
>> amount we pledged. When a man-year of journeyman SW engineer cost a
>> company perhaps $150,000 or more, you can see that a few thousand
>> doesn't go very far.
>
>    Curious where that figure came from when I am certainly not that level in
>title and am not even breaking three figures.
> 

A company must pay your salary and then a bunch of other stuff,
typically,

 o your benefits (maybe 35 percent of salary)
 o the overhead for your department (usually => 100 percent)
   o facilities, utilities, T3 connections, etc
   o furniture, office equipment, computers, etc
   o continuing education, conferences, software, books, etc
   o vacation, sick leave, lost time, etc
   o engineering laboratory
   o your boss' salary (maybe)
   o etc, and a bunch of other stuff, depending on company
 o the overhead for the company (also called G&A => 30 percent)
   o bid and proposal
   o IR&D
   o Salary of the big boss
   o etc, and a bunch of other stuff

So your cost to the company (defined by an accounting model) is
based on your paying your prorata share of these expenses. In the
aerospace business the selling price of an engineering hour is very
nearly 3 times salary, and that includes only about 10 percent
profit for the company. My estimate is pretty conservative and is
based on $75K per year salary and a x2 multiplier (100 percent
overhead). $200K is probably more realistic. But it all depends on
how the company keeps its books.

Hope this helps. YMMV.

w3

w3

Bill Wood
Las Vegas, NV
wwwood@lv.rmci.net

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