So, I am a relatively young EE (26, italy) and I already work as a teacher in an high school. Several times I was requested to design and develop some circuits, mainly digital based on ESP32, nothing particularly difficult. For the first I did the full design and prototiping, even designing a pretty 3d enclosure. It worked fine. I charged the guys for a ridicolusly small amount of money, but I was happy just because I proved to myself I was capable of doing it.
Jobs like this keep coming, and I am finding myself in a very akward position: I do not know how much my job is
For small repair stuff I charge partially on the working time (something like 20€/h) plus a fee that takes into account the actual trubbleshooting and the importance of the item i am fixing.
But for designing and prototiping? Full developement of a custom board based only on the customer needs, prototiping, testing and delivery of a couple sample + all the files for ordering pcb online?
What guidelines do you guys follow?
Also, for next project, i am seriously considering delegating small pieces of circuit to be designed by other EEs, and I just put everything together. How much should THEM be payed?
Hope this is the right forum section for my question.
Something like 40 euro would be better to start out. Pretty competitive rate, but not too low.
Then as you take on jobs, your skills increase, and your available working hours decrease, you can raise your rate.
The rate for a good European engineer is about 70 to 90 EUR, going up to 130 EUR for experts usually.
Make a good estimate of the required tasks and how much hours they take.
Communicate this with the customer and create clear boundaries on what they can expect and when.
Then also take note of your actual hour expenditure, and see if it matches.
Deliver a good end result, build your portfolio and take on new projects.
Delegating work can be quite difficult in the beginning. Not only the technical aspect, but also time and money wise.
Unless you have a bigger project with a clear separation in your schematic, I would not bother to split it up the EE work in the beginning.
Do it yourself and build the skills. It is easier to draw the boundary somewhere else, like outsourcing software or mechanical design.