1099 vs W2 hourly rate

Perhaps they'll start with the same rate as your W2, then you'll ask more and they'll offer a number halfway in between.

Don't expect them to pay you soon. They often take months, especially if they're a listed corporation trying to make their quarters look good. Your invoices might get "lost".

I don't think you need an accountant. If you're a programmer, your math should be more than good enough to calculate yourself. Unless you think the accountant can find obscure deductions, and then that might raise audit flags with the IRS.

Some of the numbers aren't related to hours, for example deducting the mileage for the commutes (my main-only deduction). It's been several years since I had a "big" 1099 contract, so the rate per mile has probably gone up from the 34 cents or so it was last time I took the deduction. Probably over 40 cents now.

In terms of finding an equivalent rate, when I did it, it was apples-oranges because the equivalent was based on salary, not per hour, and if you took my salary divided by the number of hours I worked, the equivalent rate was dirt cheap! The contract rate was the common quick-and-dirty strategy of half the thousands number of the salary (e.g. $50 per hour is the equivalent of a $100,000 salary, of course I didn't make nearly that much).

One number that is NOT a realistic metric is a corporation's claim of an employee's "total compensation". They add all kinds of BS including expected increase in the company's stock price, so for a salary of $50,000, they claim total compensation is $90,000 or more. Bull! I'd base the contract rate on actual salary without any inflated compensation for not having benefits.

Whenever I've had W2 per hour, it's been grunt underemployment work, so I cannot give any experience with per hour W2 jobs. Once I interviewed for a contract position through a headhunter and they hired me as an employee from Day 1, and the thousands part of the salary was more than twice the low contract rate per hour, but that might have been affected by their not having to pay the headhunter a continual cut, just some kind of finder's fee.

One thing is certain: the Hindus I've encountered who claim they work full weeks only work a tiny percentage of the hours they claim, so if they make $30 per hour on paper, they're really making more like $100 per hour in terms of the few hours their behavior could be called "working". Hindustani show up late, take long lunches, leave early, and when they're at their desk, they're surfing the net, making personal calls talking in Hindi, and schmoozing with people in the office. I wouldn't hire Hindustani in the first place, but if I did, I'd only pay them minimum wage.