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Ask HN: At which companies do programmers work less than 7 hours a day?
It's pretty hard to find information on work hours for companies. Also since obviously the work hours on a particular day depends if you are in a busy period or not, I think an average across 6 months would be a pretty good estimate.
- some_account 9y agoIn Sweden at a big company, your day as a programmer usually has a few meetings and a lot of social interaction with colleagues. Maybe you get 3-4 hours of programming every day if you are lucky and can focus in the noisy open office environment. Im in the office about 7 hours every day. Salary is excellent for Swedish standards and living costs.
- maruhan2 9y agoMay I ask what the typical programmer's salary is there?
- plogik 9y agoDepends on where in Sweden. Salaries in Stockholm are higher than the rest. I live in southern sweden, entry level is just over 30'SEK (USD4000), senior over 40' (USD5000). Varies from company to company and by industry etc. But around that ballpark generally
- qvst 9y agoJust to clarify: this refers to monthly salaries. Salaries in Sweden are generally discussed in terms of monthly compensation. From my experience it's yearly in the US.
- badpun 9y agoHow much is left after taxes and other obligatory payments to the state?
- Scea91 9y agoInteresting. Those numbers are not that different from Prague (my city). I expected much higher salaries in Sweden.
- jxub 9y ago4k-5k euro net monthly also seems to be in the ballpark for senior dev contracting rates in Warsaw.
- jlengrand 9y agoIn the Netherlands, it's pretty typical to work 32 hours a week. Over 5 days, that's less than 7 hours a day. Though most people prefer having 8 times 4 and take a day off :)
- chatmasta 9y agoAll of them. Some have their butts in their seats for longer than that, but very few employees are generating 7+ hours of productive work on a daily basis for any extended period of time.
- templar_muse 9y agoDepends who you ask, UK here and working 7.5hrs/day but when 'working' 5/6ths of your time is spent reading code, 1/6th is spent writing code, I regard that as productive, managers may disagree.
- maruhan2 9y agoI think that's well known. I'm asking the "official hours"
- psyc 9y agoIt could be dumb luck, but I haven't worked at a company that had official hours in about 17 years. I've got used to working at companies where as long as you produce good work, show up to scheduled meetings, and don't outright embarrass your boss, you can come and go as you like.
- maruhan2 9y agoIn that case, there would be a generally expected hours. You would still have to allocate expected finish time based on how many hours you are expecting to work per day.
- jxub 9y agoThis depends heavily on the country. Southern Europe really has an "ass in the chair" perspective to work, despite resembling relaxed/lazy to the outsiders. Netherlands and Nordics, from what I heard, are the opposite.
- itamarst 9y agoSome options: 1. https://www.keyvalues.com/ https://www.keyvalues.com/ is great job board that has some companies that explicitly claim they have work/life balance. The writeups let you see working hours in some cases, for good or for bad; make sure to read them, they all have different definitions of work/life balance. 2. You can apply to any company that sounds like it'll be reasonable, and if you get a job offer negotiate a shorter workweek. I've done this, and I also interviewed someone who did this at 7 or 8 different companies: https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer/ https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer... 3. Negotiate a shorter workweek at your current job. Actually easier than finding a new job. 4. Just... work less hours. I.e. you're at normal 40-hour/week job, and you just work 7 hours a day. If you're good at what you do you'll be just as productive, if not more. I did that involuntarily at some point due to RSI limiting how many hours I could type. No one complained about shorter hours because I was productive enough. Downside is companies often judge you by hours in office, not by output (https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/06/21/why-company-want-long-hours/ https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/06/21/why-company-want-lon...). I cover these and other approaches in my book: https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/ https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/
- segmondy 9y agoThe broke ones. :)
- hodl 9y agoThe broke ones need you to work 15 hrs a day and "you'll get your backpay once were back on our feet"
- skylark 9y agoLess than 7 hours (6 or less) is typically considered a part time arrangement. If you're a high performer, you can try to negotiate for this kind of situation, but it's rare to start a job with that type of benefit. You should expect to lose a proportionate amount of your salary, (keep in mind that depending on your tax bracket, the percentage hit to your take home will be less affected.) The benefit of being officially on part time is that it sets everyone's expectations and shouldn't negatively impact your promotion trajectory, especially if you're able to fulfill your duties on a part time schedule.