4 ms·
I'm an SRE at Google. I switched to 3 days/week (Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday) on January 1, 2018, and it's been insanely great. Every weekend is now a 4-day week
by bumbledraven 8y ago
I'm an SRE at Google. I switched to 3 days/week (Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday) on January 1, 2018, and it's been insanely great. Every weekend is now a 4-day weekend. I now have the time and energy to make meaningful progress on personal projects on which I was previously stuck for a long time.
As expected, my annual vacation time (along with my salary, bonus, stock grants, and stock vesting) is 60% of what it was when I was full-time. However, holidays that fall on Monday or Friday (of which there are about 8 per year for U.S. Googlers) now generate comp time for me to take whenever I want. Furthermore, about once per quarter I have a week-long oncall shift which requires me to be in the office for 8 hours on Monday and Friday; each of these oncall shifts generates 2 comp days for me to use later (a total of 8 comp days per year).
Working only Tue/Wed/Thu means I can go away for 11 consecutive days by taking only 3 days off. So far this year I have:
- taken a 10-day trip to Japan,
- taken a 10-day trip to Iceland and the UK, and
- done a 10-day silent meditation retreat.
Google has HR policies that support flexible work schedules. I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case at most of the larger tech companies.
- zerr 8y agoHmm, interesting. How can one find such openings at Google? Is it common for regular engineering positions as well?
- bumbledraven 8y ago> How can one find such openings at Google? I don't understand the question. Maybe it will help if I explain how I initiated my switch to part-time. What I did was talk with my manager about it. My manager was supportive and helped me fill out the requisite HR forms. Other than being part-time, my job description is the same as it was before. > Is it common for regular engineering positions as well? Being part-time is not common for SREs (site reliability engineers; what I am). It's not common for SWEs (software engineers; what you might be referring to as "regular engineer[s]") either. Google's flexible work policies (internal link: go/flexibility) are company-wide. The policies don't distinguish between the SRE and SWE roles.
- justacat 8y agoThat really does sound insanely great...I need to get to a situation like that.
- IloveHN84 8y agoWhat about compensation? Do you get 60% of previous salary? Do you work 24 hours (8h/day)?
- bumbledraven 8y ago> Do you get 60% of previous salary? Yes. I already said that. Importantly, my healthcare benefits didn't change (i.e. they are 100% of what they were previously). > Do you work 24 hours [per week] (8h/day)? Yes.
- toast0 8y agoIs it possible to get hired directly into a flexible work schedule? This sounds really nice!
- bumbledraven 8y agoI don't know, but I guess the answer is "yes". Can't hurt to ask during the application process.