10 ms·

Ask HN: Working part-time in tech?

122 points by jazz_from_hell 6y ago

I would like to drastically reduce my amount of work hours per week. My dream is to come down to about 15-25 working hours per week. I don’t mean to work part-time for all of my career. But I would like to have such an arrangement for the coming five years or so. Has anyone tried this? If so, how did you manage to achieve your goal?

liamuk 6y ago
I just asked my manager for a 24 hr work week (3 days on, 4 days off), and they said sure, and the company prorated my salary down. The company I was working for came out of a university research lab, and so had a culture of PhD students working part time for it, so this was not outside the norm there. The downside was not getting equity, nor benefits, but I was on my parent's insurance and wasn't too keen on their equity anyway, so this was fine for me.
- liamuk 6y ago
  The other path here might be working somewhere with a culture of fixed goals rather than a time expectation. For example, many remote companies that operate asynchronously won't expect you to be in the office 40hrs a week, but will expect a certain level of work to be done each week. If you can get that done in 24 rather than 40, then it works out fine for you.
  - cercatrova 6y ago
    This is why I love remote work. Studies [0] show that most office workers work only 2.5 hours a day on average, with the rest being socializing, procrastinating, surfing the web, and so on. If I can get my work done in 4 hours a day, I'll have done more work and have more free time, since managers in an office expect you to be there for 8 hours a day, but not so for remote. [0] https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-average-worker-is-productive-for-this-many-hours.html https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-aver...
    - jazz_from_hell 6y ago
      Do you work remotely now? If so may I ask how many hours of work you put down on average? (If you rather not share that I totally understand.)
      - cercatrova 6y ago
        Yeah with coronavirus and all, but I did before as well. Generally it's about 2 hours a day, but I work intensely in those hours. I never go over 4, as a general principle. Again, this isn't really comparable to office hours, as most people don't work non-stop (with short breaks of course) or as intensely, so I do finish much faster than my other in person and colleagues.
        jazz_from_hell 6y ago
        Interesting! I’m curious if this is a silent agreement with your boss or if it’s explicit?
        cercatrova 6y ago
        As long as the work gets done, at my company, no one cares how many hours you work.
        jazz_from_hell 6y ago
        Cool! How does one find such a great employer? ;-)
        cercatrova 6y ago
        You can search remote job boards like RemoteOK.
        rabidrat 6y ago
        Every software job I've ever had, has an infinite amount of work that could be done. So somehow I have to justify the amount of work I've gotten done, which is usually less than the amount they 'want' done (which is all of it), and the justification is usually "couldn't spend any more hours on it, literally".
  - jazz_from_hell 6y ago
    Interesting. Seems like it also could backfire…? If what is expected to get done needs 40 h.
    - quickthrower2 6y ago
      It also goes against the essence of many companies that want to grow and to do so make everyone more productive. So you want to cash in that productivity but so do they!
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Cool! Had you been working there for long before suggesting that?
sgt 6y ago
You can probably do consultant work. Come up with solutions, don't necessarily implement everything or anything yourself. If you try doing everything yourself on a per-hour basis, you put yourself at a massive disadvantage.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Interesting. Do you mean solution architect kind of assignments?
  - sgt 6y ago
    Yes, that is certainly one option.
TACIXAT 6y ago
I do this currently. I was working at Google and left. I wanted more time off since I have enough money to not grind, but still need to pay rent. Basically personal project time. I ended up at a small company that had additional hours but not enough for a full time employee. I'm now part time across three DARPA contracts. It was really just luck, a friend reached out and asked if I was interested. Everywhere else I was talking to was just pushing unlimited PTO policies. I wanted explicit acknowledgement about how much vacation I'd take and that was hard to get. I know people at Google went to part time. You probably just need to ask. My route was definitely finding a place that needed a worker but didn't have enough work for full time.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Yeah I’ve been thinking about joining a small company like that. But they can be quite hard to find since they generally don’t put up any job postings. Congratulations to finding one! :)
ForHackernews 6y ago
The easiest way to do this is by becoming a contractor. Your client(s) don't have to know that the other 20 hours a week you're kicking back rather than slaving away on a different client's project.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  That’s a very interesting idea. Any suggestions on what kinds of assignments that would work better or worse in such a setting? Many of the consultants I’ve seen in IT are more like regular employees except that they are employed buy the consultants. (I.e. they sit in the client’s office 40 h/week.) But I guess there are other ways to do it.
  - ForHackernews 6y ago
    Is there anything you're an expert at? Postgres, Django, React, etc.? Companies hiring contractors want to pay somebody to "show up" (perhaps virtually) and do the one thing they're an expert at, not waste time getting up to speed or learning on the job. Figure out what you're an expert in, and contact some recruiting firms that hire for contracting gigs in that area. Explain that your schedule is "half full already" but you'd like to fit something else in, if it's the right opportunity.
    - jazz_from_hell 6y ago
      That’s a really good phrasing. I’ve been working mostly in IT and I’m a bit of a generalist. I’ve thought about doing contracting and specialising ”on-the-go”. It could work... but it could also be a bit stressful. I think my current job will allow me to go quite deep in some areas so I might want to hang on to it for a while in order to allow for better opportunities further down the road.
- petepete 6y ago
  I take this kind of approach but tend to do full-time for a few months then have a month or two off when it ends, depending on how I feel.
langitbiru 6y ago
I did this. I wrote tech tutorials. I got paid by hours so it was up to me how long I want to work per week. It's by pure luck I got this job. My friend who worked in a company asked me to help with tech writing. Sometimes you have to ask: https://twitter.com/shl/status/1300848723182776322 https://twitter.com/shl/status/1300848723182776322
HenryBemis 6y ago
Give us a bit more background (location, work domain, etc.) For EU/UK market: Contracting. You can get small gigs (but on a low pay) on places like Upwork, or you can get a proper contract with a company that needs hands for 3-6-12 months on a larger project. Some of the Big4 also do contracting work on which you are the back-end (think Service Center) for large IT projects (and/or compliance etc.)
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Location is Stockholm, Sweden and I’ve done lots of IT support kind of work, but very recently transitioned to doing more of sysadmin kind of work for a small MSP (Managed Service Provider).
cercatrova 6y ago
Work a remote job, and finish your work quickly every day.
- volkk 6y ago
  not that simple when you have people pinging you and asking questions or meetings, etc etc. i mean you can just slack off maybe after doing several hours of deep work, but theres no way you can just log off and go do your own thing without anybody noticing
  - cercatrova 6y ago
    I mean it depends, we usually do a standup on the morning but in the evening no one usually pings me. I just put Slack and email on my phone, and generally I don't do stuff outside the house during work hours so I can still respond early.
  - WJW 6y ago
    Logging off and not being reachable is entirely a function of expectation management though. It's difficult to go from responding in a minute every time to responding the next day, that's true. But try stretching your response times by 15 minutes per week and give reasonable and unassailable excuses like "I was on the phone with my mother". Pretty soon you will find that expectations about your reachability will change.
    - srtjstjsj 6y ago
      Or your coworkers might notice your chronic unavailability and deception.
adyer07 6y ago
I tried this and struggled. After taking a break from full-time developer work, I reached out to multiple tech companies via personal referrals. Everyone said that they’d love me full time, but couldn’t have a part-time hire. I got a lot of soft brush-offs to “reach out when you have more availability.” Out of the blue, however, a former employer reached out to me and offered to hire me for as many (or as few) hours as I could handle, which has worked out to 10-25 a week. It’s been a really nice arrangement that I’ve enjoyed. The catch is that this company is in a completely different industry, with a completely different pay scale than tech. So I’m happy with my job, but wouldn’t be able to support myself on it with part-time hours if I was the only household earner.
- stevekemp 6y ago
  I had a similar experience; seeking a job with reduced hours was almost impossible. But working as a contractor for an ex-employer worked out really well. I'd typically work Monday & Tuesday, take Wednesday off for myself, then do parenting for Thursday & Friday. It was a great way to spend a few months.
  - jazz_from_hell 6y ago
    Yeah if I decide to try my hand at contracting then reaching out to past employers could be a good idea. After all they know my track record, and I know lots of people there, and I know who to speak with to get things done etc. And they won’t have to explain all the domain-specific knowledge to me.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  I hear ya. Many recruiters/bosses simply don’t want to hear anything about part-time work at all. I think that’s a mistake on their end – it could be a major benefit that would make that employer stand out from the crowd. But many companies sadly doesn’t think about it that way. PS. As someone else mentioned here, and in case you find yourself on the market again: You might want to try to discuss part-time only after receiving a written offer. Then you know for sure that they want to hire you. And then you have some leverage.
michannne 6y ago
I work remote at a startup. I don't think that's a repeatable strategy but it does allow me to work very little hours throughout the week and spend most of my time relaxing with my family. It also helps being decent enough at my job that I can finish a week's worth of work in a couple hours at home. I imagine as the company becomes more mature I'll be working even less than I am now.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Wow. Sounds pretty great. I’ve generally thought of startups as quite stressful work places – might not be the case for all of them though?
  - NateEag 6y ago
    I think that if you only do a few hours of actual time working each week, you are deceiving not only your employer but yourself about what is productive and whether you're a good employee. There are no good metrics for programmer productivity, but spending < 20 hours a week actually switched-on as a full-time employee is obviously a problem, to me.
    - michannne 6y ago
      I honestly doubt any one who says that they are productive for 40 full hours a week, or even 6 hours per day. There's a lot of downtime that employees usually do not notice from a first person perspective. Even still, the goal of IT is first and foremost to empower business goals through technology, one of the main aspects of that is increasing workflow efficiency and throughput of the rest of the business processes - in other words, make good software so the rest of the business doesn't have to work so hard. I have definitely met workers who I've given a task and they produce sub-average work and, when confronted, give me the spiel about they worked "so many hours on this" and how could I "invalidate the time they spent". At the end of the day, as long as you are doing the job at the pace I need you to be doing the job, then I don't care if you did it in 1 hour or 8 hours. If you want more work, ask, and if you're spending too much time on a task, then there is a communication problem as a team member should have caught that you were on the wrong track. In my experience, focusing on hours worked has never produced quality work.
yodsanklai 6y ago
It's certainly possible. Some people do it in my company. Either working part-time, or contracting. A lot of things are possible, but it depends on how hard you're willing to try, and how valuable you are for your employer.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Yeah it could perhaps be easier if I manage to transition to a niche (or two) that is in high and stable demand.
gherkinnn 6y ago
I work 4 days on, 3 off. Not quite what you’re looking for, but along the same lines. Has been no issue at all. Never has been. What I do see with my 3on/4off colleagues (usually students) is that they lack any sort of continuity in their work. Not enough time to tackle larger problems in one go and always missing out on how the smaller pieces fit together. On top of that a lot off friction when handing things off, etc. Surely it can be done better, etc etc.
limograf 6y ago
I work 24h/w (TWT) for my employer. I did this by... saying that's what I could do when they offered me the job. (There are some specific personal circumstances that prevent me from taking full time work.) And sure, it does limit you; a lot of places demur, but not everyone. For sure my small company are happy to have me. Of course they are: they get a massive bargain. I am prorata so they get a developer for janitor wages and still everything gets done. Who wouldn't be happy with that deal?
mark_and_sweep 6y ago
I work at $BIGCO, 3 days on, 4 days off, 2 of which I usually spend learning tech and non-tech related things and/or working on side-projects I'm interested in. I think there are multiple reasons why I was allowed to do this: A) I'm working on a stable, long-term project. So there were no objections by colleagues that this might impede short-term progress (and, as a side note, I think I'm far more productive now than previously). B) My manager is a reasonable and kind person. I know other managers at $BIGCO who, I'm sure, would have objected.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Sounds like a good deal. Are you a developer or some other role?
  - mark_and_sweep 6y ago
    Yes, I'm a dev.
pxue 6y ago
Contracting is your best bet. I set my own hours + fully remote. Typically about 2-3h of team meetings (sprint kickoff, retro, grooming etc) a week. Rest of time is off on your own dev work. Bill by the hour. As long as you work predictable amount of hours, you can do 20h or 60h week.
- mac01021 6y ago
  How much time do you spend with nonbillable work like lining up clients? I've always been interested in contracting but not really felt like I knew how to get started.
dlondero 6y ago
It's possible. If not an option for the company you're working for at the moment look for other companies with openings for 80% or 60% of effort. I am currently working 80% (4 days per week) after almost 1 year at 60% (3 days per week). Good luck!
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Thank you!
christophilus 6y ago
Been doing this for 6 months (50% time), and loving it. In my case, a former employer reached out and asked if I’d like to work part time. I’ve got a friend who’s working 2 full time gigs; 15hours each. He’s more productive than his peers in each company, and only puts in a fraction of the hours. If you deliver high value, you can negotiate.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Yeah it would probably help if I get better at identifying work that is actually high-value. It’s kinda easy to fall in to the trap of doing busywork that demands lots of hours but doesn’t really produce so much value.
adamsvystun 6y ago
Have never tried it. But have been on the other side of the situation looking to hire developers half time. Look for small companies. Startups, small businesses, anyone who needs a developer but can't afford a full time employee. This can especially work out if you are a senior developer whose 20 hours are often more valuable than 40 hours of a junior dev.
inglor 6y ago
I don't work part-time at the moment but have before and have part-time positions currently hiring for in my team and I manage part time employees and have before. It's not unheard of just uncommon. The biggest drawback is that you feel less belonging and you aren't always there for all the decisions. At certain times I am OK with that.
sdedovic 6y ago
I just (4th week tomorrow) started a similar thing with my company. I work 16 hours / week and am on a support rotation (albeit 3rd tier). I only cover unplanned work on weekends. I took a 60% pay cut but keep all my pre-existing benefits. So far it has been wonderful for my mental health, although with social distancing and the pandy it certainly has been difficult to keep busy some days. I am passively looking for supplemental work as I don't make enough to deposit into my savings. I imagine as winter rolls in this will be a necessity to stay busy/sane. In the meantime, though, I have picked up lots of cooking, baking, and work on some personal coding projects. I have also been focusing much more of my time on art, which is really awesome! It's too early to tell but this might end up a more permanent situation for me (if not at the current company then maybe at the next one?). I think this has also made me more productive at my job. I have 16 hours this week - what NEEDS to get done? What is a nice to have? Constraints are wonderful for productivity.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Sounds great and kudos to you for trying an alternative to the rat race! Was it hard to negotiate or was your employer positive to the idea from the beginning?
statquontrarian 6y ago
I've been doing 20 hours per week (Mon-Wed) remote for nearly 3 years and I absolutely love it. I'm at a $bigco and worked there for 10 years before changing to this part time arrangement. I believe it's harder to do for small companies due to legal/tax reasons (something about less than 32 hours complicates things a lot although I don't know the details why). The "simple" solution is to be good enough that you have the bargaining leverage to propose it and make it an ultimatum. Other ideas: * Grind in a project for some years and become indispensable and then propose it. * Propose it as an experiment for 6 months. * Create an "excuse" of why you need the extra time such as pursuing an M.S./PhD.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Yeah maybe it is easier to achieve in large companies...? They will anyway need to employ lots of people since they are large. Whereas growing the headcount might not always be that easy for small companies. So far I have mostly worked for small companies. So I might want to consider working for larger ones. Also, thank you for suggesting multiple strategies. All angles need to be considered (^_^)
- woodpanel 6y ago
  Create an "excuse" of why you need the extra time such as pursuing an M.S./PhD. Having kids. Serves also as a pressure upon you to actually seek part-time instead of just procrastinating about it. I believe it's harder to do for small companies due to legal/tax reasons (something about less than 32 hours complicates things a lot although I don't know the details why). Not a US resident, but FWIW many countries because of redistribution schemes need to categorize people by whether they are a) principally employed or b) self-employed. Hours worked for a/b are a common denominator for this. It's likely that depending on the regulatory environment smaller companies when given the chance will always opt for the candidate with less HR department overhead.
- paledot 6y ago
  My understanding is it's complicated because of benefits. 32 hours is considered full time by my employer's insurance company, any less is part time. You can pro-rate salary, but benefits are mostly either there or not.
liberate0287482 6y ago
I transitioned from FTE to ~25 hours per week as a contractor and it definitely works for my situation. If you go this route, make sure when you calculate your rate that you build-in the benefits such as paid leave, health insurance, lunch break, and company holidays. The number might seem high but you can justify it. We arranged a deal where I work between 0 and 40 hours per week, with the option to work more hours with approval. Also you might enjoy The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Cool! I’ve heard about Ferriss book but haven’t read it. Is it good?
jakub_g 6y ago
A bit more than you're aiming for, but from anecdata I heard, it's relatively popular and accepted in Switzerland to work 4 days a week in IT. In other countries I'm aware of it's probably not that common, except when you're really senior in your domain and have unique skills.
g00gler 6y ago
I've sent you an email re:part time work :)
itamarst 6y ago
As other people have said, you can negotiate for this. I've done it at multiple jobs. Here's an interview with someone who has been doing it for 15 years: https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer/ https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer... 1. It's easier at existing job; you have all this knowledge that's hard to replace (https://codewithoutrules.com/2019/01/25/4-day-workweek-easy-way/ https://codewithoutrules.com/2019/01/25/4-day-workweek-easy-...). 2. At new jobs, apply normally. Then _after_ you get an offer, ask for shorter hours. 3. I wrote a book about the process; it's no longer public linked on my site because pandemic has lowered negotiation leverage a lot and I'm not sure how to address that, but if you're interested: https://codewithoutrules.com/3dayweekend/ https://codewithoutrules.com/3dayweekend/
- bloudermilk 6y ago
  Having been a engineering manager before, it would put an extremely bad taste in my mouth if someone waited until the offer stage to ask for a part time role.
  - jazz_from_hell 6y ago
    I can understand why you feel that way. But many companies simply doesn’t want to talk to people who wants to work part-time. (As in ”don’t call us, we’ll call you”.) So even if it might seem pushy to negotiate like that, at least to me it’s understandable.
    - ohyeshedid 6y ago
      It also has the potential to waste your time and theirs. I wouldn't call it pushy as much as borderline deceptive.
      - srtjstjsj 6y ago
        Unless the employer posts the salary up front, they are bring deceptive too.
golergka 6y ago
Yes. I just explained that wish when I was hired. I was not the most important engineer on the team, doing frontend (not in JS/HTML sense, just in UI sense) work for a project where most of the work was in the backend, and it was an easy sell. Ended up divorcing my wife after spending 4 days a week at home with her, so wouldn't recommend it, but no professional problems.
mbrundle 6y ago
I’ve been working 4d/week for the last 5 years as a Data Scientist. I first proposed it during salary negotiations with a small startup, who were surprised by it but were willing to give it a go. It worked out really well, and once I had that under my belt, I was able to ask for the same arrangement at subsequent job interviews - I would make a point to raise this up front, and it proved a good way to filter out companies that likely wouldn’t have been a good work/life fit. (I look after three young kids outside of work; wife is a corporate lawyer who has to work 24/7, so my 4d/wk schedule is important in maintaining some semblance of balance for the kids). Now I’m at a multinational (a publicly listed health data company) and the arrangement continues to work well, even though I now manage a team of 8 data scientists. I’ve had colleagues who’ve dropped from 5 to 3d/wk, the company seems very flexible around this type of arrangement. At the startups I felt that I had to squeeze in 5d of work in 4d at times, whereas here the workload has felt more commensurate with the hours I have available (and my manager often checks in to make sure this is the case). Overall I love having an extra day to the weekend (I take the kids out to places in London on Fridays when it’s considerably less busy). My colleagues with similar arrangements used this to split their working weeks in half, and that worked well for them. Happy to answer any questions.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Cool! Sounds like a good deal. Having an understanding manager really helps I guess. I also have three kids so I know the struggle :)
  - mbrundle 6y ago
    Nice to meet other P/T tech dads-of-three, we’re a rare breed! Have sent you an email to say hi. : )
- rizpanjwani 6y ago
  Are you hiring junior/intern data scientists from Canada? I know someone who is almost finished their masters and have worked on real data from telecomm quality of service as part of their thesis, and have had a term of internship.
daxfohl 6y ago
My wife arranged this and ended up getting just as much work thrown at her, working just as much, but getting paid less and next to zero promotability. She obviously went back to full time after about six months.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Ouch. There are definitely pitfalls along this path. And if the manager doesn’t understand what the deal implies I’m sure it can be very hard and stressful. Too bad it didn’t work out for your wife.
  - quickthrower2 6y ago
    That’s why it’s good to have two things. One is to be able to easily pick up a job somewhere else for same pay and benefits if required. Second is to say no, ideally in a respectful way. Pretend you have another boss vying for those other 8 hours (this boss is you of course!)
d--b 6y ago
I'm at 22.5 hrs/week fully remote. I had been a full time employee for 6 years and wanted to resign. They wanted to keep me. I asked for this and they said ok.
biztos 6y ago
In some countries you actually have a right to switch from full-time to part-time work. Your employer can block you but only if they have a really solid reason, and "we have to hire another person to make up the difference" won't fly. If you want to go the other way (back to full-time) your employer can say no. So -- if this is your long-term plan and you want to be employed you might consider going to such a country, and doing a year or so of full-time first. Anecdotally, I was seriously considering switching to half time pre-plague so I could do a PhD. Would have been trivial to get it approved, but I have a lot of seniority; you might have to fight for it if you're new. But at least in Germany, it's your right as a worker, not a privilege from your employer. I would expect it's like that in much of the EU.
eliasbagley 6y ago
How would this work when substantial equity is involved? It makes sense that if you drop your hours, your salary would drop in proportion. But if a substantial amount of your total comp is from unvested equity, it doesn't makes as much sense. Your employer can't take away unvested equity, right? If so it seems like your employer would have much less incentive to want to do something like this - you may be working half as much, but your total comp only drops by like 25% or something.
- singron 6y ago
  In some places I've worked, HR has a hidden target total compensation for each employee. When they make compensation adjustments, they try to bring you slightly closer to that goal. In this case, they might drop just your salary proportionally since that appears fair, but future adjustments will be lower or zero until your target compensation is above your actual compensation.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Good question. I can see that being an issue in the US. In my case, I actually work in IT rather than tech. Equity is never part of the deal. I think equity is much more common for US employees than it is for European.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  You'd get an adjusted equity package.
deleted 6y ago
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flats 6y ago
I’ve been working as a software engineer at a non-profit for a little over four years. I started at 40 hours per week, went down to 32 after a couple of years, and now am at 24 because they were looking to cut costs and I was happy to oblige. When I brought it up to my manager, I told her very specifically _why_ I wanted to reduce my hours - I wanted to spend more time on other projects (specifically musical projects) - and she was totally open to it. If you really feel like you need more time for other pursuits, and you are lucky enough to work at a good company where your manager has your best interests at heart, it shouldn’t be an issue. Plus, hiring and training new employees is an expensive pain in the ass.
semicolonandson 6y ago
I'm someone who values tinkering time greatly and low-hour work weeks (at least WRT "work" work) are a priority. I've gotten to this stage from two different directions: 1. Developing a relationship with a 'principal' consultant who handles client relationships themselves (shielding me from weird hours and stress) but outsources the tech to me (+ other technical freelancers). When this principal consultant has no clients, they still have hours available for their own in-house, entrepreneurial products. 2. Bootstrapping a passive-income web business. I coded a Ruby on Rails application to sell law notes following my law degree. By following the advice here, I figured out how to market it with SEO and AdWords. Much to my amazement, it ended up providing for all my financial needs for over 7 years, sometimes with as little as 4 hours work a month. (Obviously there was a huge upfront investment in getting to that stage.) I've got a YouTube video where I talk more about how I came up with the MVP and what the first few months were like, in case this is a path you're considering too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKXlZz-wbmg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKXlZz-wbmg
jjav 6y ago
It is easy to make companies cut your salary but difficult to make them respect the reduced work hours! Wife has been working nominally 4 days a week at the G of FAANG for several years. Prorated to 80% of the salary. Management has repeatedly stated that they expect far more than 40hrs/week from a full-timer, so an 80%-timer better turn in at least 40+ hours. Which largely defeats the intended benefit of doing a 4 days week.
chucksmash 6y ago
I haven't tried this personally but my company has a relevant policy and I've considered it from time to time. The employee handbook lays out opportunity to take x% of your current hours for x% of your current pay. If you'd be happy working 4x8s and 80% salary + 80% bonus works for you? As long as your manager doesn't object, go for it. I think this is a great benefit to offer. Abstractly, I imagine that the system means that once you hit an income threshold you're happy with, a 10% raise immediately gets converted into 10% less hours per week. You never retire, just get asymptotically close to doing so.
02020202 6y ago
i have worked a full-time job one year in my entire life. after that always part-time. part time sounds bad but it's just you leaving the office at 1pm(or however that works out for you). it is the best setup and i have been working like this for over a decade. i prefer to work from office but it is not easy to find local companies for this setup and either way you have to be a self-employed entity. so i rented a desk at my previous job and worked from there for other companies, part-time, for many years. now i work from home since i have not found suitable alternative for my office since the company have moved to new space. but now i work on pre-paid hours, credit-like system, if you will. and have no schedule whatsoever. client pays me for certain amount of hours, upfront, and then as i work i just work up to the amount of hours i got paid. nobody is looking over my shoulder, nobody is giving me deadlines. when it's done, it's done. best setup, bar none. but ymmv. i charge enough so i can work hour or two a day if i want. i could make a bank if i would go do a full-time gig again and i have been thinking about it, for a year, to save money but i have not found interesting jobs so yeah... it is a individualistic lifestyle, not suitable for everyone. but as i have said, you can rent a desk at a company you know people from or something like that, so you are with people and not alone all doy long. i would not recommend corowking spaces at all though. that's the worst setup i can imagine.
RobbieHacks 6y ago
I work about 25 hours a week at home right now. I started with a startup tech company and at first we were doing 35 hours a week but we decided those 10 hours allowed us to work slowly. By cutting down our hours we were able to get more stuff done in a short amount of time with deadlines and the pressure of time limits

liamuk 6y ago

I just asked my manager for a 24 hr work week (3 days on, 4 days off), and they said sure, and the company prorated my salary down. The company I was working for came out of a university research lab, and so had a culture of PhD students working part time for it, so this was not outside the norm there. The downside was not getting equity, nor benefits, but I was on my parent's insurance and wasn't too keen on their equity anyway, so this was fine for me.

liamuk 6y ago
The other path here might be working somewhere with a culture of fixed goals rather than a time expectation. For example, many remote companies that operate asynchronously won't expect you to be in the office 40hrs a week, but will expect a certain level of work to be done each week. If you can get that done in 24 rather than 40, then it works out fine for you.
- cercatrova 6y ago
  This is why I love remote work. Studies [0] show that most office workers work only 2.5 hours a day on average, with the rest being socializing, procrastinating, surfing the web, and so on. If I can get my work done in 4 hours a day, I'll have done more work and have more free time, since managers in an office expect you to be there for 8 hours a day, but not so for remote. [0] https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-average-worker-is-productive-for-this-many-hours.html https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-aver...
  - jazz_from_hell 6y ago
    Do you work remotely now? If so may I ask how many hours of work you put down on average? (If you rather not share that I totally understand.)
    - cercatrova 6y ago
      Yeah with coronavirus and all, but I did before as well. Generally it's about 2 hours a day, but I work intensely in those hours. I never go over 4, as a general principle. Again, this isn't really comparable to office hours, as most people don't work non-stop (with short breaks of course) or as intensely, so I do finish much faster than my other in person and colleagues.
      - jazz_from_hell 6y ago
        Interesting! I’m curious if this is a silent agreement with your boss or if it’s explicit?
        cercatrova 6y ago
        As long as the work gets done, at my company, no one cares how many hours you work.
        jazz_from_hell 6y ago
        Cool! How does one find such a great employer? ;-)
        cercatrova 6y ago
        You can search remote job boards like RemoteOK.
        rabidrat 6y ago
        Every software job I've ever had, has an infinite amount of work that could be done. So somehow I have to justify the amount of work I've gotten done, which is usually less than the amount they 'want' done (which is all of it), and the justification is usually "couldn't spend any more hours on it, literally".
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Interesting. Seems like it also could backfire…? If what is expected to get done needs 40 h.
  - quickthrower2 6y ago
    It also goes against the essence of many companies that want to grow and to do so make everyone more productive. So you want to cash in that productivity but so do they!
jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Cool! Had you been working there for long before suggesting that?

sgt 6y ago

You can probably do consultant work. Come up with solutions, don't necessarily implement everything or anything yourself. If you try doing everything yourself on a per-hour basis, you put yourself at a massive disadvantage.

jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Interesting. Do you mean solution architect kind of assignments?
- sgt 6y ago
  Yes, that is certainly one option.

TACIXAT 6y ago

I do this currently. I was working at Google and left. I wanted more time off since I have enough money to not grind, but still need to pay rent. Basically personal project time. I ended up at a small company that had additional hours but not enough for a full time employee. I'm now part time across three DARPA contracts. It was really just luck, a friend reached out and asked if I was interested. Everywhere else I was talking to was just pushing unlimited PTO policies. I wanted explicit acknowledgement about how much vacation I'd take and that was hard to get. I know people at Google went to part time. You probably just need to ask. My route was definitely finding a place that needed a worker but didn't have enough work for full time.

jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Yeah I’ve been thinking about joining a small company like that. But they can be quite hard to find since they generally don’t put up any job postings. Congratulations to finding one! :)

ForHackernews 6y ago

The easiest way to do this is by becoming a contractor. Your client(s) don't have to know that the other 20 hours a week you're kicking back rather than slaving away on a different client's project.

jazz_from_hell 6y ago
That’s a very interesting idea. Any suggestions on what kinds of assignments that would work better or worse in such a setting? Many of the consultants I’ve seen in IT are more like regular employees except that they are employed buy the consultants. (I.e. they sit in the client’s office 40 h/week.) But I guess there are other ways to do it.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  Is there anything you're an expert at? Postgres, Django, React, etc.? Companies hiring contractors want to pay somebody to "show up" (perhaps virtually) and do the one thing they're an expert at, not waste time getting up to speed or learning on the job. Figure out what you're an expert in, and contact some recruiting firms that hire for contracting gigs in that area. Explain that your schedule is "half full already" but you'd like to fit something else in, if it's the right opportunity.
  - jazz_from_hell 6y ago
    That’s a really good phrasing. I’ve been working mostly in IT and I’m a bit of a generalist. I’ve thought about doing contracting and specialising ”on-the-go”. It could work... but it could also be a bit stressful. I think my current job will allow me to go quite deep in some areas so I might want to hang on to it for a while in order to allow for better opportunities further down the road.
petepete 6y ago
I take this kind of approach but tend to do full-time for a few months then have a month or two off when it ends, depending on how I feel.

langitbiru 6y ago

I did this. I wrote tech tutorials. I got paid by hours so it was up to me how long I want to work per week. It's by pure luck I got this job. My friend who worked in a company asked me to help with tech writing. Sometimes you have to ask: https://twitter.com/shl/status/1300848723182776322 https://twitter.com/shl/status/1300848723182776322

HenryBemis 6y ago

Give us a bit more background (location, work domain, etc.) For EU/UK market: Contracting. You can get small gigs (but on a low pay) on places like Upwork, or you can get a proper contract with a company that needs hands for 3-6-12 months on a larger project. Some of the Big4 also do contracting work on which you are the back-end (think Service Center) for large IT projects (and/or compliance etc.)

jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Location is Stockholm, Sweden and I’ve done lots of IT support kind of work, but very recently transitioned to doing more of sysadmin kind of work for a small MSP (Managed Service Provider).

cercatrova 6y ago

Work a remote job, and finish your work quickly every day.

volkk 6y ago
not that simple when you have people pinging you and asking questions or meetings, etc etc. i mean you can just slack off maybe after doing several hours of deep work, but theres no way you can just log off and go do your own thing without anybody noticing
- cercatrova 6y ago
  I mean it depends, we usually do a standup on the morning but in the evening no one usually pings me. I just put Slack and email on my phone, and generally I don't do stuff outside the house during work hours so I can still respond early.
- WJW 6y ago
  Logging off and not being reachable is entirely a function of expectation management though. It's difficult to go from responding in a minute every time to responding the next day, that's true. But try stretching your response times by 15 minutes per week and give reasonable and unassailable excuses like "I was on the phone with my mother". Pretty soon you will find that expectations about your reachability will change.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    Or your coworkers might notice your chronic unavailability and deception.

adyer07 6y ago

I tried this and struggled. After taking a break from full-time developer work, I reached out to multiple tech companies via personal referrals. Everyone said that they’d love me full time, but couldn’t have a part-time hire. I got a lot of soft brush-offs to “reach out when you have more availability.” Out of the blue, however, a former employer reached out to me and offered to hire me for as many (or as few) hours as I could handle, which has worked out to 10-25 a week. It’s been a really nice arrangement that I’ve enjoyed. The catch is that this company is in a completely different industry, with a completely different pay scale than tech. So I’m happy with my job, but wouldn’t be able to support myself on it with part-time hours if I was the only household earner.

stevekemp 6y ago
I had a similar experience; seeking a job with reduced hours was almost impossible. But working as a contractor for an ex-employer worked out really well. I'd typically work Monday & Tuesday, take Wednesday off for myself, then do parenting for Thursday & Friday. It was a great way to spend a few months.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  Yeah if I decide to try my hand at contracting then reaching out to past employers could be a good idea. After all they know my track record, and I know lots of people there, and I know who to speak with to get things done etc. And they won’t have to explain all the domain-specific knowledge to me.
jazz_from_hell 6y ago
I hear ya. Many recruiters/bosses simply don’t want to hear anything about part-time work at all. I think that’s a mistake on their end – it could be a major benefit that would make that employer stand out from the crowd. But many companies sadly doesn’t think about it that way. PS. As someone else mentioned here, and in case you find yourself on the market again: You might want to try to discuss part-time only after receiving a written offer. Then you know for sure that they want to hire you. And then you have some leverage.

michannne 6y ago

I work remote at a startup. I don't think that's a repeatable strategy but it does allow me to work very little hours throughout the week and spend most of my time relaxing with my family. It also helps being decent enough at my job that I can finish a week's worth of work in a couple hours at home. I imagine as the company becomes more mature I'll be working even less than I am now.

jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Wow. Sounds pretty great. I’ve generally thought of startups as quite stressful work places – might not be the case for all of them though?
- NateEag 6y ago
  I think that if you only do a few hours of actual time working each week, you are deceiving not only your employer but yourself about what is productive and whether you're a good employee. There are no good metrics for programmer productivity, but spending < 20 hours a week actually switched-on as a full-time employee is obviously a problem, to me.
  - michannne 6y ago
    I honestly doubt any one who says that they are productive for 40 full hours a week, or even 6 hours per day. There's a lot of downtime that employees usually do not notice from a first person perspective. Even still, the goal of IT is first and foremost to empower business goals through technology, one of the main aspects of that is increasing workflow efficiency and throughput of the rest of the business processes - in other words, make good software so the rest of the business doesn't have to work so hard. I have definitely met workers who I've given a task and they produce sub-average work and, when confronted, give me the spiel about they worked "so many hours on this" and how could I "invalidate the time they spent". At the end of the day, as long as you are doing the job at the pace I need you to be doing the job, then I don't care if you did it in 1 hour or 8 hours. If you want more work, ask, and if you're spending too much time on a task, then there is a communication problem as a team member should have caught that you were on the wrong track. In my experience, focusing on hours worked has never produced quality work.

yodsanklai 6y ago

It's certainly possible. Some people do it in my company. Either working part-time, or contracting. A lot of things are possible, but it depends on how hard you're willing to try, and how valuable you are for your employer.

jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Yeah it could perhaps be easier if I manage to transition to a niche (or two) that is in high and stable demand.

gherkinnn 6y ago

I work 4 days on, 3 off. Not quite what you’re looking for, but along the same lines. Has been no issue at all. Never has been. What I do see with my 3on/4off colleagues (usually students) is that they lack any sort of continuity in their work. Not enough time to tackle larger problems in one go and always missing out on how the smaller pieces fit together. On top of that a lot off friction when handing things off, etc. Surely it can be done better, etc etc.

limograf 6y ago

I work 24h/w (TWT) for my employer. I did this by... saying that's what I could do when they offered me the job. (There are some specific personal circumstances that prevent me from taking full time work.) And sure, it does limit you; a lot of places demur, but not everyone. For sure my small company are happy to have me. Of course they are: they get a massive bargain. I am prorata so they get a developer for janitor wages and still everything gets done. Who wouldn't be happy with that deal?

mark_and_sweep 6y ago

I work at $BIGCO, 3 days on, 4 days off, 2 of which I usually spend learning tech and non-tech related things and/or working on side-projects I'm interested in. I think there are multiple reasons why I was allowed to do this: A) I'm working on a stable, long-term project. So there were no objections by colleagues that this might impede short-term progress (and, as a side note, I think I'm far more productive now than previously). B) My manager is a reasonable and kind person. I know other managers at $BIGCO who, I'm sure, would have objected.

jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Sounds like a good deal. Are you a developer or some other role?
- mark_and_sweep 6y ago
  Yes, I'm a dev.

pxue 6y ago

Contracting is your best bet. I set my own hours + fully remote. Typically about 2-3h of team meetings (sprint kickoff, retro, grooming etc) a week. Rest of time is off on your own dev work. Bill by the hour. As long as you work predictable amount of hours, you can do 20h or 60h week.

mac01021 6y ago
How much time do you spend with nonbillable work like lining up clients? I've always been interested in contracting but not really felt like I knew how to get started.

dlondero 6y ago

It's possible. If not an option for the company you're working for at the moment look for other companies with openings for 80% or 60% of effort. I am currently working 80% (4 days per week) after almost 1 year at 60% (3 days per week). Good luck!

jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Thank you!

christophilus 6y ago

Been doing this for 6 months (50% time), and loving it. In my case, a former employer reached out and asked if I’d like to work part time. I’ve got a friend who’s working 2 full time gigs; 15hours each. He’s more productive than his peers in each company, and only puts in a fraction of the hours. If you deliver high value, you can negotiate.

jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Yeah it would probably help if I get better at identifying work that is actually high-value. It’s kinda easy to fall in to the trap of doing busywork that demands lots of hours but doesn’t really produce so much value.

adamsvystun 6y ago

Have never tried it. But have been on the other side of the situation looking to hire developers half time. Look for small companies. Startups, small businesses, anyone who needs a developer but can't afford a full time employee. This can especially work out if you are a senior developer whose 20 hours are often more valuable than 40 hours of a junior dev.

inglor 6y ago

I don't work part-time at the moment but have before and have part-time positions currently hiring for in my team and I manage part time employees and have before. It's not unheard of just uncommon. The biggest drawback is that you feel less belonging and you aren't always there for all the decisions. At certain times I am OK with that.

sdedovic 6y ago

I just (4th week tomorrow) started a similar thing with my company. I work 16 hours / week and am on a support rotation (albeit 3rd tier). I only cover unplanned work on weekends. I took a 60% pay cut but keep all my pre-existing benefits. So far it has been wonderful for my mental health, although with social distancing and the pandy it certainly has been difficult to keep busy some days. I am passively looking for supplemental work as I don't make enough to deposit into my savings. I imagine as winter rolls in this will be a necessity to stay busy/sane. In the meantime, though, I have picked up lots of cooking, baking, and work on some personal coding projects. I have also been focusing much more of my time on art, which is really awesome! It's too early to tell but this might end up a more permanent situation for me (if not at the current company then maybe at the next one?). I think this has also made me more productive at my job. I have 16 hours this week - what NEEDS to get done? What is a nice to have? Constraints are wonderful for productivity.

jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Sounds great and kudos to you for trying an alternative to the rat race! Was it hard to negotiate or was your employer positive to the idea from the beginning?

statquontrarian 6y ago

I've been doing 20 hours per week (Mon-Wed) remote for nearly 3 years and I absolutely love it. I'm at a $bigco and worked there for 10 years before changing to this part time arrangement. I believe it's harder to do for small companies due to legal/tax reasons (something about less than 32 hours complicates things a lot although I don't know the details why). The "simple" solution is to be good enough that you have the bargaining leverage to propose it and make it an ultimatum. Other ideas: * Grind in a project for some years and become indispensable and then propose it. * Propose it as an experiment for 6 months. * Create an "excuse" of why you need the extra time such as pursuing an M.S./PhD.

jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Yeah maybe it is easier to achieve in large companies...? They will anyway need to employ lots of people since they are large. Whereas growing the headcount might not always be that easy for small companies. So far I have mostly worked for small companies. So I might want to consider working for larger ones. Also, thank you for suggesting multiple strategies. All angles need to be considered (^_^)
woodpanel 6y ago
Create an "excuse" of why you need the extra time such as pursuing an M.S./PhD. Having kids. Serves also as a pressure upon you to actually seek part-time instead of just procrastinating about it. I believe it's harder to do for small companies due to legal/tax reasons (something about less than 32 hours complicates things a lot although I don't know the details why). Not a US resident, but FWIW many countries because of redistribution schemes need to categorize people by whether they are a) principally employed or b) self-employed. Hours worked for a/b are a common denominator for this. It's likely that depending on the regulatory environment smaller companies when given the chance will always opt for the candidate with less HR department overhead.
paledot 6y ago
My understanding is it's complicated because of benefits. 32 hours is considered full time by my employer's insurance company, any less is part time. You can pro-rate salary, but benefits are mostly either there or not.

liberate0287482 6y ago

I transitioned from FTE to ~25 hours per week as a contractor and it definitely works for my situation. If you go this route, make sure when you calculate your rate that you build-in the benefits such as paid leave, health insurance, lunch break, and company holidays. The number might seem high but you can justify it. We arranged a deal where I work between 0 and 40 hours per week, with the option to work more hours with approval. Also you might enjoy The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Cool! I’ve heard about Ferriss book but haven’t read it. Is it good?

jakub_g 6y ago

A bit more than you're aiming for, but from anecdata I heard, it's relatively popular and accepted in Switzerland to work 4 days a week in IT. In other countries I'm aware of it's probably not that common, except when you're really senior in your domain and have unique skills.

g00gler 6y ago

I've sent you an email re:part time work :)

itamarst 6y ago

As other people have said, you can negotiate for this. I've done it at multiple jobs. Here's an interview with someone who has been doing it for 15 years: https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer/ https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer... 1. It's easier at existing job; you have all this knowledge that's hard to replace (https://codewithoutrules.com/2019/01/25/4-day-workweek-easy-way/ https://codewithoutrules.com/2019/01/25/4-day-workweek-easy-...). 2. At new jobs, apply normally. Then _after_ you get an offer, ask for shorter hours. 3. I wrote a book about the process; it's no longer public linked on my site because pandemic has lowered negotiation leverage a lot and I'm not sure how to address that, but if you're interested: https://codewithoutrules.com/3dayweekend/ https://codewithoutrules.com/3dayweekend/

bloudermilk 6y ago
Having been a engineering manager before, it would put an extremely bad taste in my mouth if someone waited until the offer stage to ask for a part time role.
- jazz_from_hell 6y ago
  I can understand why you feel that way. But many companies simply doesn’t want to talk to people who wants to work part-time. (As in ”don’t call us, we’ll call you”.) So even if it might seem pushy to negotiate like that, at least to me it’s understandable.
  - ohyeshedid 6y ago
    It also has the potential to waste your time and theirs. I wouldn't call it pushy as much as borderline deceptive.
    - srtjstjsj 6y ago
      Unless the employer posts the salary up front, they are bring deceptive too.

golergka 6y ago

Yes. I just explained that wish when I was hired. I was not the most important engineer on the team, doing frontend (not in JS/HTML sense, just in UI sense) work for a project where most of the work was in the backend, and it was an easy sell. Ended up divorcing my wife after spending 4 days a week at home with her, so wouldn't recommend it, but no professional problems.

mbrundle 6y ago

I’ve been working 4d/week for the last 5 years as a Data Scientist. I first proposed it during salary negotiations with a small startup, who were surprised by it but were willing to give it a go. It worked out really well, and once I had that under my belt, I was able to ask for the same arrangement at subsequent job interviews - I would make a point to raise this up front, and it proved a good way to filter out companies that likely wouldn’t have been a good work/life fit. (I look after three young kids outside of work; wife is a corporate lawyer who has to work 24/7, so my 4d/wk schedule is important in maintaining some semblance of balance for the kids). Now I’m at a multinational (a publicly listed health data company) and the arrangement continues to work well, even though I now manage a team of 8 data scientists. I’ve had colleagues who’ve dropped from 5 to 3d/wk, the company seems very flexible around this type of arrangement. At the startups I felt that I had to squeeze in 5d of work in 4d at times, whereas here the workload has felt more commensurate with the hours I have available (and my manager often checks in to make sure this is the case). Overall I love having an extra day to the weekend (I take the kids out to places in London on Fridays when it’s considerably less busy). My colleagues with similar arrangements used this to split their working weeks in half, and that worked well for them. Happy to answer any questions.

jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Cool! Sounds like a good deal. Having an understanding manager really helps I guess. I also have three kids so I know the struggle :)
- mbrundle 6y ago
  Nice to meet other P/T tech dads-of-three, we’re a rare breed! Have sent you an email to say hi. : )
rizpanjwani 6y ago
Are you hiring junior/intern data scientists from Canada? I know someone who is almost finished their masters and have worked on real data from telecomm quality of service as part of their thesis, and have had a term of internship.

daxfohl 6y ago

My wife arranged this and ended up getting just as much work thrown at her, working just as much, but getting paid less and next to zero promotability. She obviously went back to full time after about six months.

jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Ouch. There are definitely pitfalls along this path. And if the manager doesn’t understand what the deal implies I’m sure it can be very hard and stressful. Too bad it didn’t work out for your wife.
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  That’s why it’s good to have two things. One is to be able to easily pick up a job somewhere else for same pay and benefits if required. Second is to say no, ideally in a respectful way. Pretend you have another boss vying for those other 8 hours (this boss is you of course!)

d--b 6y ago

I'm at 22.5 hrs/week fully remote. I had been a full time employee for 6 years and wanted to resign. They wanted to keep me. I asked for this and they said ok.

biztos 6y ago

In some countries you actually have a right to switch from full-time to part-time work. Your employer can block you but only if they have a really solid reason, and "we have to hire another person to make up the difference" won't fly. If you want to go the other way (back to full-time) your employer can say no. So -- if this is your long-term plan and you want to be employed you might consider going to such a country, and doing a year or so of full-time first. Anecdotally, I was seriously considering switching to half time pre-plague so I could do a PhD. Would have been trivial to get it approved, but I have a lot of seniority; you might have to fight for it if you're new. But at least in Germany, it's your right as a worker, not a privilege from your employer. I would expect it's like that in much of the EU.

eliasbagley 6y ago

How would this work when substantial equity is involved? It makes sense that if you drop your hours, your salary would drop in proportion. But if a substantial amount of your total comp is from unvested equity, it doesn't makes as much sense. Your employer can't take away unvested equity, right? If so it seems like your employer would have much less incentive to want to do something like this - you may be working half as much, but your total comp only drops by like 25% or something.

singron 6y ago
In some places I've worked, HR has a hidden target total compensation for each employee. When they make compensation adjustments, they try to bring you slightly closer to that goal. In this case, they might drop just your salary proportionally since that appears fair, but future adjustments will be lower or zero until your target compensation is above your actual compensation.
jazz_from_hell 6y ago
Good question. I can see that being an issue in the US. In my case, I actually work in IT rather than tech. Equity is never part of the deal. I think equity is much more common for US employees than it is for European.
srtjstjsj 6y ago
You'd get an adjusted equity package.

deleted 6y ago

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flats 6y ago

I’ve been working as a software engineer at a non-profit for a little over four years. I started at 40 hours per week, went down to 32 after a couple of years, and now am at 24 because they were looking to cut costs and I was happy to oblige. When I brought it up to my manager, I told her very specifically _why_ I wanted to reduce my hours - I wanted to spend more time on other projects (specifically musical projects) - and she was totally open to it. If you really feel like you need more time for other pursuits, and you are lucky enough to work at a good company where your manager has your best interests at heart, it shouldn’t be an issue. Plus, hiring and training new employees is an expensive pain in the ass.

semicolonandson 6y ago

I'm someone who values tinkering time greatly and low-hour work weeks (at least WRT "work" work) are a priority. I've gotten to this stage from two different directions: 1. Developing a relationship with a 'principal' consultant who handles client relationships themselves (shielding me from weird hours and stress) but outsources the tech to me (+ other technical freelancers). When this principal consultant has no clients, they still have hours available for their own in-house, entrepreneurial products. 2. Bootstrapping a passive-income web business. I coded a Ruby on Rails application to sell law notes following my law degree. By following the advice here, I figured out how to market it with SEO and AdWords. Much to my amazement, it ended up providing for all my financial needs for over 7 years, sometimes with as little as 4 hours work a month. (Obviously there was a huge upfront investment in getting to that stage.) I've got a YouTube video where I talk more about how I came up with the MVP and what the first few months were like, in case this is a path you're considering too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKXlZz-wbmg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKXlZz-wbmg

jjav 6y ago

It is easy to make companies cut your salary but difficult to make them respect the reduced work hours! Wife has been working nominally 4 days a week at the G of FAANG for several years. Prorated to 80% of the salary. Management has repeatedly stated that they expect far more than 40hrs/week from a full-timer, so an 80%-timer better turn in at least 40+ hours. Which largely defeats the intended benefit of doing a 4 days week.

chucksmash 6y ago

I haven't tried this personally but my company has a relevant policy and I've considered it from time to time. The employee handbook lays out opportunity to take x% of your current hours for x% of your current pay. If you'd be happy working 4x8s and 80% salary + 80% bonus works for you? As long as your manager doesn't object, go for it. I think this is a great benefit to offer. Abstractly, I imagine that the system means that once you hit an income threshold you're happy with, a 10% raise immediately gets converted into 10% less hours per week. You never retire, just get asymptotically close to doing so.

02020202 6y ago

i have worked a full-time job one year in my entire life. after that always part-time. part time sounds bad but it's just you leaving the office at 1pm(or however that works out for you). it is the best setup and i have been working like this for over a decade. i prefer to work from office but it is not easy to find local companies for this setup and either way you have to be a self-employed entity. so i rented a desk at my previous job and worked from there for other companies, part-time, for many years. now i work from home since i have not found suitable alternative for my office since the company have moved to new space. but now i work on pre-paid hours, credit-like system, if you will. and have no schedule whatsoever. client pays me for certain amount of hours, upfront, and then as i work i just work up to the amount of hours i got paid. nobody is looking over my shoulder, nobody is giving me deadlines. when it's done, it's done. best setup, bar none. but ymmv. i charge enough so i can work hour or two a day if i want. i could make a bank if i would go do a full-time gig again and i have been thinking about it, for a year, to save money but i have not found interesting jobs so yeah... it is a individualistic lifestyle, not suitable for everyone. but as i have said, you can rent a desk at a company you know people from or something like that, so you are with people and not alone all doy long. i would not recommend corowking spaces at all though. that's the worst setup i can imagine.

RobbieHacks 6y ago

I work about 25 hours a week at home right now. I started with a startup tech company and at first we were doing 35 hours a week but we decided those 10 hours allowed us to work slowly. By cutting down our hours we were able to get more stuff done in a short amount of time with deadlines and the pressure of time limits