11 ms·

I turned 40 recently and have gone the route of very flexible employment (~16 hrs per week remote) at Sr software engineer salary. This gives me the freedom to

I turned 40 recently and have gone the route of very flexible employment (~16 hrs per week remote) at Sr software engineer salary. This gives me the freedom to do basically anything I want for more than half the day with very low stress. For the past decade nobody at my several places of employment has had reason to know how few hours I work because I’m always the top performer. I’m intending now to build software outside of the day job until I’m bootstrapped into doing that full time. I feel this is a setup which absorbs risk while giving both future opportunity and a high quality of life in the meanwhile. I’m tempted at times to go for some super high paid position which I’m very qualified for, but it always comes back to a preference for near total freedom to live my life.

kilroy123 5y ago
How do you get away with working so little? You don't have meetings? Or people pinging you during the day?
- xwdv 5y ago
  1) Finish your work 2) get a job that doesn’t require tons of meetings 3) use slack on your phone If you meet these requirements you can cut out all the bullshit from your day and just focus on the meaty part that you actually get paid for.
  - brundolf 5y ago
    Be careful about doing personal work in those extra hours though. Personally I wouldn't risk it. As an alternative, I know some companies will let you voluntarily cut down your hours in exchange for a pay cut. With tech salaries being what they are, you could make a comfortable living while only working half-time in many cases. And that way you don't have to worry about what legally counts as "on company time".
    - jrochkind1 5y ago
      I'd like to hear more about people who have officially cut down their hours for pay cut at what sorts of companies, and how they negotiated it!
      - samvher 5y ago
        I work Mon-Wed at 60% pay. I built some key infrastructure for the organization I work for, which gives me some leverage. I basically just told them this is how I want things from now on and that was ok. I’m not at MAANG level compensation though (more like European public sector).
    - emerged 5y ago
      There is some risk there, although California has pretty favorable laws to protect you. I wouldn’t work on any project which is even tangentially related to the day job or touch any company resources while working on side projects. I’d also never sacrifice my performance at the W-2 for side work. They get absolute priority. Work in good faith and read up on your rights, but yea even with all that you could unwittingly get yourself in some form of trouble. I’ve weighed the risks and feel comfortable but YMMV.
      - brundolf 5y ago
        Varies widely by state; in Texas I had to fight and turn down offers to even get a contract that would give me full rights to the stuff outside of work-hours. So I'm not going to toe that line.
        emerged 5y ago
        In your shoes I’d be working remotely for a California company from Texas because the labor laws from California will apply to you. It’s not a choice for me, but I’d love that.
        ok_dad 5y ago
        Do you have a reference for this? Not that i don't believe you, but I recently moved away from California to my home state and I would love to know if this applies to my situation.
        jmatthews 5y ago
        enforcing even a basic non-compete in Texas is roughly impossible unless you steal existing clients or IP.
    - xwdv 5y ago
      As a remote worker they have zero way of knowing what I’m doing when I’m not working. Doesn’t even matter anyway, I’m no longer at an age where I fantasize about making big money from building pointless side projects. It’s kind of juvenile to think these sort of half-serious side hustles will ever be anything more than a waste of time in the long run. I’m content with drawing a big six-figure tech salary with as little effort as possible and funneling cash into my growing portfolio of investments, which is what will actually make me richer without going through the bullshit of starting a company and providing customer support. Reading up on companies and analyzing which ones will be the best investments is actually something I enjoy doing.
- emerged 5y ago
  Extremely strict time management and focus. If I go upstairs to put in a load of laundry, that’s a 5 minute time slot I put back into my work time slots. The vast majority of people are very inefficient with time management, spend tons of time bike shedding, etc.
  - Jcampuzano2 5y ago
    I usually have a minimum of 15-20 hours a week JUST with meetings. And I can't just tell people I refuse to go to these. And then I also have my own tasks to do. I really have no clue how many people I see claim working 15 hrs total a week when that's already the absolute bare minimum for me.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
msoad 5y ago
I'm at Staff level and work about this much. Pay is great too! I'm just so freaking bored. Bootstrapping something on my own sounds good actually, maybe I should try that.
zackmorris 5y ago
I was going to write a top-level comment, but yours hit the nail on the head. For me, the biggest change after hitting 40 is that I can establish boundaries now. I'm currently at 30 hours per week, 3 days in office and 1-2 at home. We hear a lot about F-U money, but not an F-U approach to making it happen. I feel that reclaiming 1 day per week for our personal development projects in one of the first pillars of F-U money. I'm only working now so that eventually I won't have to work for money, so that I can begin the real work of building an automated solarpunk future. I spent most of my 20s and 30s practically killing myself for projects, either at work or independently. When I hit 40, my health crashed and I went through the worst burnout of my life for the year of 2019, before COVID-19 in 2020. It felt like the part of my brain that handles problem solving and decision making died. So I lost almost all executive function and could barely get out of bed. I had to relearn how to make todo lists and strategize, and rebuild my resilience. Turns out that I had developed food sensitivities to the staples I had been eating, specifically Mexican food (my favorite) and dairy. When the immune system becomes sensitized to certain foods, it disrupts serotonin, which can lead to depression. Diets high in legumes and nightshades, without supplementation (B vitamins, minerals, fiber, probiotics, yogurt, etc), are higher risk because of how the anti-nutrients in them bind to the vitamins and minerals we need. I think this is where the stigma around vegetarianism and veganism comes from, but I digress. Anyway, I discovered ADHD and autism TikTok and went through a healing and growth process the last 2-3 years, like a lot of you I imagine. Which mostly involves shadow work and addressing the low hanging fruit like diet, meditation, inner monologue, etc. Now I see the healing and growth that the world needs to do, which it has not done, because powerful forces work tirelessly to prevent it and maintain the status quo. My point with all of this is, there can be anxiety with breaking the 40 barrier. I think it's helpful to flip the mindset from "I'm anxious about this" to "I'm excited about this". The body and mind can't tell the difference, because they are strongly rooted in this reality. But our higher selves can observe and nurture, transmuting negative energy into positive energy over time. I've found that after 40, I have much deeper wells of assistive energy and empathy. I've come to understand that we're all one. So now I see zero-sum games and people scrambling for a piece of the pie, which is mostly a waste of time and even kind of embarrassing to witness in these times. Better to think more broadly. Not so much "how will I make it through this", but more "what can I do to help" and start there.
jrochkind1 5y ago
Are you saying your employer is not aware you work 16 hours a week?
- gitfan86 5y ago
  I've done this for most of my career. Put in between 5-35 hours a week depending on what came up and still achieved "top performer". I also like the time and freedom. I think it would be hard to do this at a FAANG.
- emerged 5y ago
  They typically don’t know what I eat for breakfast either, because it hasn’t ever been relevant to the job.
danbmil99 5y ago
This reminds me of a slide I saw at some talk. It was presented as a totem pole, and your goal is to move up on the pole. It was called the "TKVP Totem Pole", from bottom to top: Vision Product Knowledge Time What do you get paid for on this stack? IF you are selling your time by the hour (and billing honestly) you are at the bottom of the pole -- T. The next step up is to be paid more for your knowledge (wisdom, expertise) than for your time. P is for product: at this point, we are talking about a startup, rather than a role at a company. At the base of things, most viable startups grow out of the experience of spending time and applying knowledge to customer's problems. When you find yourself (say as a consultant, or even job-hopping every 1.5 years) solving the same puzzles again and again, you might start to think about automating, consolidating, productizing these patterns and selling them to customers as a product or service. Even an IC at a FAANG can do this by, for example, convincing their manager to open-source useful utilities. Guess what -- now you can re-use that code at your next job! At the top of the totem pole is Vision. That is where (as a startup founder) you sell the vision of what your product/service could become, if you had some rocket fuel in the form of capital and networking support. Of course this climb is not for everyone to take solo. As a talented IC, you may decide that instead of the safety of a FAANG job, you might consider throwing your chips in with a startup that has ascended this ladder to somewhere between P and V. Just make sure you get an equity package that fairly compensates you for the career risk you are taking.
- Silhouette 5y ago
  That's an interesting perspective but I suspect it fits reality better if the P and V levels are in moonshot startup territory. If you have the skills and knowledge to be successful at those levels, your product/vision is something good, but you're operating in a smaller market without huge amounts of investment funding, you might still make more money and sometimes exert more influence being at level K but working with clients who are already established in larger markets and in need of wiser and more knowledgeable input to grow further. Think of a rapid growth scale-up where most of the technical staff are relatively inexperienced or a multinational spinning up a new division that wants to build a solid foundation for its next big thing. The right technical advice and strategic leadership can be worth a fortune in that kind of environment.
- 5y ago

kilroy123 5y ago

How do you get away with working so little? You don't have meetings? Or people pinging you during the day?

xwdv 5y ago
1) Finish your work 2) get a job that doesn’t require tons of meetings 3) use slack on your phone If you meet these requirements you can cut out all the bullshit from your day and just focus on the meaty part that you actually get paid for.
- brundolf 5y ago
  Be careful about doing personal work in those extra hours though. Personally I wouldn't risk it. As an alternative, I know some companies will let you voluntarily cut down your hours in exchange for a pay cut. With tech salaries being what they are, you could make a comfortable living while only working half-time in many cases. And that way you don't have to worry about what legally counts as "on company time".
  - jrochkind1 5y ago
    I'd like to hear more about people who have officially cut down their hours for pay cut at what sorts of companies, and how they negotiated it!
    - samvher 5y ago
      I work Mon-Wed at 60% pay. I built some key infrastructure for the organization I work for, which gives me some leverage. I basically just told them this is how I want things from now on and that was ok. I’m not at MAANG level compensation though (more like European public sector).
  - emerged 5y ago
    There is some risk there, although California has pretty favorable laws to protect you. I wouldn’t work on any project which is even tangentially related to the day job or touch any company resources while working on side projects. I’d also never sacrifice my performance at the W-2 for side work. They get absolute priority. Work in good faith and read up on your rights, but yea even with all that you could unwittingly get yourself in some form of trouble. I’ve weighed the risks and feel comfortable but YMMV.
    - brundolf 5y ago
      Varies widely by state; in Texas I had to fight and turn down offers to even get a contract that would give me full rights to the stuff outside of work-hours. So I'm not going to toe that line.
      - emerged 5y ago
        In your shoes I’d be working remotely for a California company from Texas because the labor laws from California will apply to you. It’s not a choice for me, but I’d love that.
        ok_dad 5y ago
        Do you have a reference for this? Not that i don't believe you, but I recently moved away from California to my home state and I would love to know if this applies to my situation.
      - jmatthews 5y ago
        enforcing even a basic non-compete in Texas is roughly impossible unless you steal existing clients or IP.
  - xwdv 5y ago
    As a remote worker they have zero way of knowing what I’m doing when I’m not working. Doesn’t even matter anyway, I’m no longer at an age where I fantasize about making big money from building pointless side projects. It’s kind of juvenile to think these sort of half-serious side hustles will ever be anything more than a waste of time in the long run. I’m content with drawing a big six-figure tech salary with as little effort as possible and funneling cash into my growing portfolio of investments, which is what will actually make me richer without going through the bullshit of starting a company and providing customer support. Reading up on companies and analyzing which ones will be the best investments is actually something I enjoy doing.
emerged 5y ago
Extremely strict time management and focus. If I go upstairs to put in a load of laundry, that’s a 5 minute time slot I put back into my work time slots. The vast majority of people are very inefficient with time management, spend tons of time bike shedding, etc.
- Jcampuzano2 5y ago
  I usually have a minimum of 15-20 hours a week JUST with meetings. And I can't just tell people I refuse to go to these. And then I also have my own tasks to do. I really have no clue how many people I see claim working 15 hrs total a week when that's already the absolute bare minimum for me.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

msoad 5y ago

I'm at Staff level and work about this much. Pay is great too! I'm just so freaking bored. Bootstrapping something on my own sounds good actually, maybe I should try that.

zackmorris 5y ago

I was going to write a top-level comment, but yours hit the nail on the head. For me, the biggest change after hitting 40 is that I can establish boundaries now. I'm currently at 30 hours per week, 3 days in office and 1-2 at home. We hear a lot about F-U money, but not an F-U approach to making it happen. I feel that reclaiming 1 day per week for our personal development projects in one of the first pillars of F-U money. I'm only working now so that eventually I won't have to work for money, so that I can begin the real work of building an automated solarpunk future. I spent most of my 20s and 30s practically killing myself for projects, either at work or independently. When I hit 40, my health crashed and I went through the worst burnout of my life for the year of 2019, before COVID-19 in 2020. It felt like the part of my brain that handles problem solving and decision making died. So I lost almost all executive function and could barely get out of bed. I had to relearn how to make todo lists and strategize, and rebuild my resilience. Turns out that I had developed food sensitivities to the staples I had been eating, specifically Mexican food (my favorite) and dairy. When the immune system becomes sensitized to certain foods, it disrupts serotonin, which can lead to depression. Diets high in legumes and nightshades, without supplementation (B vitamins, minerals, fiber, probiotics, yogurt, etc), are higher risk because of how the anti-nutrients in them bind to the vitamins and minerals we need. I think this is where the stigma around vegetarianism and veganism comes from, but I digress. Anyway, I discovered ADHD and autism TikTok and went through a healing and growth process the last 2-3 years, like a lot of you I imagine. Which mostly involves shadow work and addressing the low hanging fruit like diet, meditation, inner monologue, etc. Now I see the healing and growth that the world needs to do, which it has not done, because powerful forces work tirelessly to prevent it and maintain the status quo. My point with all of this is, there can be anxiety with breaking the 40 barrier. I think it's helpful to flip the mindset from "I'm anxious about this" to "I'm excited about this". The body and mind can't tell the difference, because they are strongly rooted in this reality. But our higher selves can observe and nurture, transmuting negative energy into positive energy over time. I've found that after 40, I have much deeper wells of assistive energy and empathy. I've come to understand that we're all one. So now I see zero-sum games and people scrambling for a piece of the pie, which is mostly a waste of time and even kind of embarrassing to witness in these times. Better to think more broadly. Not so much "how will I make it through this", but more "what can I do to help" and start there.

jrochkind1 5y ago

Are you saying your employer is not aware you work 16 hours a week?

gitfan86 5y ago
I've done this for most of my career. Put in between 5-35 hours a week depending on what came up and still achieved "top performer". I also like the time and freedom. I think it would be hard to do this at a FAANG.
emerged 5y ago
They typically don’t know what I eat for breakfast either, because it hasn’t ever been relevant to the job.

danbmil99 5y ago

This reminds me of a slide I saw at some talk. It was presented as a totem pole, and your goal is to move up on the pole. It was called the "TKVP Totem Pole", from bottom to top: Vision Product Knowledge Time What do you get paid for on this stack? IF you are selling your time by the hour (and billing honestly) you are at the bottom of the pole -- T. The next step up is to be paid more for your knowledge (wisdom, expertise) than for your time. P is for product: at this point, we are talking about a startup, rather than a role at a company. At the base of things, most viable startups grow out of the experience of spending time and applying knowledge to customer's problems. When you find yourself (say as a consultant, or even job-hopping every 1.5 years) solving the same puzzles again and again, you might start to think about automating, consolidating, productizing these patterns and selling them to customers as a product or service. Even an IC at a FAANG can do this by, for example, convincing their manager to open-source useful utilities. Guess what -- now you can re-use that code at your next job! At the top of the totem pole is Vision. That is where (as a startup founder) you sell the vision of what your product/service could become, if you had some rocket fuel in the form of capital and networking support. Of course this climb is not for everyone to take solo. As a talented IC, you may decide that instead of the safety of a FAANG job, you might consider throwing your chips in with a startup that has ascended this ladder to somewhere between P and V. Just make sure you get an equity package that fairly compensates you for the career risk you are taking.

Silhouette 5y ago
That's an interesting perspective but I suspect it fits reality better if the P and V levels are in moonshot startup territory. If you have the skills and knowledge to be successful at those levels, your product/vision is something good, but you're operating in a smaller market without huge amounts of investment funding, you might still make more money and sometimes exert more influence being at level K but working with clients who are already established in larger markets and in need of wiser and more knowledgeable input to grow further. Think of a rapid growth scale-up where most of the technical staff are relatively inexperienced or a multinational spinning up a new division that wants to build a solid foundation for its next big thing. The right technical advice and strategic leadership can be worth a fortune in that kind of environment.
5y ago