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I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to move to a 4-day, or 80% (or even part time) position for a few years now. Most companies have no real support for it, or want

I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to move to a 4-day, or 80% (or even part time) position for a few years now. Most companies have no real support for it, or want to do it in a backwards or messy way (“we’ll negotiation more vacation time”). You’d figure I’d be able to capitalize on a FANG resume but so far no real luck. I don’t want to earn more in my career. I’m already rich. I want to work less and do my own thing more. I would think companies would see this in engineers like me and make it a forefront to a recruiting effort.

prewett 4y ago
Try contracting / consulting. I feel like contracting has a different set of expectations, there's more of an expectation that contractors kind of do their own thing. There's also an expectation that contractors are a bit flaky, so a reliable contractor at 80% time is still a solid asset, whereas an employee at 80% time is communicating "I'm not 100% invested". I guess the difference is that with contractors the relationship is clearly understood by both sides to be "we're exchanging money for services" whereas employees are expected to be "resources that we rent". You don't expect your apartment to disappear 80% of the time, but in exchange there's a soft guarantee that the rent is sort of semi-permanent. (Hence why everyone is so upset about layoffs, it reveals that the deal is actually "I expect you to be there 100% of the time, and I'm going to pretend that this is permanent, but I may terminate the deal at any time". The contractor approach is just clearer for everyone.)
- ryandrake 4y ago
  Contracting sounds nice but you have to be making a LOT more than W2 for it to be worth it. Health insurance, HSA, your portion of self-employment tax, 401(k) matching are things you no longer get. Also you have to start doing things over and above that you didn’t have to as an employee, like finding clients, billing, accounting, fighting clients for payment. You need to charge enough to make it worthwhile.
  - coffeebeqn 4y ago
    This is very true. On the money side just note that your employer is also not paying any of those extras so you need to roll them into your rate. You’ll still cost about the same to them at the end of the day

prewett 4y ago

Try contracting / consulting. I feel like contracting has a different set of expectations, there's more of an expectation that contractors kind of do their own thing. There's also an expectation that contractors are a bit flaky, so a reliable contractor at 80% time is still a solid asset, whereas an employee at 80% time is communicating "I'm not 100% invested". I guess the difference is that with contractors the relationship is clearly understood by both sides to be "we're exchanging money for services" whereas employees are expected to be "resources that we rent". You don't expect your apartment to disappear 80% of the time, but in exchange there's a soft guarantee that the rent is sort of semi-permanent. (Hence why everyone is so upset about layoffs, it reveals that the deal is actually "I expect you to be there 100% of the time, and I'm going to pretend that this is permanent, but I may terminate the deal at any time". The contractor approach is just clearer for everyone.)

ryandrake 4y ago
Contracting sounds nice but you have to be making a LOT more than W2 for it to be worth it. Health insurance, HSA, your portion of self-employment tax, 401(k) matching are things you no longer get. Also you have to start doing things over and above that you didn’t have to as an employee, like finding clients, billing, accounting, fighting clients for payment. You need to charge enough to make it worthwhile.
- coffeebeqn 4y ago
  This is very true. On the money side just note that your employer is also not paying any of those extras so you need to roll them into your rate. You’ll still cost about the same to them at the end of the day