10 ms·

Perhaps this is a good thread to pose this question. I am a front-end engineer in my early twenties. Right now, 40+ hours a week is doable and I am paid well,

Perhaps this is a good thread to pose this question. I am a front-end engineer in my early twenties. Right now, 40+ hours a week is doable and I am paid well, but I don't need all of the money I'm earning. I would gladly take a 50% salary cut and work ~20 hours a week. The only problem with this is that I feel like this is a risky thing to bring up with an employer. Has anyone ever had any success getting a good part-time job or downsizing your position at a company? Every listing for part-time I see seems to be for someone with a lesser skillset.

theabraham 14y ago
Seems like a good time to build a hefty savings and begin investing. I think if you were to go part-time, you'd lose some of your benefits. And if your employer is used to you working 40-hours, you might end up working more than 20-hours due to a higher workload. Depends on your situation, and it can't hurt to bring it up. Maybe try winding down your hours progressively.
- philsnow 14y ago
  I think he _does_ want to invest, but in experiences during his early 20s, rather than by building his finances.
  - nathan_f77 14y ago
    I think many of the HN crowd has a slightly different mindset, since a lot of us are entrepreneurs. I'm in my early 20s, and am about to start working 40+ hour weeks for an early-stage startup. To me, this work _is_ a great experience. There's also the very small chance that we'll make it big and I'll be able to 'retire' and focus on my other passions. Even if we crash and burn, I won't consider that time wasted. The lessons learned will be invaluable, but I also hope to save enough to travel the world for a while, no matter what happens. 20 hour work weeks don't usually lead to more life experiences, in my experience. You just have more time to focus on side-projects or hobbies. You'll still be 'working' 40+ hour weeks, but dividing your time between different projects. As someone commented before, if he wanted experiences, then he should take a few months of unpaid leave of absence, and go exploring the world.
    - jrochkind1 14y ago
      > 20 hour work weeks don't usually lead to more life experiences, in my experience. You just have more time to focus on side-projects or hobbies. Um, right, by focusing on side-projects and hobbies, you get more life experiences is the idea. Certainly you get more diverse life experiences.
  - spin 14y ago
    I have to agree with this. There's time and there's money. After graduating from college, I've taken a lot of time to re-learn math slowly. I've also studied a lot of neuroscience and machine learning on my own time. I also quit computers and taught English for two years and moved to a foreign country and spent some time working on my people skills. (Sadly, I'm back to computers now, with a "normal" job...) For me, I'm happy that I invested my time into myself, rather than investing money into some mutual funds or something. Very happy. YMMV.
dj_axl 14y ago
> Has anyone ever had any success getting a good part-time job or downsizing your position at a company? Once, at a contract gig, I was offered to work "flexible hours" which meant 16-32 hours a week. That was after putting in 12 months of 40-45 hours a week, essentially proving that I was good, reliable, etc. So it could happen, by switching to hourly pay, and/or becoming a contractor, working for people who already know you. And as theabraham notes, this may result in losing benefits.
vojtarek 14y ago
I have same question, but about management position.
julsonl 14y ago
It depends on the company. The company I work for right now had a software architect that worked 3 days a week only for a couple of months or so before going full-time (I think he was building a multi-monitor helicopter flight sim setup if I remember it right). From my talks with our CEO it seemed like he was open to that idea. I'm definitely going to do something like this in the future though, but I'm still contemplating whether the 20-hour, 50% salary cut idea is better than working full time and taking a sabbatical afterwards.
shahchip 14y ago
I'm an engineering student right now but I know exactly how you feel. I like the content but the thought of working full time terrifies me. I spent a couple of months as an intern/observer in a company and I can't imagine devoting my life to work. It would almost certainly make me burn out in a year or two. I've been looking into jobs that work few hours but are highly qualified and they're usually outside consultants that get called in a couple of days a week. Apart from them there was one person who worked in a refinery that only had to be at work 20ish hours a week. She spent most of the rest at home on call or simply working from home. I recall that she enjoyed it.
- jabbernotty 14y ago
  To me, making a 40 hour work week is not the same as "devoting my life to work". Obviously there is a relationship there, but even if you have two hours of travel time each workday, and you work 8 hours a day (add a half hour break), there is time to do other things than work on a workday.
  - shahchip 14y ago
    Well I'd argue that it's definitely devoting your life to work. It's an activity that you spent a massive amount of daytime doing for most of your life. It may not be the only thing you devote your life to but it is definitely one of them and probably the largest one. I've never been able to get up after a day of work and do something. I'm just done after working for 8 hours. I'd just sit and do nothing wait to recover "energy" and as soon as I recover back to normal work starts again.
    - wyan 14y ago
      That sense of exhaustion eventually goes away after a few months working full-time. That said, even now I feel the amount of interesting stuff I can do on a week day after work is pretty limited -- not just because of time, but because of brainpower. And you can't really use every weekend either, or you'll burn out fast. So a) make peace with getting a lot less done, or b) find a way not to work full time.
leftnode 14y ago
I did at a previous job. It was a small web development shop owned by a husband and wife, and around 7 employees. I was the lead developer there and getting bored with the work. I proposed that I work 3 days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and be paid 60% of my salary. I spent Tuesday and Thursday working on my side projects. Eventually the company went out of business, but I had great success with working part time.
- zgembo 14y ago
  there is actually e-book with similar topic: Bring Back the 40-Hour Work Week http://jailfreebook.com/ http://jailfreebook.com/
- capisce 14y ago
  Were you actually only 60 % as productive? Otherwise it seems like a bad deal.
duck 14y ago
I've seen a couple companies looking for exactly that recently (I'll see if I can find them), but I think you might have to adjust your numbers a bit... 50% cut in salary != hours/2 as it won't cover their fixed costs (like healthcare and G&A costs).
fatbird 14y ago
Few employers are open to ideas like this. At the end of the day, they might make a concession to keep you happy if you're valuable, but few businesses want to structure themselves to operate in this fashion. However, you can accomplish something similar. If you only want half your salary, work full time for a year while saving half your salary, then fund a year long sabbatical for yourself. If at the end of that sabbatical you've done something interesting (created a new open source project, bootstrapped a business), then applying for a job at the end of that year will be easy. Rinse/repeat as desired.
- waqf 14y ago
  Better to do six months/six months (stupid income tax).
larsberg 14y ago
Even if your company offers it, you should be careful about taking it. There are a few downsides: - Your advancement and promotion chances are basically zero in such a position. Not due to some conspiracy, but just because you're not around for half of the conversations people are having about the direction of the product/team. - If it isn't standard practice for the whole team, they all start to slightly hate you, no matter the pay difference. Need drewb's input? Oh, it's Tuesday; that will have to wait until Thursday when special-boy is back in the office. I've seen this over and over (including on my own teams) with people who had been granted special work accommodations, and there's nothing you can really do about it, even as a manager. If you want more time to yourself, I would much more highly recommend attempting to negotiate regular unpaid leaves of absence for a couple of months. Travel the world; really unplug from work; etc. It's both easier to fit into your career and your company's plans. Or just go into consulting and only take n-month contracts that fit your lifestyle needs.
- kamaal 14y ago
  This is one of those annoying problems of working remotely. Unfortunately if you are working from home, you might be building mountains. But no one is seeing you do it, what that generally means is unless you announce explicitly what you are doing people think you are doing nothing. Contrary to whatever one thinks and the truth is. Perceptions matter a lot more than the reality.
  - jonathanwallace 14y ago
    Again, I have to disagree with you 100%. :) I posit that "this" is one of those annoying problems of working. If you don't make sure you communicate your success, you won't be successful. People who don't celebrate, share and broadcast their success usually aren't successful. Even when they are in the office 100% of the time.
  - irahul 14y ago
    > Unfortunately if you are working from home, you might be building mountains. But no one is seeing you do it, what that generally means is unless you announce explicitly what you are doing people think you are doing nothing. I don't announce anything unless you count commits and issue tracker updates. I am being paid for my work. Those who pay me give me the requirements and know it very well what is being done. Well, since they are paying for it and want it done, how can they not know what is being done?
pwaring 14y ago
I've done it, though not to such a big extent. I work four days a week instead of five, due to a combination of less technical work available and wanting to explore other opportunities. Having a day off mid-week is also incredibly useful if you want to get things done like visiting the bank, which is always packed at the weekend. Even on five days a week though, I was working less than 40 hours. Most people I know work 37.5 hours (if you exclude lunch), and the Working Time Directive places restrictions on the number of hours you can be asked to work if you're in the EU.
bokonist 14y ago
Software is generally a winner-take-all market. Software has zero marginal cost, so the company with the most revenue can invest the most upfront into making a better product, giving it even more revenue. Furthermore, in most cases there is little incentive for customers to ever use the second best product in a segment. So when building software, you not only have to meet the customers needs, you have to meet the customer needs better than any competitor. If you produce a product that is half as good or improve the product half as quickly, you do not lose just half your revenue, you could lose all of it. The second aspect of software development is that a developer working 40 hours a week is more productive than two developers working 20 hours a week. With the sole developer, there less communication overhead, less management overhead, and the ratio of productive time to time learning the system and understanding the interlocking parts is higher. This is the classic mythical man month problem. The third aspect of software development is that directly measuring output and effort of an engineer is very difficult. So as a proxy, managers look for signs of passion and engagement. If you are passionate and smart, but are slow to implement some feature, management will believe the feature was simply more difficult than anticipated. If you generally are not passionate about your work, and are slow to implement some feature, management will think you are slacking and fire you. Creating an effective company requires creating a culture of passion and hardwork, and having one person only work part-time can decrease the morale of those putting in 40+ hours. Asking to only work half-time betrays a lack of passion, and could be a bad career move. So the net result of these factors is that a company must work at maximum efficiency, and maximum efficiency comes when all developers are working 40+ hours a week. It is not in the company's interest to let you work only 20 hours a week, and it could indeed be risky if you bring the idea up with management. I should also note that the above dynamic is not just the case in software, but in virtually all high paying jobs, from professional athlete to corporate lawyer to corporate executive. Virtually all high paying jobs have some sort of competitive, winner take all dynamic in the market at large (the winners being the ones who get paid well), and within the company, the high paid people are the ones with specialized, hard to replace skills, that have a large ramp up time to learn effectively (learning a large code base, learning a set of legal traditions, learning how to hit a curveball, etc, etc). Thus in order to earn the high pay you must work long hours, and you must work many productive hours on top of a base of ramping-up hours.
dorkrawk 14y ago
I did the sub-40 hour thing for a while at an old job. I was starting to go to grad school full time, so I asked my company if I could could move from being on salary to being an hourly employee and work about 20+ hours a week. Because it was better for them to keep me on in a limited capacity rather than spend the money hiring and training someone new they were really cooperative. The extra time flexibility was great, I got to keep my insurance with them, and got out of grad school debt free! If you can find yourself a good non-standard situation that works well for you (and your future) take it!
Sukotto 14y ago
Or you can bank the excess cash and "retire" as soon as 4% of your savings equals your annual expenses. (Work hard to maximize your salary and minimize your expenses) Between now and achieving that 4%, focus on excelling at the things you find the most interesting and building relationships in your industry so that once you cross the freedom line you can take on the occasional consulting gig to keep things interesting. (I'm pushing 40 now and sincerely wish I had done the above when starting out in my twenties)
- throwaway1979 14y ago
  If I knew where to get a risk free, consistent 4% return these days ...
  - bryanlarsen 14y ago
    More like 7%, because that should be 4% after inflation...
    - georgefox 14y ago
      Shouldn't the percentage of savings go down if you adjust for inflation (i.e., larger savings)?
      - jdmichal 14y ago
        Inflation is always bad for capital and good for debt.
  - marvin 14y ago
    You won't get risk-free 4% return after inflation, but you can (probably) expect a 4% annual return on average if you put your money in the stock market. At least this is the assumption that the Norwegian Pension Fund, the world's largest stock market fund, operates with. Although it has been discussed to reduce this number to 3%.
    - 14y ago
redcircle 14y ago
Make it happen! You'll be buying back your time, which is the most valuable thing you have. I wish that I'd done this when I was young and single. Now I have a family, and am the only income earner, so I have to work 40 hours (for now). A friend of mine works part time, and spends the rest of the time in discovering and finding himself. I've been having to do this while raising my family, so that I don't screw them up. Full-time work can easily become an obsessive-compulsive escape from finding oneself. But work isn't what makes us happy in life (it is part of it, but not all of it).
- wildgift 14y ago
  I'm middle aged and just median income, because I did things like retire a while in my 20s to just live and learn. I have some regrets, but not many.
jayferd 14y ago
It depends on the company. I have done this, and quite successfully. I don't think I'll be going back to the 40-hour week any time soon. I think you'll have better luck with tiny companies that can be more flexible, and also tend to be more starved for engineering skill. But YMMV.
K2h 14y ago
We lost an engineer recently because of a desire to change careers. I still see him once a week - as he still works one full day a week for us as a contractor. It has worked out very well in that the knowledge has not been lost and provided continuity in that area. I wish I could work him more time - but he likes things they way they are. This is probably a fringe case - and I do not recommend you pursue it unless you are in excellent standing with your manager and are not currently overloaded with responsibility. This type of transition doesn't work if many people are solely dependent on you - which may give you something to work towards - others cross trained directly in your task - so you can have time away without impact to the company.
evolve2k 14y ago
The trick is not to seek 'part time' but rather seek a contract and let them know you can only do three days a week. It's working very well for me. Despite what everyone is saying its a marketplace and the demand for good devs/designers is big.
bybjorn 14y ago
Easy fix: Become a freelancer :-)
chubbard 14y ago
Why not become a contractor and you are in control of how much you work because you really work for yourself? You might not control when you are on a project, but work hard for 3-4 months build up income, then when its done take some time off an live off what you built up. No need to leave money on the table because you don't think you need it now. Go travel, tour with your band, sit on your couch and eat cheesy poofs and pot pie, whatever. You can work as much or as little as you like. Before you brush this off what you're talking about is a very tenuous relationship with your employer that isn't providing you any stability, AND more than likely you'll loose your benefits. Those are the same things you'd be giving up if you went freelance so there is little downside to freelance vs part time.
eel 14y ago
I had success doing something similar at a previous company. I was able to switch to part-time at an equivalent hourly rate. My reason was that I was finish to go to graduate school simultaneously. I wasn't able to keep most benefits, but it wasn't a huge concern since I was young and still in grad school. The company got a good deal (without benefits, they got more work per dollar), and I got a good deal (in finding a part-time job at a higher rate than I would have anywhere else.)
tucaz 14y ago
My case is not exactly as yours, but no one's really is so... I made a project for an eCommerce company a few years ago and then left but always kept in touch with people there. I changed jobs and took a remote position working for a US based company here from Brazil so my working hours were 12-9PM due to the timezone difference so I had free mornings. After a couple of months the first company (eCommerce) made me a proposal for a full time job that I didn't take because it was good working from home at the time. However I said that I could work part time 2-3 hours everyday for them. They took it and it was very good for both of us since I had an extra paycheck (I was earning as much as a full time employee) and they had me working on important stuff with no interruptions since I was there just a little bit everyday and could not be held accountable to day to day things. I stayed like that for the past 3 years when I went working for them full time because I got tired of working remotely for a company that wasn't really in a remote-work-culture. Developers are easy to find. Good developers are not. Bottom line is, if your value proposition to the company is good I cannot see why they wouldn't accept you working part time there. If it's good from the business perspective and you can demonstrate that to them it's pretty much a cost-benefit decision and not an emotionally one. If you are really into it and wanna give it a try (obviously with some risks) you could say: "Shall we try for a month and see what happens?". After the first month there is not going back ;)
minikomi 14y ago
I currently work 4 days a week on a barebones salary in Tokyo of all places .. If your priorities are aligned with the lifestyle I recommended it! Good luck.
kephra 14y ago
I was working 20 hours, 16 hours at home + 4 in office in the last two jobs. Imho a coder is more productive if he focus 4 hours a day, then if he procrastinates 10 hours.
barce 14y ago
I did this before when I went back to school to focus on CS classes. I already had a degree, but made it clear to my employer that these CS classes would benefit him later on. Irony is that the classes weren't applicable but the friendships made paid off dividends.
jrochkind1 14y ago
I have ("Hey, how about you pay me 80% of my salary for 80% time?"), but I work at a university. And 80% is the lowest one can go in HR rules here and still get health insurance. (If the US acted like EVERY other non-poor country and had nationalized health insurance, this would be a LOT easier). And they actually probably end up getting quite a bit more out of me than actual 80% time, I end up working longer hours on the days I do work than I used to, but not so long that I'm working as much as I used to, and it's worth it to me to get a 3 day weekend every week.
autarch 14y ago
As part of my negotiations for my current job, I negotiated a 4-day (32 hour) work week. I take Fridays off and do my own projects and volunteer work. I've had a couple jobs where I've done 32 or 36 hour weeks in the past as well. But I also have a strong reputation in my field so I'm able to leverage a bit of personal branding ("I'll get more done in 32 hours than anyone else you can hire for 40.") That may be a tough sell for you at this point. But as others have pointed out, contracting may be a good fit for you if you want to work less. My advice if you go this route is to come up with the highest hourly rate you think you can ask for, then ask for at least 25% more (in the US I'd suggest asking for at least $75 per hour even if you don't have much experience).
- jonathanwallace 14y ago
  I agree with your advice re: consulting 100%.
digitalengineer 14y ago
I did. I've been working 36 hours a week for design agency for the past few years. Having a good planning and team is key. The law here in the Netherlands was changed so a boss couldn't say 'no' when you asked to work (a bit) less. Now it's my afternoon to arrange all sorts of stuff and to go out and play with my kid.
xbryanx 14y ago
You should consider bringing your talents to a mission based non-profit. In many non-profits, half time employees are more common, and the pay will absolutely be less. You might also just find the work that much more meaningful.

theabraham 14y ago

Seems like a good time to build a hefty savings and begin investing. I think if you were to go part-time, you'd lose some of your benefits. And if your employer is used to you working 40-hours, you might end up working more than 20-hours due to a higher workload. Depends on your situation, and it can't hurt to bring it up. Maybe try winding down your hours progressively.

philsnow 14y ago
I think he _does_ want to invest, but in experiences during his early 20s, rather than by building his finances.
- nathan_f77 14y ago
  I think many of the HN crowd has a slightly different mindset, since a lot of us are entrepreneurs. I'm in my early 20s, and am about to start working 40+ hour weeks for an early-stage startup. To me, this work _is_ a great experience. There's also the very small chance that we'll make it big and I'll be able to 'retire' and focus on my other passions. Even if we crash and burn, I won't consider that time wasted. The lessons learned will be invaluable, but I also hope to save enough to travel the world for a while, no matter what happens. 20 hour work weeks don't usually lead to more life experiences, in my experience. You just have more time to focus on side-projects or hobbies. You'll still be 'working' 40+ hour weeks, but dividing your time between different projects. As someone commented before, if he wanted experiences, then he should take a few months of unpaid leave of absence, and go exploring the world.
  - jrochkind1 14y ago
    > 20 hour work weeks don't usually lead to more life experiences, in my experience. You just have more time to focus on side-projects or hobbies. Um, right, by focusing on side-projects and hobbies, you get more life experiences is the idea. Certainly you get more diverse life experiences.
- spin 14y ago
  I have to agree with this. There's time and there's money. After graduating from college, I've taken a lot of time to re-learn math slowly. I've also studied a lot of neuroscience and machine learning on my own time. I also quit computers and taught English for two years and moved to a foreign country and spent some time working on my people skills. (Sadly, I'm back to computers now, with a "normal" job...) For me, I'm happy that I invested my time into myself, rather than investing money into some mutual funds or something. Very happy. YMMV.

dj_axl 14y ago

> Has anyone ever had any success getting a good part-time job or downsizing your position at a company? Once, at a contract gig, I was offered to work "flexible hours" which meant 16-32 hours a week. That was after putting in 12 months of 40-45 hours a week, essentially proving that I was good, reliable, etc. So it could happen, by switching to hourly pay, and/or becoming a contractor, working for people who already know you. And as theabraham notes, this may result in losing benefits.

vojtarek 14y ago

I have same question, but about management position.

julsonl 14y ago

It depends on the company. The company I work for right now had a software architect that worked 3 days a week only for a couple of months or so before going full-time (I think he was building a multi-monitor helicopter flight sim setup if I remember it right). From my talks with our CEO it seemed like he was open to that idea. I'm definitely going to do something like this in the future though, but I'm still contemplating whether the 20-hour, 50% salary cut idea is better than working full time and taking a sabbatical afterwards.

shahchip 14y ago

I'm an engineering student right now but I know exactly how you feel. I like the content but the thought of working full time terrifies me. I spent a couple of months as an intern/observer in a company and I can't imagine devoting my life to work. It would almost certainly make me burn out in a year or two. I've been looking into jobs that work few hours but are highly qualified and they're usually outside consultants that get called in a couple of days a week. Apart from them there was one person who worked in a refinery that only had to be at work 20ish hours a week. She spent most of the rest at home on call or simply working from home. I recall that she enjoyed it.

jabbernotty 14y ago
To me, making a 40 hour work week is not the same as "devoting my life to work". Obviously there is a relationship there, but even if you have two hours of travel time each workday, and you work 8 hours a day (add a half hour break), there is time to do other things than work on a workday.
- shahchip 14y ago
  Well I'd argue that it's definitely devoting your life to work. It's an activity that you spent a massive amount of daytime doing for most of your life. It may not be the only thing you devote your life to but it is definitely one of them and probably the largest one. I've never been able to get up after a day of work and do something. I'm just done after working for 8 hours. I'd just sit and do nothing wait to recover "energy" and as soon as I recover back to normal work starts again.
  - wyan 14y ago
    That sense of exhaustion eventually goes away after a few months working full-time. That said, even now I feel the amount of interesting stuff I can do on a week day after work is pretty limited -- not just because of time, but because of brainpower. And you can't really use every weekend either, or you'll burn out fast. So a) make peace with getting a lot less done, or b) find a way not to work full time.

leftnode 14y ago

I did at a previous job. It was a small web development shop owned by a husband and wife, and around 7 employees. I was the lead developer there and getting bored with the work. I proposed that I work 3 days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and be paid 60% of my salary. I spent Tuesday and Thursday working on my side projects. Eventually the company went out of business, but I had great success with working part time.

zgembo 14y ago
there is actually e-book with similar topic: Bring Back the 40-Hour Work Week http://jailfreebook.com/ http://jailfreebook.com/
capisce 14y ago
Were you actually only 60 % as productive? Otherwise it seems like a bad deal.

duck 14y ago

I've seen a couple companies looking for exactly that recently (I'll see if I can find them), but I think you might have to adjust your numbers a bit... 50% cut in salary != hours/2 as it won't cover their fixed costs (like healthcare and G&A costs).

fatbird 14y ago

Few employers are open to ideas like this. At the end of the day, they might make a concession to keep you happy if you're valuable, but few businesses want to structure themselves to operate in this fashion. However, you can accomplish something similar. If you only want half your salary, work full time for a year while saving half your salary, then fund a year long sabbatical for yourself. If at the end of that sabbatical you've done something interesting (created a new open source project, bootstrapped a business), then applying for a job at the end of that year will be easy. Rinse/repeat as desired.

waqf 14y ago
Better to do six months/six months (stupid income tax).

larsberg 14y ago

Even if your company offers it, you should be careful about taking it. There are a few downsides: - Your advancement and promotion chances are basically zero in such a position. Not due to some conspiracy, but just because you're not around for half of the conversations people are having about the direction of the product/team. - If it isn't standard practice for the whole team, they all start to slightly hate you, no matter the pay difference. Need drewb's input? Oh, it's Tuesday; that will have to wait until Thursday when special-boy is back in the office. I've seen this over and over (including on my own teams) with people who had been granted special work accommodations, and there's nothing you can really do about it, even as a manager. If you want more time to yourself, I would much more highly recommend attempting to negotiate regular unpaid leaves of absence for a couple of months. Travel the world; really unplug from work; etc. It's both easier to fit into your career and your company's plans. Or just go into consulting and only take n-month contracts that fit your lifestyle needs.

kamaal 14y ago
This is one of those annoying problems of working remotely. Unfortunately if you are working from home, you might be building mountains. But no one is seeing you do it, what that generally means is unless you announce explicitly what you are doing people think you are doing nothing. Contrary to whatever one thinks and the truth is. Perceptions matter a lot more than the reality.
- jonathanwallace 14y ago
  Again, I have to disagree with you 100%. :) I posit that "this" is one of those annoying problems of working. If you don't make sure you communicate your success, you won't be successful. People who don't celebrate, share and broadcast their success usually aren't successful. Even when they are in the office 100% of the time.
- irahul 14y ago
  > Unfortunately if you are working from home, you might be building mountains. But no one is seeing you do it, what that generally means is unless you announce explicitly what you are doing people think you are doing nothing. I don't announce anything unless you count commits and issue tracker updates. I am being paid for my work. Those who pay me give me the requirements and know it very well what is being done. Well, since they are paying for it and want it done, how can they not know what is being done?

pwaring 14y ago

I've done it, though not to such a big extent. I work four days a week instead of five, due to a combination of less technical work available and wanting to explore other opportunities. Having a day off mid-week is also incredibly useful if you want to get things done like visiting the bank, which is always packed at the weekend. Even on five days a week though, I was working less than 40 hours. Most people I know work 37.5 hours (if you exclude lunch), and the Working Time Directive places restrictions on the number of hours you can be asked to work if you're in the EU.

bokonist 14y ago

Software is generally a winner-take-all market. Software has zero marginal cost, so the company with the most revenue can invest the most upfront into making a better product, giving it even more revenue. Furthermore, in most cases there is little incentive for customers to ever use the second best product in a segment. So when building software, you not only have to meet the customers needs, you have to meet the customer needs better than any competitor. If you produce a product that is half as good or improve the product half as quickly, you do not lose just half your revenue, you could lose all of it. The second aspect of software development is that a developer working 40 hours a week is more productive than two developers working 20 hours a week. With the sole developer, there less communication overhead, less management overhead, and the ratio of productive time to time learning the system and understanding the interlocking parts is higher. This is the classic mythical man month problem. The third aspect of software development is that directly measuring output and effort of an engineer is very difficult. So as a proxy, managers look for signs of passion and engagement. If you are passionate and smart, but are slow to implement some feature, management will believe the feature was simply more difficult than anticipated. If you generally are not passionate about your work, and are slow to implement some feature, management will think you are slacking and fire you. Creating an effective company requires creating a culture of passion and hardwork, and having one person only work part-time can decrease the morale of those putting in 40+ hours. Asking to only work half-time betrays a lack of passion, and could be a bad career move. So the net result of these factors is that a company must work at maximum efficiency, and maximum efficiency comes when all developers are working 40+ hours a week. It is not in the company's interest to let you work only 20 hours a week, and it could indeed be risky if you bring the idea up with management. I should also note that the above dynamic is not just the case in software, but in virtually all high paying jobs, from professional athlete to corporate lawyer to corporate executive. Virtually all high paying jobs have some sort of competitive, winner take all dynamic in the market at large (the winners being the ones who get paid well), and within the company, the high paid people are the ones with specialized, hard to replace skills, that have a large ramp up time to learn effectively (learning a large code base, learning a set of legal traditions, learning how to hit a curveball, etc, etc). Thus in order to earn the high pay you must work long hours, and you must work many productive hours on top of a base of ramping-up hours.

dorkrawk 14y ago

I did the sub-40 hour thing for a while at an old job. I was starting to go to grad school full time, so I asked my company if I could could move from being on salary to being an hourly employee and work about 20+ hours a week. Because it was better for them to keep me on in a limited capacity rather than spend the money hiring and training someone new they were really cooperative. The extra time flexibility was great, I got to keep my insurance with them, and got out of grad school debt free! If you can find yourself a good non-standard situation that works well for you (and your future) take it!

Sukotto 14y ago

Or you can bank the excess cash and "retire" as soon as 4% of your savings equals your annual expenses. (Work hard to maximize your salary and minimize your expenses) Between now and achieving that 4%, focus on excelling at the things you find the most interesting and building relationships in your industry so that once you cross the freedom line you can take on the occasional consulting gig to keep things interesting. (I'm pushing 40 now and sincerely wish I had done the above when starting out in my twenties)

throwaway1979 14y ago
If I knew where to get a risk free, consistent 4% return these days ...
- bryanlarsen 14y ago
  More like 7%, because that should be 4% after inflation...
  - georgefox 14y ago
    Shouldn't the percentage of savings go down if you adjust for inflation (i.e., larger savings)?
    - jdmichal 14y ago
      Inflation is always bad for capital and good for debt.
- marvin 14y ago
  You won't get risk-free 4% return after inflation, but you can (probably) expect a 4% annual return on average if you put your money in the stock market. At least this is the assumption that the Norwegian Pension Fund, the world's largest stock market fund, operates with. Although it has been discussed to reduce this number to 3%.
  - 14y ago

redcircle 14y ago

Make it happen! You'll be buying back your time, which is the most valuable thing you have. I wish that I'd done this when I was young and single. Now I have a family, and am the only income earner, so I have to work 40 hours (for now). A friend of mine works part time, and spends the rest of the time in discovering and finding himself. I've been having to do this while raising my family, so that I don't screw them up. Full-time work can easily become an obsessive-compulsive escape from finding oneself. But work isn't what makes us happy in life (it is part of it, but not all of it).

wildgift 14y ago
I'm middle aged and just median income, because I did things like retire a while in my 20s to just live and learn. I have some regrets, but not many.

jayferd 14y ago

It depends on the company. I have done this, and quite successfully. I don't think I'll be going back to the 40-hour week any time soon. I think you'll have better luck with tiny companies that can be more flexible, and also tend to be more starved for engineering skill. But YMMV.

K2h 14y ago

We lost an engineer recently because of a desire to change careers. I still see him once a week - as he still works one full day a week for us as a contractor. It has worked out very well in that the knowledge has not been lost and provided continuity in that area. I wish I could work him more time - but he likes things they way they are. This is probably a fringe case - and I do not recommend you pursue it unless you are in excellent standing with your manager and are not currently overloaded with responsibility. This type of transition doesn't work if many people are solely dependent on you - which may give you something to work towards - others cross trained directly in your task - so you can have time away without impact to the company.

evolve2k 14y ago

The trick is not to seek 'part time' but rather seek a contract and let them know you can only do three days a week. It's working very well for me. Despite what everyone is saying its a marketplace and the demand for good devs/designers is big.

bybjorn 14y ago

Easy fix: Become a freelancer :-)

chubbard 14y ago

Why not become a contractor and you are in control of how much you work because you really work for yourself? You might not control when you are on a project, but work hard for 3-4 months build up income, then when its done take some time off an live off what you built up. No need to leave money on the table because you don't think you need it now. Go travel, tour with your band, sit on your couch and eat cheesy poofs and pot pie, whatever. You can work as much or as little as you like. Before you brush this off what you're talking about is a very tenuous relationship with your employer that isn't providing you any stability, AND more than likely you'll loose your benefits. Those are the same things you'd be giving up if you went freelance so there is little downside to freelance vs part time.

eel 14y ago

I had success doing something similar at a previous company. I was able to switch to part-time at an equivalent hourly rate. My reason was that I was finish to go to graduate school simultaneously. I wasn't able to keep most benefits, but it wasn't a huge concern since I was young and still in grad school. The company got a good deal (without benefits, they got more work per dollar), and I got a good deal (in finding a part-time job at a higher rate than I would have anywhere else.)

tucaz 14y ago

My case is not exactly as yours, but no one's really is so... I made a project for an eCommerce company a few years ago and then left but always kept in touch with people there. I changed jobs and took a remote position working for a US based company here from Brazil so my working hours were 12-9PM due to the timezone difference so I had free mornings. After a couple of months the first company (eCommerce) made me a proposal for a full time job that I didn't take because it was good working from home at the time. However I said that I could work part time 2-3 hours everyday for them. They took it and it was very good for both of us since I had an extra paycheck (I was earning as much as a full time employee) and they had me working on important stuff with no interruptions since I was there just a little bit everyday and could not be held accountable to day to day things. I stayed like that for the past 3 years when I went working for them full time because I got tired of working remotely for a company that wasn't really in a remote-work-culture. Developers are easy to find. Good developers are not. Bottom line is, if your value proposition to the company is good I cannot see why they wouldn't accept you working part time there. If it's good from the business perspective and you can demonstrate that to them it's pretty much a cost-benefit decision and not an emotionally one. If you are really into it and wanna give it a try (obviously with some risks) you could say: "Shall we try for a month and see what happens?". After the first month there is not going back ;)

minikomi 14y ago

I currently work 4 days a week on a barebones salary in Tokyo of all places .. If your priorities are aligned with the lifestyle I recommended it! Good luck.

kephra 14y ago

I was working 20 hours, 16 hours at home + 4 in office in the last two jobs. Imho a coder is more productive if he focus 4 hours a day, then if he procrastinates 10 hours.

barce 14y ago

I did this before when I went back to school to focus on CS classes. I already had a degree, but made it clear to my employer that these CS classes would benefit him later on. Irony is that the classes weren't applicable but the friendships made paid off dividends.

jrochkind1 14y ago

I have ("Hey, how about you pay me 80% of my salary for 80% time?"), but I work at a university. And 80% is the lowest one can go in HR rules here and still get health insurance. (If the US acted like EVERY other non-poor country and had nationalized health insurance, this would be a LOT easier). And they actually probably end up getting quite a bit more out of me than actual 80% time, I end up working longer hours on the days I do work than I used to, but not so long that I'm working as much as I used to, and it's worth it to me to get a 3 day weekend every week.

autarch 14y ago

As part of my negotiations for my current job, I negotiated a 4-day (32 hour) work week. I take Fridays off and do my own projects and volunteer work. I've had a couple jobs where I've done 32 or 36 hour weeks in the past as well. But I also have a strong reputation in my field so I'm able to leverage a bit of personal branding ("I'll get more done in 32 hours than anyone else you can hire for 40.") That may be a tough sell for you at this point. But as others have pointed out, contracting may be a good fit for you if you want to work less. My advice if you go this route is to come up with the highest hourly rate you think you can ask for, then ask for at least 25% more (in the US I'd suggest asking for at least $75 per hour even if you don't have much experience).

jonathanwallace 14y ago
I agree with your advice re: consulting 100%.

digitalengineer 14y ago

I did. I've been working 36 hours a week for design agency for the past few years. Having a good planning and team is key. The law here in the Netherlands was changed so a boss couldn't say 'no' when you asked to work (a bit) less. Now it's my afternoon to arrange all sorts of stuff and to go out and play with my kid.

xbryanx 14y ago

You should consider bringing your talents to a mission based non-profit. In many non-profits, half time employees are more common, and the pay will absolutely be less. You might also just find the work that much more meaningful.