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Ask HN: Working part-time in tech?

by jazz_from_hell on 9/7/20, 6:01 PM with 117 comments

• by mbrundle on 9/7/20, 7:54 PM

  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.

• by itamarst on 9/7/20, 7:23 PM

  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...

  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-...).

  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/

• by statquontrarian on 9/7/20, 7:08 PM

  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.

• by liamuk on 9/7/20, 6:11 PM

  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.

• by TACIXAT on 9/7/20, 6:43 PM

  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.

• by semicolonandson on 9/7/20, 10:14 PM

  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

• by biztos on 9/7/20, 8:55 PM

  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.

• by adyer07 on 9/7/20, 6:25 PM

  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.

• by langitbiru on 9/7/20, 6:13 PM

  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

• by daxfohl on 9/7/20, 8:32 PM

  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.

• by sdedovic on 9/7/20, 7:04 PM

  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.

• by golergka on 9/7/20, 7:25 PM

  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.

• by sgt on 9/7/20, 6:11 PM

  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.

• by inglor on 9/7/20, 6:54 PM

  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.

• by mark_and_sweep on 9/7/20, 6:47 PM

  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.

• by limograf on 9/7/20, 6:46 PM

  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?

• by pxue on 9/7/20, 6:47 PM

  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.

• by liberate0287482 on 9/7/20, 7:10 PM

  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

• by gherkinnn on 9/7/20, 6:30 PM

  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.

• by adamsvystun on 9/7/20, 6:53 PM

  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.

• by christophilus on 9/7/20, 6:52 PM

  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.

• by d--b on 9/7/20, 8:52 PM

  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.

• by flats on 9/7/20, 9:36 PM

  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.

• by dlondero on 9/7/20, 6:47 PM

  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!

• by michannne on 9/7/20, 6:25 PM

  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.

• by jakub_g on 9/7/20, 7:18 PM

  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.

• by yodsanklai on 9/7/20, 6:28 PM

  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.

• by chucksmash on 9/8/20, 8:56 PM

  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.

• by ForHackernews on 9/7/20, 6:12 PM

  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.

• by eliasbagley on 9/7/20, 9:14 PM

  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.

• by cercatrova on 9/7/20, 6:25 PM

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

• by jjav on 9/8/20, 6:24 AM

  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.

• by HenryBemis on 9/7/20, 6:13 PM

  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.)

• by RobbieHacks on 9/10/20, 12:09 AM

  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

• by g00gler on 9/7/20, 7:21 PM

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

• by 02020202 on 9/9/20, 11:25 AM

  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.