Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 271 posts

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#201

Post by krageon »

scruple wrote: post #150
Apreche wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a software engineer. I'm working at a startup now after basically refusing to work at start-ups, or any kind of tech company, my entire career prior. I always worked at normal stable trustworthy non-tech companies that happened to need software engineers. I would still prefer to go back to the non-tech non-startup industry, but the offer was too good. The process took less than a year. I entertained pitches from…

> I would still prefer to go back to the non-tech non-startup industry. As someone who has spent > 15 years in the tech-only industry, both in massive corporations and startups, I'm curious to know how someone finds these roles. I think I'd quite like something like this when I am ready to move on from my current (startup) role.

You find them by applying to non-tech companies that are large :)

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#202

Post by squeaky-clean »

Fr3dd1 wrote: post #180
Apreche wrote: post #19

I just recently started a 32 hour a week salaried job. Here’s my story. I was at a very good job. My ultimate goal is to just go to the beach and not work at all. I realized that’s too big of a leap, so I set a shorter term more realistic goal of working 4 days a week. My employer at the time rejected the idea, so instead of ignoring recruiters like usual, I answered them. If a job wasn’t immoral, the interview proce…

Context: I do recruiting as a team lead. I am happy you found what you were looking for. But from my pov, if you want to work less than fulltime and thats a non negotiable thing for you, please be open up front with the people who interview you. Typically when a full time position is offered, the workload of a full person is needed (lets not discuss if 8h of work a day results in better or more output than less hours…

Ironically I think this attitude is what encourages the bait-and-switch scenario. If someone tells you before interviews they want to work 4 days, 100% chance they'll be rejected. But if a perfect candidate gets to the final stage and then tells you they will only work 4 days the odds are much better and the leverage is on their side.

Also there isn't really part time / full time with salaried work. I doubt you're paying overtime if someone stays in the office for over 40 hours. Hiring for presence over productivity doesn't seem like a good metric.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#203

Post by krageon »

bilsbie wrote: post #95
Apreche wrote: post #19

I just recently started a 32 hour a week salaried job. Here’s my story. I was at a very good job. My ultimate goal is to just go to the beach and not work at all. I realized that’s too big of a leap, so I set a shorter term more realistic goal of working 4 days a week. My employer at the time rejected the idea, so instead of ignoring recruiters like usual, I answered them. If a job wasn’t immoral, the interview proce…

You wouldn’t get tired of the beach if you went every day?

Speaking from experience, no.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#204

Post by hoseja »

Fr3dd1 wrote: post #180
Apreche wrote: post #19

I just recently started a 32 hour a week salaried job. Here’s my story. I was at a very good job. My ultimate goal is to just go to the beach and not work at all. I realized that’s too big of a leap, so I set a shorter term more realistic goal of working 4 days a week. My employer at the time rejected the idea, so instead of ignoring recruiters like usual, I answered them. If a job wasn’t immoral, the interview proce…

Context: I do recruiting as a team lead. I am happy you found what you were looking for. But from my pov, if you want to work less than fulltime and thats a non negotiable thing for you, please be open up front with the people who interview you. Typically when a full time position is offered, the workload of a full person is needed (lets not discuss if 8h of work a day results in better or more output than less hours…

"Please be an easier mark for me."

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#205

Post by krageon »

icelancer wrote: post #183
Apreche wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not. I would live in a beach house, and I would indeed spend many hours laying in the sand, swimming in the ocean, etc. But I wouldn't literally spend the entire rest of my life doing nothing else at all. There would be socializing with friends and family, traveling, and taking care of my affairs. I would also spend plenty of time on hobbies of all sorts. The key is that I would be living a life of complet…

>> I would not spend one moment of my remaining short life doing something purely because a capitalist system forced me to do so. That's the ultimate, probably unachievable, goal. Given your profession, a capitalist society is by far the most likely way for you to get what you want. What do socialist-type EU countries pay software engineers again compared to the United States? How much money do you need to save to ac…

Statistically the US is also the best country to end up destitute, homeless and harassed by the police regularly. Plus - what are "socialist-type EU countries"?

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#206

Post by krageon »

Lutger wrote: post #194

Dutch here. Haven't worked more than 32 hours a week in 20 years. I did downgrade to 24 a week for a while, convinced my boss I wanted to do a masters and he let me. Salary was just enough to pay for everything. Its mostly normal to work 32 hours in my country. I feel 32 should be the norm actually. In my line of work - software development, 32, 36 and 40 hours are all very common. Less than 32 is really uncommon tho…

> Dutch

> mostly normal to work 32 hour

It is absolutely not if you work in the tech sector. The expectation is full-time and this is 40 hours at most companies.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#207

Post by ABoredBirb »

4 days/32hrs, working at current job for over 2 years now. It's not a common arrangement over here, sadly. I just decided that that is how i want to do things and simply asked for it, when looking for jobs, until i got a good offer that accepted this. I did take 20% off from my salary, were i working 40hrs, but still ended up with more than i was making at my previous job. I like it, the weekday/weekend balance seems just right.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#208

Post by daniel_iversen »

Fr3dd1 wrote: post #180
Apreche wrote: post #19

I just recently started a 32 hour a week salaried job. Here’s my story. I was at a very good job. My ultimate goal is to just go to the beach and not work at all. I realized that’s too big of a leap, so I set a shorter term more realistic goal of working 4 days a week. My employer at the time rejected the idea, so instead of ignoring recruiters like usual, I answered them. If a job wasn’t immoral, the interview proce…

Context: I do recruiting as a team lead. I am happy you found what you were looking for. But from my pov, if you want to work less than fulltime and thats a non negotiable thing for you, please be open up front with the people who interview you. Typically when a full time position is offered, the workload of a full person is needed (lets not discuss if 8h of work a day results in better or more output than less hours…

Yeah, and potentially the 3-5 other people who interviewed them as well! That would get me a bit fired up if they didn't ask me that until the end of the process.. as bad as when people tell me they want a remote role when it's clearly advertised as an in-city office-first role!

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#209

Post by dzogchen »

Yes I recently changed to a 4 day job with higher pay. Right now I have a week off while taking up only two vacation days, because I worked the last two Fridays. Pretty neat.

It's pretty common in Europe I would say. In Germany you even have a right to reduce your hours after half a year of working somewhere, and your employee has to accept it unless they have a very good reason to reject it (e.g. it would be devastating for the company).

Good software developers are still scarse and lots of companies are competing for them, so generally companies are very accomodating for these wishes.

I said working 4 days does not necessarily make me less productive. And on top I use the extra time I have to become better at my work and contribute to open source (which is true).

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#210

Post by ace2358 »

jen729w wrote: post #27

Yes. I’m a contractor at a large IT integrator in Australia. It helps that my boss was (see below) a good friend. I think it was mid-last-year, I just realised I’d be mentally healthier if I worked 4 days a week. So I said, I’m going to start working 4 days a week. And he said, okay. Because he’s great. And it is glorious . You go from spending almost three-quarters of your life at work (71.4%) to just over half (57.…

Just wanted to say I loved readin Johnny.Decimal and it made me feel good about some of my crazy ideas on organisation!

Can’t say I love Canberra but it’s always lovely seeing a fellow aussi on HN.

Keep up the excellent work mate!

Post reply on HN