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Ask HN: I want to be a 40h/week intermediate developer.How do I stay employable?

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Re: Ask HN: I want to be a 40h/week intermediate developer.How do I stay employable?

#31

Post by somethingsimple »

some_account wrote: post #23
somethingsimple wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked at Microsoft and being now at another big tech company, that hasn't been my experience at all. Those companies seem to be trying to mimic startup culture internally, so they promote the "entrepreneurial employee" idea and try to organize groups internally as small startups. I wish I could do the 9-5 thing at those companies (given the great pay and benefits, adding a predictable and sane work schedule w…

Jesus. You would be alone in the office after 17.00 if you were in Sweden, and people would think you are a sucker for wasting your life in an office. You would be seen as someone who has no life. You would not get respect or higher salary here. You have to admit, the Swedish way is sane while your culture is crazy.

Before immigrating to the US, I actually looked into Sweden. It seems nearly impossible to immigrate there :/

Everything I hear about your country sounds amazing!

Re: Ask HN: I want to be a 40h/week intermediate developer.How do I stay employable?

#32

Post by swatcoder »

muzani wrote: post #14
codegeek wrote: post #6

You sound like a good candidate to be a freelancer. Decide your own hours, mostly your own terms and take breaks whenever you want. Only problem is that you have to learn to sell a lot more than what you do as a regular job candidate. "I only like to stay for a year or less at a given place and then quit " This is going to start looking bad after a while for full-time jobs. It is perfectly ok if you are freelancing t…

Freelancer here. Sorry for the downvote. But 40h/week is not what you get when you're freelancing. Freelance is a mix of sales, dev, consulting. You may get 20h/week some days, 60h/week other days. There's an awful lot of stress that comes with arguing with yourself and pushing yourself to keep moving. I think OP just wants to be comfortable and relaxed.

Freelancer here.

You can absolutely be comfortable and relaxed and have a steady schedule as a freelancer. Freelancing does incorporate more activities and skills than being an employee with the underlying trade and so it doesn't suit everyone. It might not suit the OP.

But not for because of instability. You can fit all those other activities and skills into the same schedule as the trade work with good discipline and experienced planning. And you can counter the financial stress of any feast/famine cycling of the work with good budgeting.

For most, it takes some time to get the hang of it, but freelancing is not a perpetual hustle. You don't keep arguing with yourself and pushing yourself forever. It just becomes a job that you happen to run for yourself.

Re: Ask HN: I want to be a 40h/week intermediate developer.How do I stay employable?

#33

Post by bitshepherd »

wpasc wrote: post #15

This may cut against what some other are saying, but I've found larger tech companies to be very reasonable about the 40 hr work weeks. As you stated, you've had experience all at web startups. Startups tend to encourage the "work-all-day-every-day" mentality whereas (at least in my experience) larger tech companies will let you do your 40 hrs. Doesn't necessarily have to be a strictly tech company. A large corp of a…

This does not reflect my experience at the >10k employee level of company. I've had a more reasonable work week out of the 150 employee consulting firm than I have the 10k employee public software company.

At the >=100k employee, multiple-decades-in-business, old guard type of company, I had the inverse of what you're relaying, as well. On-call was routinely referred to as the 'week of hell'. Fires tended to crop up due to complacency, general feelings of 'job security', and lack of routine upkeep. These sessions in self-flagellation are dutifully shouldered as 'just the thing it does around this time of month'. These aren't fly by night, back of a postcard companies, but instantly recognizable brands, known as market leaders and 'best company to work for' in their community.

The long hours aren't encouraged, but outright mandated with 50 person standups to keep the Confluence pages up to date when email would better suit the task. We mustn't forget the alignment meeting to have the pre-meeting to talk about the plan of the backlog grooming planning meeting.

Re: Ask HN: I want to be a 40h/week intermediate developer.How do I stay employable?

#34

Post by noir_lord »

geospeck wrote: post #27
wpasc wrote: post #15

This may cut against what some other are saying, but I've found larger tech companies to be very reasonable about the 40 hr work weeks. As you stated, you've had experience all at web startups. Startups tend to encourage the "work-all-day-every-day" mentality whereas (at least in my experience) larger tech companies will let you do your 40 hrs. Doesn't necessarily have to be a strictly tech company. A large corp of a…

I've got pretty much the same experience. I worked for a couple of startups in Berlin and England and I had to work like crazy, then I moved to Norway and started working for a large company(Software Engineer for the oil industry). Everything is completely different, reasonable working hours, paid over hours no crazy deadlines. On the other hand everything is much slower, e.g. I had to apply for getting a license for…

Same experience, I work for a manufacturing company, 40hr weeks rule!.

Re: Ask HN: I want to be a 40h/week intermediate developer.How do I stay employable?

#35

Post by abcd_f »

Consider working for government?

Not sure about States, but in Canada you are normally required to not work more than 8 hours a day and you forced take coffee breaks (formerly, smoke breaks) throughout the day. The work load is notoriously low, vacations are very long, bureaucracy is high, layoffs are unheard of and it will take a significant effort on your part to get yourself fired. The downside is that you need to join a union, the pay is low and you won't work with the brightest bulbs. But these are very comfortable and safe jobs, which can be kept for life without much effort... or so I heard.

Re: Ask HN: I want to be a 40h/week intermediate developer.How do I stay employable?

#36

Post by chillax0r »

I've found it's quite possible to work 40ish hours a week at high paying tech jobs if:

- I'm ok if others work longer hours. Some people's competitive advantage is working long hours, and when I was younger, same. At 5:30 just get up, say goodbye to your mates and leave, don't seek approval or apologize for leaving

- I focus on being productive, and am willing to spend a little time each Sunday evening planning out my week so I can hit the ground running. I'm focused and working immediately when I arrive, starting with a 25 minute pomodoro. Avoid burning your best brain reading interesting news.

- I'm very organized and comply with all project management practices. My tickets are pristine and up to date.

- I break up larger tickets into smaller ones. It's clear I'm continually getting shit done by closed tickets and commits (note:this does not mean bullshit commits intended to pad stats, just avoiding packing too much work into a single ticket or commit). Commit at least every 3 days.

- I'm hungry to continually improve my skills and spend 30 to 60 minutes in morning at work learning stuff 3-4 days a week. I don't ask, I just do it. Don't be shy about summarizing ways you have become more skilled relevant to job in performance reviews

- I take accountability for my code and am willing to help outside 9-5 if I'm blocking others, but take care to avoid this by writing well tested software and avoiding committing near EOD especially late on Fridays

- avoid people managing and meetings. A trap to avoid is only being left with 2 hours of coding time per day leaving the evenings as only time to focus

- care about your teammates and show curiosity in their expertise. Proactively take some time to help others in balance with individual work. Don't be shy about mentioning these activities in standups or performance reviews

Ultimately I'm very productive and this is recognized. Sure I could be a "superstar" by working weekends but I just don't make a big deal about the fact that I pretty much work 9-5:30 and get my work done.

A note on finding a match: feel out work life balance during interviews. Just sounding curious about the values and how people tend to work can help you filter out mismatches. There are definitely companies that are explicitly incompatible with 9-5:30.

Re: Ask HN: I want to be a 40h/week intermediate developer.How do I stay employable?

#37

Post by EliRivers »

somethingsimple wrote: post #20
wpasc wrote: post #15

This may cut against what some other are saying, but I've found larger tech companies to be very reasonable about the 40 hr work weeks. As you stated, you've had experience all at web startups. Startups tend to encourage the "work-all-day-every-day" mentality whereas (at least in my experience) larger tech companies will let you do your 40 hrs. Doesn't necessarily have to be a strictly tech company. A large corp of a…

Having worked at Microsoft and being now at another big tech company, that hasn't been my experience at all. Those companies seem to be trying to mimic startup culture internally, so they promote the "entrepreneurial employee" idea and try to organize groups internally as small startups. I wish I could do the 9-5 thing at those companies (given the great pay and benefits, adding a predictable and sane work schedule w…

You may last a couple years being the odd one out doing strictly 40h a week, but performance review is going to catch up with you at some point.

That doesn't sound like a performance review. It sounds like a "are you staying late in the office" review. If the way to get ahead isn't to be good, but to just stay late, is it really worth it? All those extra hours of your life, sitting at a desk, wishing you could go home, but instead flicking through another batch of click-bait articles and padding out your timesheet.

Although I suppose if that's how it is, one could game it. Turn up a little early even, make a big noise so everyone sees you're there (oh, that guy, he's ALWAYS here early - that's what they'll remember, even if you're actually in early less than everyone else), and then just leave for an hour to have a leisurely breakfast. Pretend you have a meeting before lunch and one after, and just go to the gym and take a long lunch; you could even find a "meeting buddy" - someone with whom you have meetings, on the understanding that neither of you will be there. Faking decisions and the like from meetings is easy; generally, you can make the actual decisions in sixty seconds on your own. Identify days that the boss will be in late or leave early and treat those as short days. Get into the habit of podcasts or self-education during those long evenings at the desk. I suppose if one embraces it and games it for what's being measured - time on the clock - it wouldn't be so bad.

Re: Ask HN: I want to be a 40h/week intermediate developer.How do I stay employable?

#38

Post by Swinx43 »

scarface74 wrote: post #17
muzani wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freelancer here. Sorry for the downvote. But 40h/week is not what you get when you're freelancing. Freelance is a mix of sales, dev, consulting. You may get 20h/week some days, 60h/week other days. There's an awful lot of stress that comes with arguing with yourself and pushing yourself to keep moving. I think OP just wants to be comfortable and relaxed.

There is always W2 contracting. Find a few local recruiting companies. You officially work for the recruiting company but you work for short 6-12 month stints for companies. If you’re good in the right market, you should be able to find gigs fast with no sales are marketing.

In the UK that is what is known as Contracting. It definitely sounds right for the OP.

You typically get your contracts through recruiters and they typically last 3 to 6 months (sometimes longer). No sales and hustling, just doing your tech work and keeping up to date in your field.

Re: Ask HN: I want to be a 40h/week intermediate developer.How do I stay employable?

#39

Post by tdsamardzhiev »

muzani wrote: post #14
codegeek wrote: post #6

You sound like a good candidate to be a freelancer. Decide your own hours, mostly your own terms and take breaks whenever you want. Only problem is that you have to learn to sell a lot more than what you do as a regular job candidate. "I only like to stay for a year or less at a given place and then quit " This is going to start looking bad after a while for full-time jobs. It is perfectly ok if you are freelancing t…

Freelancer here. Sorry for the downvote. But 40h/week is not what you get when you're freelancing. Freelance is a mix of sales, dev, consulting. You may get 20h/week some days, 60h/week other days. There's an awful lot of stress that comes with arguing with yourself and pushing yourself to keep moving. I think OP just wants to be comfortable and relaxed.

I have a friend who says "I left 9-5 to work 9-24"

Re: Ask HN: I want to be a 40h/week intermediate developer.How do I stay employable?

#40

Post by hasa »

somethingsimple wrote: post #31
some_account wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus. You would be alone in the office after 17.00 if you were in Sweden, and people would think you are a sucker for wasting your life in an office. You would be seen as someone who has no life. You would not get respect or higher salary here. You have to admit, the Swedish way is sane while your culture is crazy.

Before immigrating to the US, I actually looked into Sweden. It seems nearly impossible to immigrate there :/ Everything I hear about your country sounds amazing!

Impossible to immigrate to Sweden? They take enormous amounts of immigrants every year. If you just find employer, they will handle the bureaucracy for you. At least you'll get a work permission for certain time and it can be extended if conditions are ok. Consider Finland too.
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