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Ask HN: First hire offered to work part-time – what should I do?

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Re: Ask HN: First hire offered to work part-time – what should I do?

#71

Post by mattlutze »

If this person is bright, capable, and has your trust, you’d likely do well to bring him on.

You may be surprised what someone can get done in 3 days a week. You’ll have a as well a grateful employee, who it sounds like has a range of interests (this May mean even more critical thinking and solution creativity for you).

Also, it’s at least been my experience, that when we grow out of really small teams, it can take a while to define really well what a role should look like. This is further then an opportunity to test this 4th employee role without paying for downtime during that definition phase.

And who knows, maybe he falls in love with your project even more after he starts and you can re-approach full time work in the heat future.

Re: Ask HN: First hire offered to work part-time – what should I do?

#72

Post by dangus »

mindcrime wrote: post #5

Meh... In most cases, talking about "passion" in this context is just a roundabout way of saying "we want people to work harder for less compensation." Expecting founders to have "passion" is fine, since they (presumably) own equity stakes that will make them wealthy if the company is successful. But unless you're giving your early hires a large stake in the company, I'd suggest dropping the "passion" verbiage and tr…

> Hire the guy (or gal)

Ugh, they’re called people. “Hire the person” or “hire them” works fine. The way you’re saying this makes it sound like you expect that the candidate will most likely be male, and that a girl (never mind someone who is gender fluid or genderqueer: doesn’t exist in your sentence) is a secondary choice, relegated to a secondary option in parenthesis.

I can understand if you think that I’m reading too far into this, but our use of language is part of this problem. It’s no better to assume a teacher or nurse is a “she.”

Re: Ask HN: First hire offered to work part-time – what should I do?

#73

Post by spottybanana »

skrebbel wrote: post #51
superzadeh wrote: post #32

Controversial opinion but learned through experience the hard way here, repeatedly proven, anyone that you feel "like lack of commitment from him could possibly influence our culture in a negative way", just pass (at least until you have product market fit or a repeatable business running). As soon as shit hits the fan, they will either leave or drop performance, and you will have to let them go. In your case, I thin…

Fellow founder here. I think I agree with the gist of what you write, but I disagree that a part-time commitment is a good indicator of the level of emotional commitment. Passion is important, and there's a huge spectrum between "passion as an excuse to get people to work many hours without compensating them" and the bill-by-the-hour contractor attitude. You don't want your first employees to be anywhere near the rig…

> Part-time is the future, folks, accept it, embrace it.

I don't have problems with having part-time employees, but quite difficult to see it being "the future". There are some people who want part-time possibilities, but in my experience majority prefer full-time employment. Also usually full-time employment is also desirable for employer.

However often those who want part-time deals, are quite talented etc, so it makes sense to make arrangements with them. Also sometimes part-time is good match for the employer as well, if the workload matches that for some reason.

Re: Ask HN: First hire offered to work part-time – what should I do?

#74

Post by dwnvoted2hell »

This sounds like exactly the kind of practical guy you need. Motivated, with a feel of responsibility for previous work. Once he gets involved, I think he'll eventually transition full time. If not, he's still a good resource, and as a part-timer great for flexibility and pay. Good for preventing too heavy of a money burn if you have any concern for such things - here's a hint: you should.

Re: Ask HN: First hire offered to work part-time – what should I do?

#75

Post by jklein11 »

bwb wrote: post #10
rriepe wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, "passion" is a huge red flag word for me. In the same realm as "ninja" or "rockstar."

What do you all call the feeling around enjoying the work you do because of the mission and/or technical challenge and/or team? Or, the feeling of wanting to do high quality work wherever you are? Generally, I've never worried about that being called passion.

I would call that professionalism

Re: Ask HN: First hire offered to work part-time – what should I do?

#76

Post by hocuspocus »

test6554 wrote: post #15

I would imagine that many top DEVs would love to work for a company that allows part-time work and be happy to take less money to do so.

It's very common in some countries, here in Switzerland I could literally reduce my work hours to 90 or 80% with a couple clicks on the company HR portal, and even further down with approval from my manager.

But even in the US, I know people at big companies that take one or two months of unpaid leave. Would it be a problem to take every Friday off as unpaid leave?

Re: Ask HN: First hire offered to work part-time – what should I do?

#77

Post by trevi »

Had the some doubts for our first hire - he wanted to work 4 days a week. He seemed committed and enthusiastic about our mission, so we went ahead.

Best choice we ever made: any doubt about commitment, passion, etc were blown away after a few weeks. He is now a cornerstone of our team. He still works 4 days a week. Now several key team members work 2.5 to 4 days a week, and we're doing great.

Looking back: I should have asked myself: what is better, working 1 day a week more or passion and a good technical fit?

Re: Ask HN: First hire offered to work part-time – what should I do?

#78

Post by bwb »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #53
bwb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but you don't know which type of company it is until you talk to them or do some research right? I wouldn't want to just assume that when so many good companies use that word as well.

> I wouldn't want to just assume that when so many good companies use that word as well. Name three. I'm yet to see a single company expecting "passion" that would be doing something worthwhile, or even something one can actually be passionate about.

It is a bit relative to the person I would imagine. Some people might be passionate about working at Canva, some people might be passionate about working at Instagram, etc...

Depends a bit on what you enjoy doing and how you want to fill your day I guess.

Re: Ask HN: First hire offered to work part-time – what should I do?

#79

Post by codr7 »

clarry wrote: post #26
bwb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you all call the feeling around enjoying the work you do because of the mission and/or technical challenge and/or team? Or, the feeling of wanting to do high quality work wherever you are? Generally, I've never worried about that being called passion.

> Or, the feeling of wanting to do high quality work wherever you are? We have a word that literally translates as "professional pride." Now I'm not sure it has the right vibe in English, but it captures the idea that you do high quality work and you wouldn't do a sloppy job, even if the job sucks. For example, I would like such a plumber, because I know they will be careful not to make a mess, and they will clean up…

I learned that when I lived 6 months in an Ashram, they called it Karma Yoga. What it usually meant in practice was easy task, wrong tools. Like clearing the entire area around the building from solid ice using a shovel, or cleaning a thousand small potatoes with a tiny brush. The kind of tasks it's very difficult to feel anything like passion for. But it's still perfectly possible to enjoy doing a good job, even without expecting anything in return.
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