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

Why not hire part-time developers?

aklos.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 306 posts

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#101

Post by Animats »

bogwog wrote: post #68
Animats wrote: post #54

"They want rockstars, but they themselves are not that." Yes, that problem. Zappos is a shoe store. Uber is a taxi company.

I wonder if hiring big teams is a status/ego thing. I’ve never been in that position, but I couldn’t imagine myself deciding that I need an Uber-scale development team to build a service like Uber. Just seems wasteful and like it’d be a nightmare to manage.

I wonder if hiring big teams is a status/ego thing.

In a few cases, yes, definitely. Soylent was an extreme example. They went on and on about their overcomplicated "tech stack", at a time when, from their sales volume, they were processing a few sales transactions per minute. All they needed was a basic shopping cart program. They're still around, now classified as a "food products" company, selling wholesale, and considered an overpriced Slim-Fast.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#102

Post by jamesmishra »

uranium wrote: post #77
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you start that conversation? How was it received? What do you do in your not-work time?

When I came back from paternity leave with my first child, I told my boss I really wanted to go part time, and he supported me. Google had a standard easy of doing it, so it was just a matter of getting approval up to VP level, which went pretty smoothly. When I applied to transfer to Makani, we negotiated a bit, and decided that I'd go up to 80% because I really wanted the job and they apparently really wanted me. W…

Why not hire for part-time roles at Elemano? Didn't you just say that you are working there part-time?

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#103

Post by bryanrasmussen »

qrohlf wrote: post #10

I experienced this in the extreme recently. I'm a very experienced dev in a very in-demand field. Money is not a huge priority for me in my career. Flexibility is. I have a proven track record of success in part-time roles after converting to part time at my previous company (after 2 years of full-time, of course). I spent 3+ months trying to get part-time engagements, and was willing to consider both consulting and…

Most of my consulting has been full-time but I have had a few part time - generally these are in:

1. not in demand fields but fields that for some reason are momentarily needed by the company.

2. fields the company hopes to teach someone else to handle.

3. using technology that the company wants to move off of because they don't have anyone that knows it anymore.

Those fields - Accessibility (achieving WCAG 1.0 conformance), XSL-T - had an xml + xsl-t generating website, team is rebuilding to React and know nothing about the old tech, DSSL stylesheets that needed to be moved to XSL-FO. I also nearly had a part time JQuery maintenance 2 month project about a year and a half ago.

My suspicion, if it's an in-demand field people want you full time, that stuff is IN DEMAND after all.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#104

Post by ec109685 »

TrackerFF wrote: post #96
issa wrote: post #2

I think your basic premise might not be correct. If you only are getting 4 productive hours of work done per day, then something is wrong. I would say you probably only get 4 productive hours of WRITING CODE (maybe much less), but during that long lunch break, or bike ride, or whatever, you are probably thinking about the problem (consciously or not). If you work part time on two different projects, you simply won't…

I'll throw out a typical day for me, a data analyst: 0800 workday starts 0800-0830 daily standup 0830-0930 check and reply to emails *0930-1100 ACTUAL WORK* 1100-1130 lunch 1130-1200 check and reply to emails 1200-1300 meeting with [some product] team over 1300-1315 coffee break with colleagues *1315-1500 ACTUAL WORK* 1500-1600 Some meeting 1600 workday ends As you can see, that gives me less than 4 hours of "real" w…

I don’t get how replying to email and attending meetings isn’t real work.

If you aren’t adding value to your employer by performing those tasks, ask your manager to abstain.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#105

Post by issa »

TrackerFF wrote: post #96
issa wrote: post #2

I think your basic premise might not be correct. If you only are getting 4 productive hours of work done per day, then something is wrong. I would say you probably only get 4 productive hours of WRITING CODE (maybe much less), but during that long lunch break, or bike ride, or whatever, you are probably thinking about the problem (consciously or not). If you work part time on two different projects, you simply won't…

I'll throw out a typical day for me, a data analyst: 0800 workday starts 0800-0830 daily standup 0830-0930 check and reply to emails *0930-1100 ACTUAL WORK* 1100-1130 lunch 1130-1200 check and reply to emails 1200-1300 meeting with [some product] team over 1300-1315 coffee break with colleagues *1315-1500 ACTUAL WORK* 1500-1600 Some meeting 1600 workday ends As you can see, that gives me less than 4 hours of "real" w…

I would hesitate to apply this in all situations, but in a lot of them, all the meetings, and maybe even the emails (although that seems excessive), help you when it comes to making decisions during the "actual" work portions of your day.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#107

Post by issa »

ec109685 wrote: post #104
TrackerFF wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll throw out a typical day for me, a data analyst: 0800 workday starts 0800-0830 daily standup 0830-0930 check and reply to emails *0930-1100 ACTUAL WORK* 1100-1130 lunch 1130-1200 check and reply to emails 1200-1300 meeting with [some product] team over 1300-1315 coffee break with colleagues *1315-1500 ACTUAL WORK* 1500-1600 Some meeting 1600 workday ends As you can see, that gives me less than 4 hours of "real" w…

I don’t get how replying to email and attending meetings isn’t real work. If you aren’t adding value to your employer by performing those tasks, ask your manager to abstain.

I am jealous of your work experience that you can make this comment. In organizations that run really well, this isn't an issue. But there are a lot of development jobs that involve frequent touch-points with middle managers who don't bring much to the table except for taking time out of developer's days to appear busy. And I say that with no offense intended to any middle managers. Good project managers are worth their weight in gold.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#108

Post by BadCookie »

me_me_mu_mu wrote: post #33

Don't see this working in USA. I've never been to Europe, but work with many who are from there. You get socialized healthcare, cities with easy transit, and for the most part things are close. In the US, we don't have health insurance unless we buy it ourselves ($$$$) or our company provides it ($). We don't have easy transit in most cities, and also people do live far away from the business centers. That's why in t…

The ACA made it possible to go part-time in the US. It costs just over $1k/month for my family of three for a silver plan with no subsidies.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#109

Post by exdsq »

makapuf wrote: post #97
the_gipsy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these figures x/5 weekdays, a range of daily hours, or something else?

I (a man) was 4/5 when my kids were small but I'm currently 9/10. Contractually it's yearly, but it ends up weekly. 9/10 tends to be difficult to distinguish from full time, since you get more focused after this mid week break.

I think if I was to go for 9/10 I’d argue for 10/10 salaries because as you mention it’s practically indistinguishable

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#110

Post by Gigachad »

issa wrote: post #107
ec109685 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t get how replying to email and attending meetings isn’t real work. If you aren’t adding value to your employer by performing those tasks, ask your manager to abstain.

I am jealous of your work experience that you can make this comment. In organizations that run really well, this isn't an issue. But there are a lot of development jobs that involve frequent touch-points with middle managers who don't bring much to the table except for taking time out of developer's days to appear busy. And I say that with no offense intended to any middle managers. Good project managers are worth th…

It sounds like you just lack context. These people aren’t adding any value to _your_ day but they are adding value to the business. They stay informed on the status of everything going on in their sphere and use that to keep key people informed and spot when things are going wrong.
Post reply on HN