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

281–290 of 306 posts

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#281

Post by city17 »

berkes wrote: post #253
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…

I'm from the Netherlands, which is parttime king of the world. I haven't worked in a fulltime software development job for almost two decades now. Never has it been a problem. Never was my parttime requirement the reason to not hire me. I don't even consider fulltime an option. I'm very surprised at how people here react to this idea. Untill you pointed out it may be cultural thing. Another reason for me to not even…

Just curious, how many hours have you been working mostly? 32 or even less?

I'm also looking for a part-time dev role in the Netherlands and having some trouble finding anything under 32 hours. I could've signed several jobs already if I were willing to go full time.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#282

Post by _hcuq »

yibg wrote: post #118
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…

We’ve tried part time developers, but so far haven’t been able to do it successfully. The problem usually comes down to 2 things: 1) there is a constant amount of overhead that is always needed regardless of how long you work for in a week. Meetings and collaboration to figure out what to build, discuss issues etc. if these take up 10 hours a week a full time dev has 30 hours to do other things where as a half time d…

10 hours of meetings a week for a dev????

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#283

Post by _hcuq »

rtlfe wrote: post #195
cloogshicer wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meetings and collaboration to figure out what to build, discuss issues etc. if these take up 10 hours a week [...] There's your problem.

What's the alternative? Have some PM+EM write a perfectly detailed spec for you to implement? That sounds like hell. I can't imagine spending all my time building something that I had no input on designing.

Email? The occasional 5 minute phone call to clarify things?

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#284

Post by jrochkind1 »

Aeolun wrote: post #177
jrochkind1 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone who's getting offered $300K+ for a full time job... Even 50% of that is already a full-time salary for many.

Not if you have a 2M mortgage

If you need $300K to support your expenses, than that's a choice you can make -- if you have the ability to have a $300K plus income. That's of course a choice not available to 95% of the USA. (300K happens is around the 95h percentile income in the USA).

That some people live in houses they couldn't pay for on $150K doesn't mean that $150K isn't possibly a "full time salary". $150K is definitely in the category of "a full time salary", many people make this much or less working full time.

That a skilled engineer could possibly make $150K for working 50% time -- is a choice not available to most people, most people don't even have the choice to make $150K working full time! So a skilled engineer has that option, make would be a (healthy) full-time salary for most of the USA, working only half-time. Or anyway would, if employers would hire like this. That's the point I meant to be making.

Income distribution in the US does continue to get more uneven every year.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#285

Post by ricardobayes »

lupire wrote: post #157
6345dhjdsf wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brit here. Garbage. I have simply told the mixed US/UK company I worked for that they had no rights over a personal project of mine and they were cool with that. By your dismissive, failure-assured attitude I can guess that you've never tried.

> Brit here. OK > Garbage. Hmm...

"Litter"

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#286

Post by DerArzt »

Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #278

> Let me throw one more gripe into the mix: with all of the mentioned above, a lot of us don’t want to, or can’t work full-time. None of us even work full-time as it is, considering that most engineers only have about 4 hours of productive energy each day, unless they’re utterly obsessed with a project or pumped full of stimulants. Even then, going over that limit often causes more problems than it fixes. This is a h…

A good balance that I have been trying to achieve is working my tickets, and when I start to really feel drained from that in the day I take a break. This break, can be a short walk, or a longer "study session" in which I crack open the technical book that I am working through at the moment (just finished the Pragmatic Programmer).

Some folks may call the study session slacking, but I have made it a point to work in places that say they want that sort of self directed growth, so I don't sweat it.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#288

Post by wpietri »

lupire wrote: post #154
wpietri wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have to! I've worked at places with very low meeting load. A first-thing, 15-minute daily standup (with the team actually standing in a circle and going over how to share the day's work) can be lively and energizing, which helps me get into a flow state once I sit down to code.

What happens to everyone who doesn't start work at exactly the same minute you do? > 15 minute standup. It's literally called a "standup" to enforce the most important rule: it should be much shorter than 15 minutes.

Normally I'm an early arriver, so in those conditions I generally take care of non-coding stuff. If I run out of that, I start in on the coding work.

Thanks, I'm familiar with why it's called a stand-up. On my teams the go-through-the-kanban-board phase of the meeting is generally faster than that. But that phase also tends to spark post-standup discussions. "Oh, you want to work on that subsystem too? Let's talk a bit about where we want to take it." I think it's better if people allocate time for that, which is why, especially in places like this, I'll talk about it as I did.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#289

Post by wpietri »

hn_go_brrrrr wrote: post #169
wpietri wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer, I agree there's a cultural issue, but think there are pragmatic issues. I have done both part-time consulting and part-time contract development. Pure consulting (when one's output is advice) is doable part time, because you're not a blocker and generally don't have to keep up with the day to day. But I would only do part-time contract development under pretty specific circumstances: 1) I'm the only d…

Even your pragmatic issues have a strong cultural component. There are quite a few important projects that on my team that we could afford to have take 20% longer. It's more important they have a good result than they arrive as soon as possible. We also have some projects we need done ASAP, which would naturally fall to a full-timer.

That could be a cultural component. But from what I've seen, more often it's a business component. Software features should have a high ROI. The later you put something in production, the lower the return and the higher the investment. Further, the longer a team's cycle time is, the harder it is for the organization to learn.

And even for issues that are "cultural", I think one needs particular strategies for managing them. Stakeholders for the important projects that are being delayed will generally not be excited about that. And given that most companies have competitors, those stakeholders might have legitimate reason to want things to go 25% faster. So I'd be curious to see what strategies people have for solving the cultural problems.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#290

Post by lupire »

hetspookjee wrote: post #40
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…

I believe a large part is also due to the incentives of recruiters and how they is structured. Most recruiters take a fee that depends on the hours put in or a percentage of the total contract, or a mix. Surely some exceptions exist but I believe most are incentivised to only go for atleast 32 hours to make it worth the effort, and thus don’t bother eating a potential 40 hour contract on a smaller 16 hour one. I see…

Not really. Yes they will push for more, but by far the most important factor in sales income is number of deals closed, not +30% deal size.
Post reply on HN