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

Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 127 posts

Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?

#81

Post by disambiguation »

unrestifarian wrote: post #62

Absolutely, yes. I'm not sure why more companies don't simply reduce hours in lieu of paying out higher salaries. I'm quite sure many devs would stay at a company if they offered an effective 20-40% raise by offering them a 32 or 24hr workweek. And, to the benefit of the company, my guess is there won't be a big loss in productivity. Years ago, I was in need of a big a salary adjustment, and I offered to work for 3 d…

Are you based in the US?

I think offering benefits to part-time employees is optional here. Curious about your experience with this.

Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?

#82

Post by armagon »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #10

Have you tried listing reqs on https://4dayweek.io ? Speaking as an infosec practitioner, we’ve built functions with this model where we have infosec folks as subject matter experts (architecture, appsec, IAM) providing guidance on a 4 day work week. Great perk versus comp and benefits alone, and usually attractive to talent at later stages in life who are optimizing for QoL versus total comp.

This sounds amazing. I had no idea such a site existed. Thank you.

Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?

#83

Post by armagon »

armagon wrote: post #82
toomuchtodo wrote: post #10

Have you tried listing reqs on https://4dayweek.io ? Speaking as an infosec practitioner, we’ve built functions with this model where we have infosec folks as subject matter experts (architecture, appsec, IAM) providing guidance on a 4 day work week. Great perk versus comp and benefits alone, and usually attractive to talent at later stages in life who are optimizing for QoL versus total comp.

This sounds amazing. I had no idea such a site existed. Thank you.

Let me strengthen what I just said.

I've been passively looking for a job. Job hunting is a slog for me, and I'm not interested.

But seeing this list, I've suddenly perked up. This is exciting.

Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?

#84

Post by JackC »

This is sort of what we're trying with our Technologist in Residence job for senior engineers at the Harvard Library Innovation Lab -- not exactly part time, but we work library hours that really are limited to 35 hours a week, with a negotiable portion of your 35 going to your own open-knowledge research rather than to our existing projects.

Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?

#85

Post by toomuchtodo »

armagon wrote: post #83
armagon wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds amazing. I had no idea such a site existed. Thank you.

Let me strengthen what I just said. I've been passively looking for a job. Job hunting is a slog for me, and I'm not interested. But seeing this list, I've suddenly perked up. This is exciting.

Made my Friday, thanks for saying so. Find something great.

Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?

#87

Post by armagon »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #85
armagon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me strengthen what I just said. I've been passively looking for a job. Job hunting is a slog for me, and I'm not interested. But seeing this list, I've suddenly perked up. This is exciting.

Made my Friday, thanks for saying so. Find something great.

:-D

Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?

#88

Post by mgkimsal »

codegeek wrote: post #70
mgkimsal wrote: post #61

> we're not so much looking for contractors/freelancers to work on specific projects, but for an experienced senior engineer It may not have been intended like this, but an 'experienced senior engineer' can also be a 'freelancer/contractor'. The post doesn't make it sound like that. You want someone to be part of a 'team' - that'll totally be up to how you interact with someone, not their tax/corp status. If you want…

I think what OP means is that they want someone who is committed only to their company but part time. Freelancers juggle b/w various clients and frankly cannot produce the same level of output/commitment/results/care that committed employees can. Freelancers can decide their own schedule which may not work. Part time employees even though will work less hours, will still be employees with committed time etc. So the b…

> Freelancers juggle b/w various clients and frankly cannot produce the same level of output/commitment/results/care that committed employees can.

My own experience has shown that to be untrue. I've known plenty of contractor folks who 'care' (however you might measure that) and deliver as much as or more than many employees.

Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?

#89

Post by em-bee »

holoduke wrote: post #9

I work 4 hours a day since 2017. Of course this is a huge privilege. I could not imagine how I could combine kids, friends and hobbies with a 8 hour work day.

why is the parent post being downvoted? it nicely states a motivation for working parttime and directly answers the question posted.

Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?

#90

Post by cagey »

Yes, totally! I retired a few months ago because I'm sick of the 9-5, 48+ weeks/year endless grind and (almost) "always on" mentality (and well able to provide for my household w/o W2 income). Casual Google jobs search "surfing" post-retirement reveals no significant number of part-time SW engineering job openings, which I assume reflects the drive to "amortize per employee overhead over the maximum amount of per employee working hours" that I assume drives this "all employees are full-time" mentality.
Post reply on HN