Yep, I'm soon going to be working a (pro-rata) 4 day week for life-work balance.
Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?
111–120 of 127 posts
Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?
#112Yes, either one of these will do.... 4 days a week or 4 hours per day or 4 months of unpaid time off but keep medical benefits
Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?
#113Very yes. I'm doing a lot of self-development work in to prepare become a team lead someday. This takes enough of my time that I would love to have a part-time role.
Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?
#114To be honest most "full-time" IT jobs I've held were already never full-time, effectively only requiring 15-32 hours a week.
Why take reduced pay for reduced hours when I'm already getting full pay for reduced hours.
Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?
#115Absolutely, 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…
> I'm not sure why more companies don't simply reduce hours in lieu of paying out higher salaries.
Tried it. It only really works if the developer’s tasks are very independent of the rest of the team.
Basically, if the employee already functions in the same way as an independent contractor or consultant working on an isolated project, shrinking their work hours isn’t a big deal.
But when you have someone working as part of a team and interacting with the rest of the company, it quickly becomes a huge burden for everyone else to work around their schedule. Way too many instances of needing a response or bug fix from someone but they don’t work for several more days, so the team has to do it themselves if they want to make progress. This ends up sorting all of the easier, non-urgent work to the part time person while the time-sensitive work is always stuck to other team members. Great for the reduced hours person, not great for everyone else.
If the company’s work falls into the corner category, it’s easy. If the company’s work is in the latter category (more common) then it ends up being kind of terrible for everyone other than the person who gets reduced hours.
Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?
#116YES YES YES. I'm so freaking burned out. I need some time to get my life back to a comfortable pace, and I constantly consider fully quitting my job, but that seems too drastic. More importantly, I don't want to 100% stop working because I actually do love working. I just can't figure out how to care for my family, my mental and physical health, and put in 40+ hours at my job. (Seniority wise, I've got 18 years of ex…
> I just can't figure out how to care for my family, my mental and physical health, and put in 40+ hours at my job.
You might be in a bubble.
Working more than 40 hours per week is not common at typical companies across the US, no matter what the internet says. If you’re doing the hustle and grind in Silicon Valley or Seattle or NYC then you’re going to be working long hours, but there are many more jobs that don’t require anything like that.
Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?
#117Absolutely. Lately I’ve been thinking about what it would be to work every other week. Half of the year, getting full weeks of just living life. Amazing. The plus side for the employer is that you get a full week of my attention on a very reliable schedule. This would be the pinnacle of work life balance for me.
I like this idea. In an "agile" and "sprinty" environment a team can work and deliver then "rest" while product/user feedback metrics are collected for a week to determine if the delivered solution is a "success" and achieved desired outcomes or needs to be iterated on again.
Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?
#118I would do it in a heartbeat. (Lead Architect at US FinTech startup, 20 years of experience and several startups under my belt).
The twist is this: I live out of the US (CT TZ) and am currently paid a good competitive (for the US) salary in USD. Even if I was paid about half of that, it would be really good for me. If you tell me that in addition I was going to only work part time? Sign me up.
Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?
#119Absolutely, 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…
> I'm not sure why more companies don't simply reduce hours in lieu of paying out higher salaries. Tried it. It only really works if the developer’s tasks are very independent of the rest of the team. Basically, if the employee already functions in the same way as an independent contractor or consultant working on an isolated project, shrinking their work hours isn’t a big deal. But when you have someone working as p…
i can see that if you work less days, but not if you work every day but less hours. at most you should wait a few hours for that person to be available. that's not unreasonable.
Re: Would senior engineers be interested in working reduced hours or part time?
#120This sounds like the XY Problem[1]. Why do you want a senior engineer, that isn't a contractor, but doesn't work as much? What country are you in? Do you want to pay this employee an hourly rate? Why do you think a contractor could only be scoped to one project? Why is this described as a "guru" role? Are you sure you aren't looking for a "consultant" instead? [1] - https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what…
i don't see anything in the post that says that contractors can only work on projects, just that they are not looking for that kind of contractors, but they are looking for someone who ins interested in a permanent engagement. it could still be a contractor, although if that person does not have any other clients at the same time, in some jurisdictions they legally can only be an employee.
consultant is very broad. i worked as a consultant for some clients, and it is nothing like the post describes. sure, the described position could be called a consultant, but describing it as a "guru" is much more descriptive and makes clear what they are actually looking for.