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Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

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Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#21

Post by hpvic03 »

tslathrow wrote: post #15

Well I have a lot of experience with 16 hour/day work weeks (have worked at banks most of my life). Yeah, you're right, it's not fun. It really comes down to the time-sensitivity of your work. For someone in their 20s, I think the perfect balance is less than 80 hours/week but more than 40-50. If you're being paid two standard deviations over US median household income ($120k+), you're going to be expected to put som…

Programming is, or at least can be, rocket surgery. Programmers at SpaceX are building and modifying the (figurative) brains of self-stabilizing rockets...

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#23

Post by techdebt5112 »

People are probably willing to pay you to do this, but not advertising it so much. Most tech companies (at least in the US) are desperate for work. Less than 40 hours is a week is a tough sell because many people feel the onboarding process eats up a lot of time. Primarily, since it's the norm to work 40+ hours (and believe me, it's not difficult to do this and be actually writing code more than 50% of the time) employers expect it.

> I sincerely think it is quite unrealistic to ask a knowledge worker consistently deliver at full throttle for 40 hours every week (never mind the enslaving 60+ hours on many companies)

I really disagree with this. Have you tried before?

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#24

Post by mgmeyers »

I've worked 25 hours a week for the past ~6 years as a web developer, and I can't imagine a better work schedule. I've noticed that I'm just as productive on average, if not more so, than my 40-hour-per-week coworkers.

I do find it difficult to progress in my career, however. I've been trying desperately to transition into a full-stack, part-time position, but I feel pretty stuck as a senior level front-end dev. In my experience, this is because I need some weight to throw around when I request working only part-time.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#25

Post by drcross »

I have been working as a high tier network engineer for the past few years for 40 hours per week (but always looks to go out on my own with a startup idea). I'm starting to really find that 40 hours per week make no sense and i'm actively going to try to find alternatives. Life slips by and there is little point in spending 1/3 of your working day dealing with monotonous bullshit.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#26

Post by gingerlime »

To me this makes total sense, and I can't figure out why it isn't the norm for hired freelance developers.

For most people I know, myself included, you're at your best productivity before lunchtime. Afterwards you might get a few bits and pieces done, but generally it's a waste of time.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#27

Post by perplexes »

We offer flexible work schedules (half time, full time, anywhere in-between) with benefits.

1. A. In my experience it's hard to find unless you're contracting or have extremely rare knowledge.

1. B. We're a rails shop, (mostly) b2b edtech.

2. Not at all just greenfield. Having flexible schedules means that you have to be realistic with scheduling and expectations. You have to work out what will work best with the team and when they need to synchronize with you.

In some cases your work is orthogonal to main development critical paths, so the need for synchronization is less (still important though for staying synced with the culture).

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#28

Post by jamesaguilar »

techdebt5112 wrote: post #23

People are probably willing to pay you to do this, but not advertising it so much. Most tech companies (at least in the US) are desperate for work. Less than 40 hours is a week is a tough sell because many people feel the onboarding process eats up a lot of time. Primarily, since it's the norm to work 40+ hours (and believe me, it's not difficult to do this and be actually writing code more than 50% of the time) empl…

Yeah, I buy that marginal productivity drops as you add more hours, but I would be shocked to find that sixteen hours is the point at which diminishing returns make additional work pointless. I guess for me the diminishing returns start kicking in closer to thirty hours of hard focused work, and I am by no means the best worker I know.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#29

Post by mgmeyers »

drcross wrote: post #25

I have been working as a high tier network engineer for the past few years for 40 hours per week (but always looks to go out on my own with a startup idea). I'm starting to really find that 40 hours per week make no sense and i'm actively going to try to find alternatives. Life slips by and there is little point in spending 1/3 of your working day dealing with monotonous bullshit.

This.

If I was working somewhere I was 100% passionate about, I would have no problem working 1/3 of my life. But, it's rare to find a position that completely matches one's values and professional desires.

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