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Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

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

#191

Post by dennisgorelik »

HN readers are well informed about decline in productivity in case of burnout.

But if number of working hours is significantly lower than 40 hours per week, then productivity deteriorates too, for the following reasons:

1) In order to solve complex task, programmer need to load all relevant details into his mind. That takes time. If working day is too short, then most of the time is spend on such loading and there is not enough time to actually accomplish something.

2) Shorter working hours usually means less expertise long term. Less expertise means less productivity.

3) Shorter work time means it's harder to meet with coworkers, because there is not enough work hours to meet. Less meetings with coworkers means lower productivity, because work in isolation usually mean working on wrong problems and less knowledge exchange.

So, on one side we have burnout risks. On another size we have incompetence risks.

Our society tried various working schedule and worked out 40 hours work week as the one that is closest to the optimum.

Note though, that 40 hours work week does not mean 40 hours per week coding. There are many other things that developer should do at work.

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

#193

Post by e12e »

Jhsto wrote: post #54

I've been working independently for some time now and I've noticed exactly the same thing - productiveness is significantly better when working less. However, I do handle many projects at the same time, but for each project I only hand the time when I've thought out what I'm going to build and how. I've also found that doing so gets you straight into the coders high. It's like that once you've set your mind onto the…

44/hour might be ok if that's after tax and after expenses (workstation, office space, insurance, backup, internet access...[edit: ant lets not forget: non-billable-hours, like looking for new work!]). Othwerwise, I'd say double that is entry level pay. Especially if you're (by the clients admission) getting a lot of stuff done in little time.

What does the client care how many hours you've worked, if you've delivered a good product on (or ahead?) of schedule? What are they going to do, hire someone to do worse work, at twice the time, for the same money? How is that any better?

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

#194

Post by Taek »

gbog wrote: post #164
gexla wrote: post #78

Four hours per day of work where you are in high focus is about normal. You will see that professionals across many creative fields only work 4 hours per day. There are a lot of posts here from developers talking about how they are more productive than their peers working less hours. Really, they probably have the same capacity for hours, but the less productive developers are carrying a lot of baggage in attempting…

"all you can do without burning out." If I may, this sounds to me like if you assumed that everyone should be working just one step below burn out limit. And this seems to be shared by so many people. I wonder what is the rationale behind it? Is it a way to maximise income? or to make sure the 1billionth chance to be a new Bill Gates or Steve Jobs is not lost? For me, as a French, it seems obvious that we should be v…

For me, being right below the burn limit is where the most fun is, the most growth is, and where I'm most likely to hit a state of 'flow'. Some of the best weeks of my life have been 16 hour days of coding, taking breaks only for food and recovery walks. (all driven internally).

There's an incredible joy that comes out of pushing yourself exactly as hard as you can tolerate and achieving your exact maximum productivity. And there's a lot of joy that comes from looking at the things you build as a result.

I also did this last summer with hiking. In the space of about two months, I worked my way up from 3-5 mile hikes to day long, 40 mile hikes in 95 degree weather. I enjoyed it immensely.

So perhaps there's no law that "you should work exactly enough that you don't burn out", but there's a lot of value in being able to be in that spot.

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

#195

Post by delinka »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #146
delinka wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it not in a company's interest to have part-time employees? By anecdotal accounts, it seems that part-time employees are less expensive than full-timers (such anecdotes generally refer to mandated benefits for full-time workers as the major cost difference.)

Good question. Every company I worked for had to provide me with an office that was empty one day a week. In most of the companies I worked for, employees who worked a minimum of 30 hours a week got full fringe benefits :-)

Thanks. "Square-footage" is one of those things I always forget when calculating the expense of employees. (Probably one reason I'm an employee and not an employer.)

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

#196

Post by e12e »

PeterGriffin wrote: post #49
surreal wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting point, but it assumes that one's 'purpose' in life is to work. That's a pretty sweeping assumption, and one which the guilt is predicated on. Any idea why you feel this way? Would it not be just as valid to say that one's purpose in life might be, for example, enjoyment? Or helping others (not necessarily through a job)? In which case you should feel pretty guilty about going to work for 40 of…

I'm not sure it's bad to feel guilty about this. I'm more interested how people who don't feel guilty see life. I mean surely at some point having aimless fun starts looking a bit like wasted time in someone's life, no? We live to give our tiny contribution to humanity, and we do it by creating something through work. That also brings joy, and we do it to help each other (deviations notwithstanding). But it's a meani…

> I mean surely at some point having aimless fun starts looking a bit like wasted time in someone's life, no?

Why would you think that everything outside of work is dominated by aimless fun? Why not have it dominated by politics, volunteer work, education, etc etc?

Sure, if there are only two possible things to do: work or watch tv, then yeah, you should probably work more than you watch tv. But taking an active part in your community takes time and effort, not to get too corny, but spreading love and happiness takes effort. Very few of us can do that while/through (just) work.

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

#198

Post by brainless »

Let me share how I am trying to work more per day and still have better focus than I even had in my life.

I have always considered working lower hours per day to stay more focused. I have many failures in projects, many of them I could relate to my issues with being able to focus and finding love in my work.

Recently I have been ill and was without work for about 4 months. I used to lead a stressful like, like many entrepreneurs. But my physical issues started making things more problematic. Thus I started figuring out how to solve them and yet work at decent 8 - 10 hours each day with very good attention.

After trying a different timing routines, I finally am working with this - I get start work at about 9:30 - 10 AM. Work till about 2 PM. Then I take a good break till about 5 PM. I take my lunch and a short but comfortable power nap. I take a shower before heading back to work at 5 PM. Then I work till about 9 - 10 PM as my situation permits. I sleep usually at 11 - 11:30 PM and wake up at about 7:30 AM.

The major benefit I get is that I have 2 * ~ 4 hour slots every day. I understand it is difficult for many folks to commit this much time. But I have very few options left. I need put in good, focused work each day and the amount of work I have can not, sadly be finished in 16 hour work weeks. Hope this helps someone.

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

#199

Post by mgmeyers »

notduncansmith wrote: post #181
mgmeyers wrote: post #24

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 m…

Apologies as this is a bit off-topic, but where does one have to fall on the skill scale to be considered a senior-level front-end dev? I find myself doing a lot of front-end architecture work at my day job, educating my coworkers, and overall the "go-to" guy for front-end work; however, I'm at a junior developer's salary. I don't just do front-end either - I'm actually a full-stack developer, just the most instructi…

Sounds like you're senior to me. If you can quantify how you're the "go-to" guy, then you're in a position to ask for a raise.

To explain my stance vaguely, if you can make critical decisions about abstract concepts, then I'd consider you senior. For instance, I recently saw that some of my coworkers were using an HTML tag in a way that was technically correct, but in a situation where a different tag is more suitable based on the context of the page. This is something I've learned through my studies and experiences as a front-end dev, and as such, contributes in a small way to my "senior-ness".

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

#200

Post by mgmeyers »

glesica wrote: post #62
mgmeyers wrote: post #24

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 m…

How did you get the part-time gig in the first place?

My first gig was at a start-up. They could only afford to pay someone for ~10 hours a week, which fit perfectly with my school schedule. When I left school, they offered me more hours, but I was adamant about working no more than 25 hours, and by that time they had seen how productive I was at just 10 hours a week. There were definitely some rough spots when they had tight deadlines, but for the most part, they scheduled things so they worked with my schedule.

My current gig I got through a personal connection. They were in desperate need of a senior level front-end dev, and I was just upfront with them from the start that I would only be interested in working 25 hours a week. It helps that they have a team of devs to rely on when I'm not there.

My advice: if you want to be part-time, either be an expert in your field, or find an early stage startup that can't afford a full-timer. This sounds kind of shitty, but it's hard to convince people who are ingrained in the 40 hour work week. Also, telling people you're a student helps. I've found that people look down upon me when I tell them I have no desire to work 40 hours, but if I tell them I'm a student, they're all for it.

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