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Why not hire part-time developers?

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Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#181

Post by keerthiko »

novok wrote: post #171
yibg wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree. There is too much shared state inside software dev work. I think the only time part time might work is if the person has worked for you full time for a while, is fairly established, is a low management overhead employee (low/no drama, no hand holding, self-directed, gets the point quickly when you ask/tell them in small amounts of description, doesn't need mentorship and and gets stuff done). But then what o…

> But then what often happens with part time devs like this is their one foot out the door, so they will probably leave in a few months anyway.

This sentiment is what GP points out is cultural, not practical or factual. If you compensate them well for the hours they work, many part time devs will have superior per-hour output to FTEs and also be grateful for the added flexibility you afford them.

We hired a stellar part time dev recently (contract hire to start, we just increased his rate and verbally stated we are interested in continuing the relationship long-term if he is, and offered written agreement if he is interested), and he has been working out great. The option is open to him to work full-time whenever if/when he wants by planning it ahead of time with us, but our default expectation will remain being part-time so he can pursue his game development on the side.

Finding a great part-time team member is no different than a great FTE, once you and the employee are both free of the cultural negative baggage associated wtih part-timing.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#182

Post by ryanSrich »

yibg wrote: post #167
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.

Why is this a problem? You can replace meeting time with time reading specs / requirement if you’d like. Point is you need some constant amount of time to understand the problem domain. If 2 people need to do that then that’s twice the time needed.

What are you building that requires an individual dev to read hours and hours of spec? I’d like to think my company builds some pretty cool shit, and even then, I can explain an issue in less than 2 paragraphs.

If you need developers to spend so much time ideating and figuring out how and what to build, you’re mismanaging those developers imo.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#183

Post by x0x0 »

bonniemuffin wrote: post #89
x0x0 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think your job as an engineer is to write code, then sure -- part time makes sense. If you think your job as an engineer is to build a solution as a team, then one person hopping in and out of availability creates a hassle for an entire team. Can't have project meetings on Mon / Fri because X is never there. If a project with involvement by a part timer isn't done by eod Thursday, a fulltime person has 2 dead…

I agree that someone working fewer days per week might be hard to fit into a full-time team culture, but someone working fewer hours per day ought to be pretty easy. For the "fewer hours per day" case, it's just like working across different time zones, which many companies are already well-acclimated to doing -- e.g. you need to schedule all your meetings with this person in the morning because their 5pm is at our 1…

Not easy at all if you have remote workers.

Someone from EST works 9am-1pm; someone from PST starts work at 9:30am. Daily overlap: 30 minutes.

Yes it could be solved if you want to define core hours in the middle of the day, but I suspect people who want half time work don't view working in the middle of the day every day as the point of the exercise.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#184

Post by AmericanBlarney »

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…

The bigger issue I've seen is that there's a relatively fixed amount of time required for overhead activities (e.g. compliance training) and context sharing (meetings). Purely hypothetically, if those sorts of activities eat up 10 hours a week, then a full time developer gets 30 productive hours, whereas a half time developer only gets 10. You might think there's room to cut down on overhead, and you might be right, but when the majority of employees are full-time, it may not be the most pressing issue to change.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#185

Post by lwhi »

I've worked part time before, and it has worked .. but I think the key thing that has allowed it to work is being open to flexibility.

I will shift my days / hours if necessary. I'm able to request they shift if need be too.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#186

Post by Aeolun »

kradeelav wrote: post #94
mooreds wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different than a full time employee who starts to slack off? Or is your point that part time employees are more likely to slack off because they are looking for other work/have other responsibilities that take precedence? Because I've definitely seen my share of fulltime employees who slacked pretty darn hard.

Not OP, but there's more tools managers have to guide slacking IC's back in line when they're full time. Loyalty to coworkers/"company culture", easier to discipline if it goes on the official performance review, more of an "official" paper trail available versus contractors and part time who may be hired even by a third party agency. Part time / contractors are sometimes, not always, but sometimes in general lower q…

Contractor part-time

You can have actual employees working only 24 hours a week.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#187

Post by kovac »

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…

I might look into active, high profile opensource projects to learn a thing or two from there. I think for this to work, planning needs to be very precise: as a team you know what you are going to do, devs need to be very good at what they do and enjoy what they are doing. This is often difficult for companies as there are many things that need to be done asap, projects/teams often being managed by non-tech or non-experts.

I've worked part time for a startup remotely across timezones. I personally credit the technical lead for the most part for its success. Then, the chemistry within the team was really good. When someone says something others tend to get it. And the planning. The tech lead sets up the goals for the quarter and push back on distractions from the business side except on rare occasions. The management was also very competent, they seemed to listen to the engineers.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#188

Post by ryanSrich »

I’ve been hiring part time developers with great success for the last 2 years. I have people working anywhere from 10 to 40 hours per week.

It’s certainly not without issues, but they’re all solvable.

If anyone has questions, or wants to be added to my future hire list, feel free to email me (in bio). Or drop questions below.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#189

Post by uranium »

jamesmishra wrote: post #102
uranium wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I came back from paternity leave with my first child, I told my boss I really wanted to go part time, and he supported me. Google had a standard easy of doing it, so it was just a matter of getting approval up to VP level, which went pretty smoothly. When I applied to transfer to Makani, we negotiated a bit, and decided that I'd go up to 80% because I really wanted the job and they apparently really wanted me. W…

Why not hire for part-time roles at Elemano? Didn't you just say that you are working there part-time?

I'm not the hiring manager for any of our open positions, so I can't make any promises. But we're a flexible place, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of the positions were part-time-friendly.

Re: Why not hire part-time developers?

#190

Post by datavirtue »

tluyben2 wrote: post #30
prohobo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the hell is investigating a design? Also, no company I've worked for ever bothered with proper documentation, and I've never seen anyone lower than tech lead ever do any of those kinds of things more than once or twice a month (besides meetings). I'll concede these kinds of responsibilities might be more common in larger companies or different fields, but I'm thinking more about smaller startups.

I guess, like you, that it happens, but I haven’t seen it in the smallest startups to very large enterprises. They all say, like everyone on HN, that they do all of this, but it is more a wish than reality as far as I have ever seen (30+ years, tech consulting in 100s of companies, for 1 person shop to 100000+ employee enterprise). The stories are always of similarly ‘utopia’ style coming in but when actually in ther…

Exactly, the useful documentation I have seen is from devs recording a clusterfuck solution in a wiki so they remember how to handle it again in six months. But that is just in large companies. It has the side effect of being useful to me when I find it in search. Documenting actual software? LMAO!! It moves so fast that it is impossible for anyone to capture it.
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