Ask HN: Are there good part time options for an experienced web developer?

2 points by every_other 7 years ago | 3 comments

I keep finding myself thinking that I'd be a lot happier sacrificing working time for salary. I'd love to find an opportunity where I cut my working hours and salary in half.

I've been in the agency grind doing full stack development for the last five years so I do have a good amount of experience. I work remotely in a smallish suburban city (population around 200,000). I like my work but would love to be able to have more time for family, side projects, etc.

Just curious if anyone else has thoughts, suggestions or experiences about finding stable part time work in this field.

itamarst 7 years ago |

You can negotiate part-time work.

1. This is easier at your current job, since your company knows you, and also you have organization specific value (code base, procedures, people).

2. It's also easier at companies that value your output, not how many hours you sit in a chair. Companies that support remote employees well are good for this.

So, your best bet is actually negotiating at your current company.

Some things to keep in mind:

- Half-time is harder to get than e.g. 4 days a week.

- In US requirement for employer to provide health insurance (for larger companies) goes away for employees working less than 30 hours a week.

- Some company health insurance plans in US won't accept employees working less than 30 hours a week.

I've done an interview with someone who has been working 4 days a week for past 15 years, which'll give you some sense of what it's like: https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer...

And I'm working on a book on how to negotiate a 3-day weekend (and more broadly, shorter work hours): https://codewithoutrules.com/3dayweekend/

stephenr 7 years ago |

Freelancing usually allows for more varied hours per week/month for a given client, if you can deal with not being on a salary.

It probably also depends what stack you usually work in. The more esoteric the skills (or more valuable you are to them) the more likely people will accept flexible timing, in situations where they may prefer someone full time.

every_other 7 years ago | |

Thanks, yeah, the ideal situation would be part time at one company so I wouldn't have to hunt down work but freelance might be a more realistic way to go. My skills aren't particularly esoteric but are pretty varied (node, PHP, WP, AWS, React Native, React, etc.).