Ask HN: Part-time, remote jobs?
10 comments
Why is there not a trend to work less instead of taking more money?
I've wondered that myself now that I'm a father of a 2.5 year old. I would love to take a 20% paycut to work 4 days instead of 5. I'd take an even bigger paycut to work 100% remote because I could leave Los Angeles, and live somewhere significantly cheaper, like Colorado or Oregon and still keep reasonable hours. If I lived internationally, things get more complicated with timezones and infrastructure, but the cost of living gets much cheaper compared to salary in the US.
I've wondered that myself now that I'm a father of a 2.5 year old. I would love to take a 20% paycut to work 4 days instead of 5. I'd take an even bigger paycut to work 100% remote because I could leave Los Angeles, and live somewhere significantly cheaper, like Colorado or Oregon and still keep reasonable hours. If I lived internationally, things get more complicated with timezones and infrastructure, but the cost of living gets much cheaper compared to salary in the US.
I think it is better than ever, though. I especially like places like Treehouse trying to put the idea of a four-day work week out there.
There are plenty of sites out there for finding remote work.
Part time, and remote will be harder but not impossible.
There are two big reasons why you don't see more remote and more part time. Training and collaboration.
Lets assume that your talking about programing/engineering and that your a senior developer. You already know how to do your job (write code) but what you don't understand yet is the domain your about to go to work in. There is a fixed cost where your "ramping up", learning about how the business works, the nomenclature used to describe behavior, and functionality. Unless you have been in an industry for a while, this will all be new to you. During your first few weeks/months the company is paying a tax for you to learn, not only their environment but the particulars of what they do.
Once your past that first stage and part of the team, what happens then? If your not present (your day off) and someone needs advice (integration, production support ... ) on something you have built what do they do? Are they going to read through your code (Yes they can, most people don't know how or don't have the patience), are they going to wait or be stuck till you get back? People being "present" at the same time and in the same location makes these sort of issues less likely, it keeps productivity high.
This work does exist. The trick is to be a solid developer AND a domain expert. Your then going to have a set of skills that lets you target specific companies who will need your skill set, and be able to set your terms. At that point however, your not going to be seeking "part time" you going to be charging flat rates per week for much larger sums of money. The pay won't be "steady" but the peeks and valleys will provide you more than your currently asking for.
Part time, and remote will be harder but not impossible.
There are two big reasons why you don't see more remote and more part time. Training and collaboration.
Lets assume that your talking about programing/engineering and that your a senior developer. You already know how to do your job (write code) but what you don't understand yet is the domain your about to go to work in. There is a fixed cost where your "ramping up", learning about how the business works, the nomenclature used to describe behavior, and functionality. Unless you have been in an industry for a while, this will all be new to you. During your first few weeks/months the company is paying a tax for you to learn, not only their environment but the particulars of what they do.
Once your past that first stage and part of the team, what happens then? If your not present (your day off) and someone needs advice (integration, production support ... ) on something you have built what do they do? Are they going to read through your code (Yes they can, most people don't know how or don't have the patience), are they going to wait or be stuck till you get back? People being "present" at the same time and in the same location makes these sort of issues less likely, it keeps productivity high.
This work does exist. The trick is to be a solid developer AND a domain expert. Your then going to have a set of skills that lets you target specific companies who will need your skill set, and be able to set your terms. At that point however, your not going to be seeking "part time" you going to be charging flat rates per week for much larger sums of money. The pay won't be "steady" but the peeks and valleys will provide you more than your currently asking for.
I work 4 days/week writing open source software for the French government (http://france-universite-numerique-mooc.fr/ http://github.com/openfun/). Last week I was in Barcelona; today I'm in Bordeaux. All 4 members of the development team work remotely.
Keep faith! It took me ~5 years to find the right position and a boss willing to accept remote, part-time work. Such positions exist, but you need to search hard.
Keep faith! It took me ~5 years to find the right position and a boss willing to accept remote, part-time work. Such positions exist, but you need to search hard.
Most positions aren't advertised. Full time or otherwise. If you want to find a specific job you might have better results networking (asking old contacts, going to meetups/conferences, etc).
Most positions aren't advertised. Full time or otherwise.
That's a good point. The people I know who work remote started onsite and proved themselves first. Then, when they wanted to relocate, they worked out remote working arrangements instead of leaving the company. One of my former coworkers left LA (and expensive rent for a tiny studio near the beach) to move to Colorado (she bought a house with several acres) and she worked out a remote arrangement with the company.
That's a good point. The people I know who work remote started onsite and proved themselves first. Then, when they wanted to relocate, they worked out remote working arrangements instead of leaving the company. One of my former coworkers left LA (and expensive rent for a tiny studio near the beach) to move to Colorado (she bought a house with several acres) and she worked out a remote arrangement with the company.
> After all, as long as the results are there, the time and place of work should be of little consequence, right?
I am not sure I agree. My experience has been that remote work requires greater discipline. Complex projects have twists and turns, many variables. One has to learn to over communicate to ensure that one is not building the wrong thing. This is harder to do over hangouts mainly because it is tougher to gauge interpersonal dynamics of a room.
Coding is the easiest part of large scale projects. Harder problems are stakeholder management, ensuring we are building the right thing and ensuring that information flows freely. I am on a project that spans Boston, NY and Stockholm. We all know what we want to build. Yet, every two weeks or so, I find myself traveling. Mainly to ensure that we react fast as we learn more about unknowns. Are we all on the same page? This is sustainable for a company that can afford to depute a few people to do this. For a tiny startup that has to be agile enough to pivot immediately, it is harder to do so when all your handful of engineers are remote.
Personally, I would hire someone remote if it was a very well defined chunk of work. At that point, I may as well hire a contractor. IMO, the value of an engineer is not just to write code, it is to solve business problems.
I am not sure I agree. My experience has been that remote work requires greater discipline. Complex projects have twists and turns, many variables. One has to learn to over communicate to ensure that one is not building the wrong thing. This is harder to do over hangouts mainly because it is tougher to gauge interpersonal dynamics of a room.
Coding is the easiest part of large scale projects. Harder problems are stakeholder management, ensuring we are building the right thing and ensuring that information flows freely. I am on a project that spans Boston, NY and Stockholm. We all know what we want to build. Yet, every two weeks or so, I find myself traveling. Mainly to ensure that we react fast as we learn more about unknowns. Are we all on the same page? This is sustainable for a company that can afford to depute a few people to do this. For a tiny startup that has to be agile enough to pivot immediately, it is harder to do so when all your handful of engineers are remote.
Personally, I would hire someone remote if it was a very well defined chunk of work. At that point, I may as well hire a contractor. IMO, the value of an engineer is not just to write code, it is to solve business problems.
I have often wondered why more developers don’t pair up and form one virtual full time remote employee. I would actually be willing to hire two people paid for 2 & 1/2 days each as long as they communicated with each other very regularly and worked well together. This would avoid the biggest problem of part time work which is not having someone around when issues come up.
I work remote and I can tell you I end up working around 60 hours a week. Or at least making myself available for that long. And this is exactly the reason employers are choosing remote work over on site. They will have a developer available at some time zone at any time of the day and also all of them available at the core hours.
This goes against part time work. By allowing you to work from anywhere (Which is absolutely awesome, writing this from a Fuerteventura beach) you unofficially allow them to get a hold of you for longer hours. This has been the case with my last three remote jobs.
This goes against part time work. By allowing you to work from anywhere (Which is absolutely awesome, writing this from a Fuerteventura beach) you unofficially allow them to get a hold of you for longer hours. This has been the case with my last three remote jobs.
Remote work is becoming more and more common - also for SF companies.
Eg half our team (www.producthunt.com) is remote. Engineering and non-engineering.
We dont do part-time (for long term contracts) because we want to give developers full ownership about bigger releases - and this is hard if someone is only available half the week.
Eg half our team (www.producthunt.com) is remote. Engineering and non-engineering.
We dont do part-time (for long term contracts) because we want to give developers full ownership about bigger releases - and this is hard if someone is only available half the week.
I'm not associated with it in any way, but there is a site that lists remote jobs (not necessarily part-time): https://remoteok.io/
You answered your own question - the positions exist but are not advertised. As zer00eyz says you will need to have specific skills that are in demand.
However, most advertised positions for seem to be 40+ hours of on-site work, which is quite the opposite of what I'm after. Why is there not a trend to work less instead of taking more money? Is there any demand for part-time remote work? Wouldn't employers significantly expand their hiring pool (read: cut costs) by going after all the talent that is not willing or able to rent $3k/mo studio in SoMa?