Trying to find part time eng work | Hacker News Reader

Trying to find part time eng work

12 pointssbolt5 comments

Hi HN!

I’m a full stack web dev from Ireland and I’m based in the Bay Area. I recently left my job at a startup and I need to find part time work (21 hours per week) to satisfy my OPT visa.

I have 3 years experience building web apps (Rails & Django) and some experience managing a small group of engineers.

I’d appreciate any help/advice you have for me to find work.

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I’m been, unsuccessfully, trying to do the same so I can scale back my work commitments and refocus on some personal/academic goals. Job boards and recruiting doesn’t seem to be helpful in this regard; you’ll get plenty of bits but part time turns everyone off. I’ve spoken to some of my colleagues and they think the best bet is establishing yourself as a contractor. This however has quite a bit of associated legwork and I’m not sure how that will fly with your work requirements.

As a more general question to HN, what’s with all the apprehension to part time work in tech? I remember a time where everyone loved the idea. Or maybe I was more fortunate than I realized.

I've hired a decent number of engineers for a few different companies, so I'll take a stab at this based on what I've seen.

- Fixed costs for hiring for PT and FT are the same, but the company gets more output for FT, so they focus on that

- Similarly, external recruiters who take a % of salary get paid much less for the same amount of work, so you're not worth it to them

- Fragile processes require lots of interaction. Having someone unavailable slows down the team

- PT employees are perceived as less committed. Enough ink has been spilled about companies wanting dedicated people, so I'll leave that one alone

This is in line with what I hear but there are a whole host of lowered costs as well that are often overlooked in these types of breakdowns. Most notably, equipment costs, benefits, and space reuse. Especially for places that are not fully established I would have thought such trade-offs would be very enticing.

1. Talk to former colleagues and friends; much more likely to hire you for shorter period since they already know you.

2. If you're willing to go for more like 32-30 hours, you can apply to normal jobs, then ask for shorter workweek once you get offer (https://codewithoutrules.com/2019/01/25/4-day-workweek-easy-...).

3. Staff augmentation / contracting is another option. E.g. via companies like https://www.randstadusa.com/. In some cases staffing company will hire you as employee to make things legally easier for the company you're actually working for.

If gig work is acceptable, this list might help:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JfNAbUX_lN9K3MCNHO15...

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