Ask HN: How did you switch to part time? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How did you switch to part time?

I currently work a full time week for a small ~10 person dev agency. I want to switch to a 3 (or even 4) day work week - reduced hours, not compressed.

I’m unsure how to best pitch this. Would love any advice, stories about how you made it work (or failed to), etc.

I’m most interested in people who’ve just reduced their existing full time role to part time, but would also love to hear other solutions - switching to contracting, switching jobs, increasing holidays, anything really.

As an agency we bill hourly so it’s hourly salary * markup - I.e me working fewer hours = less cost but less profit. That’s why I’m struggling to see how to make this appealing.

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I've done part time for 3 years. Biggest selling point, you are much more productive per day because you have a much longer rest between work days. Do a trial period. If you work as a contractor, your company will probably understand the benefit. Main downside for me was when urgent matters appear on non working week days.

As you go through life, priorities change. When I've asked my self that same question few years ago when I was working at different place than I'm working now. I've told my self that when the topic of raise comes to the table that I would suggest cutting down the number of working hours so that I could work 6h per day or that I would get Monday / Friday off. I never got to that point since I switched job. I do know some people that they have done it: got one day off and kept the current pay. How? They were the only ones with some skills and they very very appreciated within the team. IMHO, it costs much less to keep a good worker than to loose him. Shorter work week is a problem if you have a service that you provide 24/7 but then the solution is to hire new people if the budget allows it.

In The Netherlands, they are legally required to give you a parttime position if you ask for it. I don’t know the details fully about it.

What I do, when I apply to a job, I ask to work for 4 days. In all cases they have said yes. They pay my gross salary for 4 days instead of 5. You get to keep more money net because of the progressive tax system. In that sense, I love the Dutch tax system. It incentivizes me to work less and focus more on my own personal development in my free time.

If you’re a US person, I think it’s relatively easy to get a job here (non-remote).

The salary is lower but the free time is much higher.

I started contributing to a lot of smaller projects, both paid/unpaid, my own/others'. At the next job change I mentioned that I need permission to finish a project and HR offered me part-time with a lot of flexibility. That said BigCorps usually are more open to part-time or might even have fixed programs so not any negotiating might be necessary. But generally I'd ask when it's clear they really want to hire you.

Once you've had part-time experience it's easier to continue at the next place. By the way, people might try to nudge you into fulltime once you're there so quite some discipline is needed to keep a fixed schedule.

I think you need to get the most accurate data re: how much your health care and other fixed fringe benefits cost your agency so you can make an educated appeal showing that you recognize you're willing to see a calculated and reasonable decrease in your hourly compensation.

Then you need to consider if your agency is going to be able to generate the same number of billable hours if you cut back.

If they can't without hiring someone else, I've seen some success when two people offer themselves up as a paired unit where between their billable time and fringe benefit expenses, they still offer a net benefit (or at least not a net loss for the employer).

You have to be careful here. A colleague/mentor many years back said - be careful, there is no such thing as "part time" when salaried in tech.

I'd say it's much easier to make this happen compared to a few years ago. While there is a culture of working part time where I'm located (Sweden), I've found that being employed and working part time is messier than being a contractor.

As a contractor, I just tell my clients in the negotiation phase that "my availability is X hours/days per week" and not one has had any issues with it.

I only did it once, working at a 10 person IT contracting firm. The business was going through a quiet period so I approached the owners, offered to work part-time for a agreed upon hourly rate. The arrangement stayed in place until we were acqui-hired by a much larger competitor.

I'm thinking of leaving and doing my own think worked for me. I was asked to consider going part-time.

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