Hire senior level people part time. That don’t need to spend lots of time getting context. They can figure out how to solve problems matching your team’s coding style without extra meetings.
That don’t need to spend lots of
time getting context. They can figure
out how to solve problems matching
your team’s coding style without
extra meetings.
Coding bits of functionality for an existing business is not a matter of "matching the team's coding style."
Heck, there are often not even engineering "problems" to "solve." It's a matter of figuring out integration with existing systems and processes, understanding the business itself, etc. That's why part-timers don't make sense. They can't just walk in, sit down, and code.
And if you could tee things up for them, to the point where they could just sit down and code, then 90% of the work is already done. And your part-time coder will take longer to deliver... why would management want to wait 2 weeks for a part time person to complete 40 hours of pure coding work, versus 1 week for a fulltimer?
Yeah, I think you could step back from that at some point and be a heck of a part-time asset.
1. Your knowledge of the app and organization would likely decay over time.
2. I'm not sure the the organization would love this move. It would be better than losing you entirely, but probably not as valuable as having you fulltime. From your perspective, 50% of your time is better than 100% of nothing. From their perspective, they're probably going to take the "glass half empty" view.