Ask HN: Do you have any experience asking to be down-leveled at $Corporate_Job?

I bet you're massively over-exceeding expectations, whether you realize it or not.

I would challenge you to think about the performance of your coworkers and how you compare. How little can you work and still get a "meets expectations" review?

You're probably used to being the star of your team and chasing promotions. But if you're already thinking of exiting your current job, there is no need. Just do enough not to get fired.

My hunch is that you could work 20 hours a week and still get a good review. You won't be doing your best and that will be an adjustment for you. But if you want to spend more time focusing on other areas of your life, you need to spend less time focusing on something you're already doing.

Well said. OP - please cut yourself some slack! I have a feeling that you even at 50% effort is still far above the bar your company internally holds. I imagine they’ve been the net beneficiary of this business relationship over the years, it’s okay for you to enjoy some surplus yourself.

Even if you could convince your management to downlevel you, you're not going to be able to stop juniors coming to you for help or product owners/managers from giving you tasking of a similar level to what they've come to expect.

In my mind there's really only one way to achieve what you're after here. If you're truly ready to exit in pursuit of this new career then go to your management and inform them that you'll be leaving, but offer to continue working for them on a 1099/consultant basis for some number of predetermined hours per week or on the completion of some feature(s) by some date (as long as the time required to deliver by that date aligns with how much you want to work).

If they're receptive make sure you make it clear that they will have no bearing on when/where you perform the work.

Otherwise, try to find another employer to make a similar arrangement with, or apply for very low-efforts jobs (probably at non-tech companies) where you can come in fresh without a reputation of being a high-performer and phone it in.

I have this issue myself as well, I can't say no. I recently got a promotion and it was very public for some reason.

Now people keep asking me things, trying to push their work on me. Everytime I do that I feel like I am assigning a bit more responsiblity on myself

On the manager side, I've got several people working 4 days for 80% pay (in Europe, where this is common). If someone approached me wanting 80% for 4 days in the US, I'd do it happily as long as HR/Benefits said it was OK. If someone was a strong performer and wanted 60% for 3 days, same situation: I'd do it happily. (And in doing so, I'd think the company was getting at least a fair deal, if not a net benefit, especially if it kept a reliable, senior, experienced person.)

Less than that and it would be very situational whether I'd think there was enough benefit to the company to cover the overhead of having such a low-percentage employee. There's a cost of coordination and benefits overhead; at some point, the fixed weekly drag of just keeping up with company news and team progress takes over. Very few places would pay 2.5% for 1 hour per week as an extreme example...

I am a manager in Europe too and would (and have) offered people 3 and 4 days a week, for 60%/80% pay, as well.

I think it's a good deal for the company, I mean people are tired on Fridays and tend not to do much, so if you can pay them 80% for their good days, and make them happier and more loyal as a result, I think it's a good deal.

That's fine when I've run my own companies, but when working for others, even when I'm the manager and supposedly have final say, it's been very difficult to convince higher-ups. There's a feeling if they only want to work 4 days a week they must want to slack off, or not really "love" the company enough. A stupid attitude imho.

Could consider offering to be hired as a consultant.

Pete Muller said of his quants, "I want their shower time because in the shower they are thinking about things that get them to solve the problems." Put another way, in certain roles >50% value is created in 20% office time spent crystalizing ideas developed outside the office.

If your team can capture the >50% value of 20% time for 20% comp, that's a huge win. Assumes your work is qualitatively different from a new hire's. Not "more widgets with fewer defects in less time". If latter, company may reasonably prefer new hire who can put in the 50 hour slog. And you will too, it's no fun working as a time-metered widget-making FTE stand in.

Interestingly I came to the exact opposite conclusion from that quote - when people stop working full-time the loss is greater than just the percentage of time lost because you lose that extra edge from them like shower thoughts. It’s natural when your job becomes less of your main focus.

BTDTBTTS. It's feast or famine. Stability is had at (some) large corporations or in government.

You probably work too many hours, and actually can more often say 'no' than you think. Delegate some of your responsibilities. Work smarter, not harder. Be transparent with your manager about your night classes and the need to change some schedules. If your manager is sensible, they'll take 80% of your known performance at our level of experience over uncertainty and a long ramp to reach the equivalent of your 80%. Sure, there is a chance they won't accept, but it might be a risk worth taking. Oh, and by going to school you surely show that you want to grow.

I know numerous people at multiple companies in the UK who negotiated working a 4 day week as a dev in return for a 20% pay cut. Not sure how common that is in the US, or whether less than four days a week is something employers would ever consider.

I am very much interested in answers to this question as well. My company is pushing me that way and I don't like managing/leading other people and I feel like I am already assigned to too much responsibility

Recently I got promoted, even though I told my manager I am not interested in promotion if it means additional work or responsibilities. I was clear about me feeling burned out in how I work already. She told me that the promotion would be more of a reward for the work I did, not because of additional exceptions

When my promotion got accepted and she told me about it in a 1-1, looks like she forgot about all that stuff and ended the meeting with something like "we will talk about the responsibilities later"

I felt like my heart sank after that last bit. Admittedly nothing really changed yet and we never had such talk but I am very worried of it. I got assigned to onboarding of a new employee so maybe that is a start

Sorry for hijacking your thread

Bait and switch seems to be widely used by mangers in situations like this.

In your inital negotiation, you informally agree on some conditions.

Then slowly,over the course of weeks or months, most points change to what your manager wanted.

A senior developer is not defined by someone who works longer hours.

You’re not setting proper boundaries and/or expectations. That is the skill you need to learn.

I would keep “down leveling” as a last resort and just talk with your employer about going par -time or taking less hours. They’d probably benefit more from having some percentage of you to work and train than 0%.

Realistically you could just keep your position and work less. Just delegate more and cut out some of the less important stuff. You might even get promoted this way lol

Have never encountered this sort of thing in my long career, but I have seen numerous people take a pay cut to work fewer days in the week. It was assumed that less critical tasks would go to these individuals, though their seniority in each case remained the same.

Your situation is a strange one. If one of our engineers came to me and said something similar it would be a difficult call. Switching to a different team with less responsibility would make more sense, though.

It happens to me to take over my boss job while he was going part time. It went well, the team grew a bit and he left definitely to ride his bike full time 2 years after. That was in France.

Here in the Us I see that as more difficult. The only time I got a part time accepted was in the context of me threatening to leave, and that did not really work out well. ( I ended up actually leaving ) Maybe just switching job?

I have experience trying to get a down-level job for a different employer. I think that might be even more difficult than staying with the same employer. I was trying to down-level for more or less the same reasons - burnout from 20+ years of 50-60 hour weeks managing an I.T. department with mission critical systems and too few staff.

I interviewed for several "down-level" positions, a couple where I subsequently found out that I was clearly the most qualified candidate. One HR person more or less told me that they didn't understand why I was willing to take a ~30% pay cut. I think they thought it seemed suspect... because who would do that?

I believe your time is worth because the knowledge you have and your ability to make the team better - not because you can code faster.

1. Have you just tried to delegate the work you do to free up a bit of your time? 2. Does your company has role like an architect or something? Where you do more design and code reviews and less of direct coding? 3. What will happen if you start working 30+ hours a week by declining meetings and moving things out?

Since you are financially independent, why not slow the pace yourself and see if where you can add the most amount of value for least amount of work?

No personal experience, but I've seen this happen before. Most recently, it was a senior-level TPM who switched to a mid-level SDE role, and who has since declined to pursue a promotion to senior. Assuming that you (a) are a good performer (because they'll be motivated to keep you around) and (b) have a good relationship with your manager (because they'll have to handle losing you as a senior IC), you should be able to discuss your options and, if it's possible to make the change in situ, hash out a transition plan.

If I am right in thinking that "senior dev" means individual contributor, I'd suggest trying to go the other way and become a manager/team lead.

That way, you can delegate much of the hands on and time consuming reactive, break/fix, late night and on-call stuff, and just train people up, handle occasional escalations, set strategy and direction, etc. What's more, they'll think you are a very good manager since you focus so much on helping your team grow, training them, etc, etc.

I don't understand. You want a lower level because that means you can work fewer hours and you're worried if you work fewer hours you'll get fired?

Better to go to your employer and say you want to take night classes and need to reduce your hours, duties/resposibilities, etc, but cannot afford reducing compensation or level. Or, if you "have enough money" then you shouldn't work.

I'm not worried about getting fired, I'm just trying to see if anyone has a similar experience of shifting priorities without finding an entirely new position.

For the sake of not having to disclose the specifics of my personal life and finances, lets just say that for whatever reason I would rather make $90k to primarily make well-known code changes than my current position of making $300k to work long hours and tackle large ambiguous problems.

Maybe look for a job at a local non-profit as a jack-of-all trades technologist. I do this and it offers great flexibility, a lot of human interaction across the organization, the ability to spend time with the kids, ect.

I've seen a Director of Engineer (at a company big enough to have 5 for different business areas) switch back to the IC track after 5 years, with a sabbatical in between. Granted this is in UK which scanning comments seems to be more flexible…

It really depends on company culture.

Based on what I think the place you work at is, I think chances are you will be prime PIP candidate - regardless of your contribution. It sucks, don't get me wrong, just being frank.

I've seen a Director of Engineer switch back to the IC track after 5 years, with a sabbatical in between. Granted this is in UK which scanning comments seems to be more flexible…

I did. Before I realized I needed a CPAP I thought I was just losing it. Asked to be moved from PM to tech writer. Went well. Props to Microsoft for leaving my pay grade intact.

I admire the thought but it's impossible. People in this field will never agree to that.

It exits in other countries producing software. I think it’s partly on us workers.