Ask HN: How much PTO do you get? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How much PTO do you get?

I've worked for a number of different companies throughout the years and they all had fairly differing policies.

One was 20 days PTO plus a couple of weeks off for the holidays. Another was "unlimited" as long as you had your main projects on track/done/someone covered for you. Another is 3-4 days per year.

I know there's no "right" answer, I'm just trying to get a feel for what's "normal" these days.

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I've seen everything from strict 15–20 days to unlimited, and in practice the number matters less than the culture.

At places with real support and sane planning, people actually take 20–25+ days. With unlimited, it often ends up being less, because no one wants to be the first to disappear.

The worst setups are low fixed PTO with no flexibility. That just burns people out.

On my team, I actively encourage people to take time off, sometimes even without formally applying, when I can see burnout creeping in. That matters way more than whatever policy exists on paper.

What feels normal to me now is ~20 days + holidays, or unlimited with managers who actually push people to use it.

> when I can see burnout creeping in

This matters so much, and something most companies do not pay close enough attention to.

I have 'unlimited', but I work for a consulting firm, and I'm expected to maintain a certain percentage of billing hours throughout the year, so if I dip too far below that it gets hard to get PTO approved.

Even still, it hasn't been difficult to take 20 days off plus a few sick days each year. The only year I dipped below my target was a couple years ago, where I was in between client projects and sitting on the bench for a month and a half.

Thankfully they had a new client project in mind for me pretty quick, it just took some time to get the approvals and make the transition, or else I might have been on the bench long enough to be at risk of being laid off.

It’s different at each place. Current is unmetered, and they claim to encourage taking a minimum of 20 days/yr but I haven’t been here long enough to gauge how true that is.

I’ve had anything from 10 days combined vacation / sick to 4 weeks vacation plus two weeks sick. To startups where PTO is unmetered but nobody feels they can more than about 7 days per year.

Thats always on top of holidays, which vary from about 7/yr to 12/yr.

Small companies, 0 PTO for a year and 5 holidays then 5 PTO days after a year.

Big companies offer more days.

If you are a contractor 0 PTO days and Holidays mean you don’t get paid.

Yes I’m in the US.

Interested, in the US if you want to go on holiday will companies be ok with you taking unpaid time off? For instance in the UK I get 25 days paid, then the bank holidays we have (8 days I think) but when I asked they were ok for me to take some unpaid leave if required as well. The biggest problem I have is that if you don't take the paid days you tend to lose them at the end of the year.

Some companies are ok with that. But smaller companies don’t pay that well. You can make more money in the US but everything costs more, but if you are good at saving it can be worth it. But of course all your savings will be milked by healthcare when you get old. I plan on retiring elsewhere.

Keep in mind every company has different setups, there is no national law saying you get any PTO or holidays, maybe some states have that but I don’t know all the laws in all 50 states.

That’s awful. The worst I’ve had in the US, even with tiny companies, was 10 days combined vacation and sick time, plus bank holidays.

30 days. Finland.

Generally I'd get one extra day off for my birthday, one day if I moved house, and unpaid leave is easy enough if you suffered a death/bereavement/similar.

Sick leave I'd count separately, but there's no real notion of limits there. Though after a month or two you start to get paid less.

Before I quit last year I was getting 20 days PTO, plus the last two weeks of the year were basically off, plus 8 no questions asked "sick days" and I think 8 national holidays and Boxing Day (UK owned company). And most days before a holiday weekend were 1/2 days. I had no complaints.

"Unlimited" with the caveat that 4-5 weeks is typical and anything over 6 weeks requires multiple layers of management going to bat for you.

Unlimited*

*fair usage limits apply

In Australia, full-time employees get 20 days of paid leave + paid public holidays (11 - 13 days, depending on the state).

30 days in Germany + Public Holidays

PTO?

paid time off

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