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Comment by drags | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, this is close to impossible in my industry, and most others. You work 40-plus hours or you work zero.

I've mentioned this before but my company hires Rails developers for 24hrs/wk. Health insurance is provided and salary is proportional to full-time.

It's not for everyone, but it works well for us. Everyone's fresh and relaxed when they come into work, and the free time is great for learning, side projects, exercising, travel.

Anyway, we're actually hiring right now: if you're in the Bay Area and looking shoot me an email.

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There's probably a huge untapped workforce from everybody that can't work 40h/w but could work less than that

In some professions it's easier, because you work by 'smallish' project: copywriting, translation, etc

But the sw development world could benefit from that

Good for you. I'm neither in the Bay Area nor a Rails developer, but I really wish I could find work like that.

Have you considered freelancing?

Every day. Tips on how to smoothly transition from full time employment to Freelancing? In Europe, btw.

I contract, which means I get to work "as much as I want" over the longer term, but it still means full time working for extended periods. It's not a bad deal at all, but I'm starting to feel like I'd like something more stable. I am hard to please.

I did that for a while and had similar plusses and minuses, but the one thing I still can't wrap my head around is insurance. What did you do about that?

In the UK I think most of us buy a professional / public indemnity bundle from Hiscox, which costs a couple of hundred gbp or thereabouts. It's normally a contractual obligation.

Ah, well in the UK you have it much easier with the existence of the NHS, whether or not it covers all of your needs. As I'm sure you know, in the US if you don't have insurance, you don't really have much of anything--and due to the tax advantage setup to get insurance through one's employer, self-employed people get hit really hard with insurance.

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