
Ask HN: How to succeed without working full time - sunderw
Hi HN community,<p>I&#x27;ve been suffering from chronic pain for a few years now and have stopped working for ~ 2 years because I could not bear it anymore (kind of a pain-related burnout).  
After having started again recently, in the same company, but part-time. I don&#x27;t think I will be able to work full-time in the short-medium term, and I feel like I can&#x27;t really evolve in my career because of this.  
I&#x27;m sure there are a lot of people with a lot of different reasons to work part-time, and I would like to know how you handled your career choices.<p>My original plan (before the pain was incapacitating) was to work 2-3 years at this company, eventually work for another company with a higher pay for 1-2 years and finally start my own company.  
But now I feel there are two main problems:<p>- Is it even possible to build a startup when fulltime ? The people I talk to try to dissuade me because as a company, you need to be fast and it can&#x27;t be possible if you don&#x27;t work half the time.<p>- As I&#x27;m working part-time, I&#x27;m not learning as much, I don&#x27;t really have opportunities to take more responsabilities on the project I&#x27;m working on.<p>So here is the question: how do you succeed (either in your career or as a startup) when you can only work part-time ? 
Should I resign myself I&#x27;ll never be more than an average developer ?
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gshdg
Define “success”?

What about being an average developer is insufficient for you?

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sunderw
By using success, I meant that I would like to be given more responsibilities,
work on projects with bigger impact, to be more included in decisions. It
usally comes with being promoted and having experience : things I find way
more difficult while working part-time.

And by using average, I meant the fact of stagnating and not learning, etc...

I think I should not have used both of those terms. I does not really reflect
what I mean (and I might sound full of myself).

