
Ask HN: Experiences going part time? - robinwarren
Hi HN,<p>Has any one gone part time? How did it work out? What are you doing with the extra time? Anything you would have done differently? Anything else you want to tell us?<p>Cheers!
======
dcolgan
I spent most of the last 5 years working about 10 hours a week at $90 a hour
on a recurring freelance gig, which was enough to live comfortably in the
midwest (my rent is currently $400 a month) and travel around eastern Europe.
Not really enough to live in a city or have dependents, but I could probably
afford that by just working 20 hours a week at $90 an hour.

I think what I did is very doable for other devs - my business proposal was:
give me 10 regular hours a week, and I'll continue adding to your internal
company app. Phone call with the client once a week. I automated a whole bunch
of their processes using Django and it was a great win-win. They weren't large
enough to need or be able to afford a full time dev and I could work part part
time.

The extra time allowed me to try a bunch of things. I tried livestreaming on
Twitch.tv, being a digital nomad, blogging, making products. I enjoyed not
having an alarm clock and going on walks in the park whenever to think. I was
able to really put time into working on myself, and my health and mental state
are pretty good these days. I've read a lot of books.

I'll admit that I've wasted a lot of time surfing the internet - I think the
danger of being fully self-directed is that you have to work hard to use the
time well. Nobody is sitting on you to "do what you are supposed to." It has
also been kind of isolating, but I'm also an introvert and have social
anxiety, and working on relationship building is one of my soon future
projects.

~~~
crush-n-spread
That sounds like an absolutely horrible way to spend five years. I cannot
imagine being you, living in the time of technological empowerment,
immediately before the time of atmospheric-carbon induced catastrophe, and
having no goal or direction of how to spend my immensely valuable life force.
I could absolutely not live with myself.

~~~
dcolgan
Funny you should say that - when I first started doing this I tried to get
some of my friends to join me. They all fell apart from the lack of structure
and went back to their old jobs. And that's not to say it was a moral failing
on their part - I don't think everyone is wired to do this sort of thing,
maybe even most people.

I'm also not saying that I wasted all of my time or that I did nothing of
value - just that it has taken real effort to figure out what I value. I think
the existential crises I've come through have been really important for my
growth, and I wouldn't have had to think about it had I not had to direct my
time myself.

~~~
crush-n-spread
I suppose everyone has existential crisis at different points in their lives.
When I was younger I became obsessed with global warming and the danger it
presented. Sometimes I forget not everyone has had that crisis; hopefully you
found the purpose or direction that you deeply identify with.

------
notacoward
I went part time (60%) for about a year and a half at Red Hat. For context:
I'm pretty senior (architect for the Gluster project), had been there a while,
and the clear alternative was that I'd quit. I only mention that because I
think I wouldn't have been able to pull it off otherwise.

First off, my boss at the time made a very wise suggestion to start with a
month completely off. Not even checking email. My first thought was that it
was to affect my own behavior, but the most important part was to change
_other people 's_ habits. They couldn't count on me to drive anything, resolve
anything, fix anything, for that month. They were forced to learn how to fill
all those gaps themselves, so when I came back part time I wasn't immediately
deluged with a full-time level of demands/requests (or worse because of the
backlog). Great idea.

For the first year, it went pretty well. I don't feel like I benefited so much
from the reduced hours as the increased flexibility. I could work _when_ I
wanted, fitting work around my domestic responsibilities or the ebb and flow
of my own energy levels, instead of having to fit everything else around work.
It's amazing what a difference that makes. Also, I could take a three- or
four-day weekend whenever I wanted, without having to take any PTO. I'd just
front-load the week before and back-load the week after to make it fit. Very
nice.

Over time, I did start to work more than my nominal part-time hours - as I'd
already expected. Mostly that's because I was feeling recovered from the
burnout that had triggered the whole process. So eventually I talked to my (by
then different) boss and went back to full time. Then the cycle kind of began
again and now I'm not there, but that's kind of another story. It really did
help, and I highly recommend that anyone who has been running flat out for 15+
years (for me it was over 20) try part time to see if it suits them.

~~~
robinwarren
Thanks for this, I like the idea of looking at it as a break after 20 years
fulltime. It is a nice way to think about it.

Maybe any move to part time isn't a plan to be part time forever, just that it
is the right thing right now. There's a lot of people who think the only way
to achieve anything (ie starting/growing a business) is to put yourself 100%
into it, which then costs time spent with family, hobbies and yourself etc.
Maybe going a bit slower for a while on some parts of your life is the right
thing to do, then to switch the balance later if/when it is appropriate.

------
i_dont_know_
I haven't worked 40-hour weeks in nearly 7 years, and have recently started
working for myself as a consultant.

If you go this route, it can be very rewarding. Work no longer becomes
something you "have" to do, or something you escape during the weekends, but
instead something you're doing because you want to, and doing it as much or as
little as you want (within reason, you still probably have bills).

The most important lesson I can share is to be forgiving to yourself.

You will definitely spend whole days watching youtube or doing something
'unproductive', sometimes for long stretches.

Then you'll get dizzy thinking of all the lost opportunity and feel even worse
that all you're doing is being 'unproductive'.

Remember this is normal, and human. If you're able to tell yourself it's OK,
and try to just aim for being a little better about it, you'll be fine. If you
beat yourself up about it, it'll just take you that much longer to get out of
it and get to things you want to do.

Nowadays I recognize my unproductive cycles as a need to do something
different for a while (eg. drawing, cooking, music) but it took some time to
get used to harnessing my own motivation and accepting that it waxes and wanes
as it does.

------
levthedev
Right now I am freelancing 20 hours a week. I've found it to be incredibly
rewarding, as I have enough energy to sit down and code for 4 hours a day and
then go home and read, go to the gym/library, watch a movie, or hang out with
friends.

Plus, working part time in software still means that I make good money.

If I could work for a "regular" software company but only work 20 hours a week
(and be paid 50%), I would definitely do it.

For what it's worth, I also know someone who for a while worked 6 weeks on 6
weeks off - he was kind of one of those fabled 10x developers and so had
negotiated something special with his employer. Another commenter mentioned
something similar; working 40 hours a week but for only a few months a year.

~~~
HillaryBriss
> If I could work for a "regular" software company but only work 20 hours a
> week (and be paid 50%), I would definitely do it.

i've often wondered why this is not available more often. my guess is that
hiring a person is so expensive (benefits, unemployment ins, hardware, office
space, HR time, etc) that the company feels that it must squeeze as much
productivity out of the employee as possible.

workers require a bunch of time/effort to find and maintain a relationship
with (so milk 'em like a cow before they dry up).

~~~
pcsanwald
My experience: I worked part time (3.5 days/week) for a startup early in my
career. The reason was so I could go to school part-time also (for jazz
performance).

I've since employed many folks part-time and a lot more full time. From what
I've seen, it's almost always an option, but you have to ask for it, it's not
just going to be offered.

It's also trickier to manage, if you have a handful of people that work 15-20
hours/week, and are paid hourly, vs full time folks who are salaried, and
managing support/on-call schedules, etc, and it can create a strange dynamic
on teams sometimes.

------
zapperdapper
Robin, there was some discussion on this on this comment thread recently:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14803468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14803468)

Basically I work about three months a year, then take 9 months off. Spend a
lot of time keeping fit, traveling, reading, spending time with family. Spend
quite a bit of time in South East Asia - mostly diving. It's worked really
well for me.

Feel free to email me if you have any more questions.

~~~
robinwarren
Thanks! that's an interesting way to spend your time and nice that both you
and your partner could adopt similar work patterns :)

------
nhatcher
After working for almost 7 years for the same company, I had a meltdown for
many different reasons a bit more than two years ago. I have a fairly nice job
and work with fantastic people. But plainly speaking I was getting
tremendously bored. I looked for a different job and found several options,
but my boss suggested me to work part time. I have been doing that 22
hour/week and could not be happier. I wanted to do lots of extra things and
personal projects. I am not doing much but I appreciate the extra time to
think, read and wander. I used to have heavy insomnia, it is a 100% gone,
there is almost zero stress, and money is more than enough. I am not married
and have no kids but I warmly recommend it. The best argument that someone
gave me is that it is a very easy decision to roll back.

------
yeldarb
When I realized my startup was turning into more of a lifestyle business I
decided to go part time and work remotely from Asia (I'm the founder and our
only dev).

I gave our lead designer a lot more responsibility and empowered her to assign
me the tasks she needed done instead of the other way around.

I kind of expected revenue to trail off over a few years. Oddly enough, with
me working 1 day per week vs 5 I got back from Asia 7 months later and the
business was going stronger than when I left.

I think being part time helped me focus on the things that actually mattered
instead of just filling my time with trivialities for the hell of it. 80/20
rule in action.

~~~
RepressedEmu
Where did you live in Asia?

~~~
yeldarb
Longest was Philippines for 2 months and China for 6 weeks. Besides that just
bopped around SEA for 2-3 weeks at a time.

------
itamarst
Past couple of startup jobs I worked part time (80-85% time), and before that
did consulting part time.

Some takeaways, and you'll see this in other stories here:

1\. It's _much_ easier to negotiate part time at existing job.

2\. It is possible to negotiate part time at new jobs, but it's much harder.
Easier if you already did it at previous position, and if you're very
experienced, have in-demand skills, and have negotiation skills.

My experience (again, echoed by others) is that I am now a much more
productive programmer, since I've been forced to focus, to prioritize, and to
make sure limited time is used effectively.

(I'm actually writing a book, The Programmer's Guide to a Sane Workweek, to be
released real soon now, which talks among other things about how to get to a
shorter workweek if that's your thing.
[https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/](https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/)
if you want to be notified when it's released.)

------
zapperdapper
I would just add one other idea as no one has mentioned it.

Although not "part-time" as such if you can't get part-time or contract work
there is another approach - mini-retirement.

The basic idea is this: these days you almost never work for one company for
ever. So, work somewhere for, say, two or three years, then take a year out.
If you ram down your expenses and save hard during your two or three year
stint you should be able to afford to do this.

A mini-retirement can be of almost any duration you like. Before I went
contracting I took several, ranging in length from three months to one year.

You need to plan carefully, but you will find the break of great benefit. My
productivity after returning from a mini-retirement was breathtaking - I was
like a completely different person.

If you want to stay with the same company discuss having a sabbatical - if
they say "no" screw them - you are better off with another company.

Reading this comment thread and previous threads on HN I think there is a
lesson here for HR departments in software companies - why are you running
your engineers ragged when they would be so much more productive if they had
more time off? I guess the old 40-hr week mentality has not quite caught up
with modern developments...

~~~
robinwarren
This is an interesting idea, maybe I should have a mini-retirement through to
when my kids start school?

I had thought of a similar approach from the other side. Ie arranging my work
as one off missions (ie raise activation rates 2x) and then deciding after
each one whether I continue working or take a break. There are a few things
getting in the way of that at the moment and I think I prefer the regular if
smaller push of working part time. However, for a business owner I guess that
could be a nice way to work if it fitted their lifestyle.

------
davedx
Not fully part time, but I went from 40 to 32 hours/week after my daughter was
born to spend Mondays looking after the kids.

It's been great, I have one day per week when I'm the only parent and usually
it means a combination of housework (meh, but has to be done) and fun quality
time with the kids.

I was actually a contractor at the time, and I think I was relatively lucky
the client was understanding about it. After I stopped contracting I took a
perm position and I was their first employee not working 40 hours/week. Again
they were great, and it worked out fine.

I'm now Scrum Master there which occasionally can be an issue when I'm not
there on Mondays, as one of my responsibilities is removing impediments for
the team. But overall it works pretty well. I do feel like there's not enough
hours in the week, but the most important things get done.

I wouldn't have done it differently. I'm wondering how things will change and
what I'll do once our youngest kids are all at school.

~~~
heleph
I have Fridays off to spend with my kids too. It's really nice. I've always
found it quite difficult to switch off, but after three days with the kids I
go back to work refreshed and with a fresh sense of perspective.

It's lovely to have extra time to spend with them while they are small. I
always look forward to our Friday adventures. I appreciate the feeling of
space it gives my week.

While I was on mat leave I started working on my little side project while
they napped just to keep my skills fresh and to exercise the part of my brain.
I've kept doing that and really enjoy having the time to inch my little
website along. There's not a massive amount of time in my life that's not
being a parent or at work, so it's been really nice to have something where I
can call the shots and just do something for myself.

My boss was very accommodating when I wanted to switch to a four day week. We
had another older guy in the team who was working half time and spending the
other half spin charity work. There were also some other parents in the
department who did non-standard hours. I don't know if it would have occurred
to me if there weren't already other people doing it.

------
knocte
It would be great to have a "Who's hiring" post exclusive to part-time gigs.
If anyone has an F# vacancy, I would switch to that in a heart-beat.

------
ssijak
I started freelancing earlier this year over [https://www.toptal.com/#connect-
unmatched-coders-now](https://www.toptal.com/#connect-unmatched-coders-now) My
plan was to freelance some time as an additional work to my regular 9-17h job
to test it out. Then I quit regular work and freelance full time (with better
pay than a regular job, but now I feel secure that freelance will not leave me
for prolonged periods without a job). This way I gained flexibility in time (I
can work from wherever and whenever I want). And after some time I will
probably go half-time freelance and do something else with my time (probably
tackle some startup ideas I have for some time, but after I work on myself
first).

~~~
Modernnomad84
How difficult was it to become a programmer with TopTal? How do you like
working through them?

~~~
ssijak
You have 4-5 step process. I do not know if top 3% that they boast on the
website is correct and I do not care, I just care that I love working with
them and that it pays more than the jobs from my city can pay, with added
benefit of working from wherever you want. It was not 'that' hard if you are
versed in the algorithms. Steps are like this :

1\. Screening process (testing for good English)

2\. Codility test (algorithms, 3-4 tasks in 90mins or such)

3\. Same as codility but easier, coding while you share the screen with Toptal
dev. And he will ask you some questions regarding your experience, and why did
you do something. Tasks were easier than codility tasks.

4\. You get the project to do. The project will be relevant to your
experience. So if you are mobile dev you will probably get a task to make some
basic mobile app with maybe firebase as a backend DB. I got some basic app to
make as restful API and angular as a client. Its purpose is to demonstrate
that you know the basic stuff like what REST is, testing, project structure,
roles, security, etc..

5\. The last step is to share the screen with Toptal dev and to go through
your project explaining to him what you did and why (trying to explain like
you would to a client)

From my experience, I would say if you pass algorithm tasks, you will make the
project for sure (you get 2 weeks for it). If you fail they will give you a
second chance to reapply very soon (at 2-3 month tops, depends on where and
how miserably you failed). If you failed for the second time, you must wait
2-3 years. Good luck!

------
perilunar
I went part-time recently so I could spend more time on my side project. So
far I've wasted most of the extra time procrastinating. :(

~~~
have_faith
Just spitballing, whenever I get stuck like this I make my todo list more
granular than it already is. Split each task into sub-tasks etc, as much as
needed to make it easily manageably. Makes it easy to dive into a task when
it's easy to see how quickly it is to complete. The added benefit of going
through this is greater clarity of what you where trying to achieve in the
first place.

------
eropple
I've been consulting about 25 hours a week for the last couple years.
Sometimes a little more (there was a month where I was doing north of 80 hours
a week--and it was time-and-a-half overtime-billable, which is something I
don't expect to ever see again), sometimes a lot less when business is light.

It's probably kept me from leaving tech entirely. I was in a weird middle-
ground spot in my career where I had pretty much topped out on what I was
going to be able to accomplish as a purely technical developer at companies of
the size I enjoy working at, but at the same time I was basically too young
(and still look very young) to be in a managerial role over senior developers.
So consulting has been a great outlet where I've kept technically very sharp
but been able to generate the social credibility to work with management on a
peer level rather than as an employee-employer level.

I'm idly thinking about going back to FT (but not aggressively, I don't need
to) for the consistency, but at the same time, I'm always looking for more
gigs either in application development, as I'm pretty comfortable across many
languages and frameworks, or in devops/infrastructure consulting, because I
build cloud systems that are fault-tolerant and secure. (Looking to boost your
team? Email's in my profile.)

~~~
Modernnomad84
Curious if you could talk about the transition from FT to consulting?
Specifically how you prepared and when you knew you had enough clients lined
up to leave? Thanks!

~~~
eropple
I got laid off when the company that acquired the startup I worked for, plus
two or three others in the same space at the same time, tried to make us the
"cloud services" group for the others (laying off our product group to
"refocus us"). We were like "...we don't want to do this", so we basically all
got laid off with nice severances, I screwed around for a month or so, and I
ended up doing some work for a very large startup where my friend was the
Director of Engineering. Been doing it ever since.

------
_tim_geek
I am a Drupalist and work for a large government contractor and was able to
switch to 75% time 30/hours a week about a year ago. I did it for several
reasons:

* a bit of burnout (not acute, but the preliminary symptoms were there)

* wanting more time for myself (my side projects and fitness had been languishing under work and family responsibilities)

* wanting to get back into coaching (rowing--does not pay well, but is extremely gratifying)

All told it's been wonderful. I really enjoy my 2/hrs day for myself. I would
work less, but I want to meet my saving obligations. The current situation is
a nice compromise.

Tips:

* Make sure you plan each day what you're going to do (I do this as part of my work prep so I never skip this)

* Give yourself permission to f!ck off every now and again; just don't make it a habit

* Devote some time to learning new skills (2 hours immersion in new software > 5' reading about it)

* Be clear with your employer and co-workers about when you are available and when you're not and stick to it.

* For coding side-projects, always leave 15' to create a note to yourself about where you are and update your @todo so when you jump back in you can be productive quickly.

If you can do it, I _highly_ recommend it.

------
dhbradshaw
I'm currently doing this.

Basically, I work for four hours per day doing mostly Django and back-end
stuff and a bit of dev/ops and Angular for some great folk at a growing
startup.

I spend two unpaid hours per day focusing on learning something (currently
Rust).

I spend another two hours per day working on my own project. Currently, that's
a React Native app designed to make it easy to write books by speaking into
your phone. I'm using it to dictate my own book as I develop the app.

After that I try to spend time with my wife and kids. It's pretty nice so far.

One interesting thing I've learned is that I enjoy the contracting as much or
more than the stuff I do on my own. There's something about human interaction
that adds a bit more fun. At the same time, it matters a lot to me to have
freedom to learn and build without taking too much time from the family.

For that reason, and because money is good to earn, I think that when my Rust
has matured a little bit I'll probably try to find a gig that lets me use it
in for pay alongside the Django work.

------
personlurking
I went part-time many years ago. I gave the kind of answer you may be looking
for a while back here on HN (though I now work about 20h/wk and feel a lot
better. It's good to have a boulder to push up the proverbial hill).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13337618](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13337618)

------
damiensway
It can work out great:

I got a full time job as a BA after a few years downtime from selling my
business, but within days I hated my new role and after 3 months tried to quit
but my boss was so happy with my input into the business that he said 'tell me
how I can keep you' so I asked for a new role that didn't exist at the time in
the company and became a 3 days per week scrum master for a few years. I used
the spare time to parent (divorcee with 2 kids that I co-parent e.g. I have
them for a week every other week). Once my kids got a little older, I decided
to build my own house and recently quit to finish the house full time. All
decisions I don't regret but I was in a great position to take them. Tips:
Being in a job seems the best way to negotiate especially if you have a proven
track record and integrity / trustworthiness I am able to self manage my time
and clocked almost exactly 3 days per week. I worked from home (negotiated)
and that helped tremendously I negotiated a day rate so if I did more time per
month I got paid including up to full time in any month if it suited. Some
numbers: my original salary was 67k€ and I earned around 40k€ per year part
time. I think spending the time doing what you actually want and like is like
the most amazing gift and pleasure and worth the salary loss and more. I could
never go back to full time, every hour belonging to someone else and not being
around for my kids and being able to squeeze in naps or guilty pleasures on
tough days. I've come to appreciate the small things like the tedium of the
school run and evening routine more because I'm actually able to enjoy it as
I'm not so disconnected. I'm involved with every aspect of my kids life when I
have them and I've found new interests and hobbies I'd never have time for
before through building my own house including woodwork and architecture etc.
Can't recommend it enough if it suits your life's expectations e.g. You can
afford it and you don't live like a king ;)

------
mcone
A couple years ago I went part time for three months to finish writing a book.
It was a great experience and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

If you can afford to do it, working part time provides a much better work-life
balance and frees you to work on side projects. The only downside was that I
had a difficult time returning to full time work.

~~~
moepstar
Have you had a difficult time because you haven't been used to working full-
time or because of potential employers?

------
eswat
I worked part-time for half of 2015 and most of 2016. Most of those gigs were
with a small number of clients that couldn’t justify hiring a
designer/developer unicorn full-time but were not cash-strapped either. They
were mostly American as well which really helped offset the time commitments
being a Canadian.

With my extra time I mostly read, visited museums, worked on a game prototype
and travelled between cities along the Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal corridor
(since I worked remotely it didn’t matter where I was).

I think the only thing I would have done differently was get out of Canada
more often. I had insane flexibility but didn’t take advantage of it as much
as I could have.

This year I’ve gone back to working closer to full-time and with predominantly
Canadian clients. However I’ll probably try to resurrect the routine I had
just mentioned.

------
ioddly
I'm freelancing and bounce between working full-time and working on my own
projects. I just mention this as an option because if you're up to working a
full-time schedule for stretches, there's a fair amount of this sort of work
available.

Financial discipline is important, as is time management. I have a routine
that doesn't change much whether I'm working for other people or working for
myself. I disconnect the internet at night so I have a block of time without
it.

With the extra time I've accomplished a lot of reading, and exercise. I think
my coding skill has improved by leaps and bounds because I'm able to
experiment with new things. I'd like to start travelling for part of the year.

What I would have done differently and am trying to do differently: do a
better job of sourcing work.

------
wordpressdev
I went off the grid of 9-5 over a decade back. Now, I divide my time between
freelance gigs and personal projects (mostly niche websites).

------
kerrsclyde
I went part time a couple of years ago when my wife changed jobs and I wanted
to spend more time with children & cut childcare costs.

My experience was negative.

I found that I didn't have the time anymore to get everything I needed to, do
the work, market myself, learn new skills, deal with all the admin etc etc.
Things started to drift and ended up losing motivation and customers.

However I wouldn't change anything. I got to spend much more time with my
family, but from a career perspective I have certainly stagnated.

I am looking forward to going back full time in 12 months when my youngest
starts secondary school.

Everybody's situation is different and you are not going to know how it will
pan out until you try it.

------
kidnoodle
I work 4 days a week, which allows me to spend one looking after my daughter.
I had the option to do that, or take a (hugely) better paid job. Don't regret
it for a second, and I don't think it has actually had that significant of an
impact on how much I actually get done in a week.

At least until my child starts school, I wouldn't even consider working full
time. Even then, I think the positive difference the extra time has made to
me, and my family would make me think hard about going back to a 5 day working
week.

~~~
robinwarren
Thanks, this is interesting. I am considering a similar 'until the kids are at
school' approach. We will see how I want to spend my time when we get to that
bridge, back fulltime, or maybe more time on hobbies?

------
ccdev
My first part-time experience just started 2 months ago (not counting the odd
freelance job once in a while). It's a contractor telecommute job for a small
video game studio.

It's pretty good for the most part, but being gamedev related, it is not a
very lucrative spot to be in. Initially I tried finding another PT programming
job to fill in the extra time, but that proved to be fairly difficult, so I'm
just riding out the rest of the contract while keeping my options open for a
full-time job somewhere else in the future. I chose this job because it really
spoke to some of my coding projects and it's a nice pivot away from my usual
web development fare.

I've been using my extra time to pursue various topics and hobbies (both
programming and non-programming related) and on errands for my mom (I
currently live with her). I hope to go back full-time soon and live
independently again.

The biggest difference to me is not in working part-time but telecommuting.
Returning to an office will be a necessary adjustment. It can definitely
affect your ability to socialize and communicate in-person, especially if
you're more of a homebody like myself. I've found that to be more harmful to
your career than even just idly surfing the internet, as people tend to hold
certain expectations towards your network and ability to attain job offers at
certain lengths of tenure.

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donretag
This question is aptly timed. I am strongly considering move toward
consulting, with working part-time as part of the reasoning. I have had a few
requests this year alone to consult on the side, but I find the extra work
draining after a full day of my main job. Currently doing only small projects
for old clients.

Of course, as I make this decision, the requests for my services has stopped.
:) Anyone need Elasticsearch services?

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anotheryou
Any Project and Product Managers here who made the leap to part-time?
Especially for project management I still struggle a bit to see an easy path
to part-time.

(Maybe start-ups that are short on money? But do those pay OK than? Or is
there just consulting as an option?)

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jzast2
TL;DR: Build remote friendly, valuable company skills. Pick a focused project
or skillset to work on. Find a work space that has good people in it. Take
extended travel trips, but not too long.

I was a full time Manufacturing Engineer in an Aerospace Manufacturing company
until I decided to dive into the A.I space and focus on Machine Learning.
Fortunately around that time I implemented an ERP system at my company. I
taught myself SQL, SSRS and some advanced customizations of the ERP system and
began building Business Intelligence tools and reports. With remote friendly
and company valued skills in hand, I asked to go part time remote so I can
spend more hours programming and tackling ML projects.

One year into it now, I work 20 hours remotely for the Aerospace company, and
spend about 20 hours to a ML project with another two researchers, then the
rest is on personal projects / development work (website building, reading,
non-ML projects).

My take on it is that the hours with my Aerospace company are easy to tackle.
Specific objectives, set amount of time to complete, and your success as an
employee is measured by deliverables. The other hours are loosely defined,
open ended and possibly more mentally exhausting if you are trying to learn
new skills.

I would recommend picking one tangible objective / project to spend your extra
time working on, otherwise I think the hours will be under utilized.

My experience is that the first few months I spent learning a lot of different
things in CS / ML. After a while it started to not feel very satisfying,
because I wasn't gaining a mastery in any one thing and I didn't feel like I
had much to show for it (aside from proclaiming 'I learned about a bunch of
different things!').

With the internets infinite resources, it's easy to pass the days just
wandering through the vast stores of knowledge out there (or get lost in
hacker news or Wikipedia). If you don't have a fiery passion for something
specific, it may be even harder to work effectively during these hours. The
other option is to not work on anything and just do as you please, but I don't
find that particularly satisfying myself. So my recommendation here is to go
into part-time with the intention of building a very specific skillset / work
on a specific project.

Once you have a very specific objective for your personal-work hours, the
flexibility is glorious. I have the freedom to exercise, meditate, even power
nap at whatever time I see fit. I can work through lunch or take a long one
with someone, work from the library, co-working space, office or home if I
please. These activities do take up time, but because they make the work life
more enjoyable, work and life hours are blurred a bit more. I work on Saturday
and Sunday, but that's okay because I'm never really burnt out.

The one draw back is lack of social connection while you work. I do video
meetings every day and we cover the necessary items as far as the business
goes, but there's definitely some fundamental human need to interact with
other people and maybe form social groups or something. I used to work out of
a different coffee shop a day, but working for long periods of time in semi-
isolation and uncomfortable chairs isn't the heaven I imagined it to be.
Whether you're working in office or out of office, finding people you enjoy
working around I think is important. Then again I'm more an extrovert so maybe
reclusive individuals won't feel the same way.

Lastly, free time:

I did travel around the world for about 8 months. I personally wasn't any less
productive on my work hours, because in my mind the A.I stuff and having
income was #1 priority, travel #2. It's a bit stressful to find a place to
work with great wifi when you change cities every week.

Maybe this is obvious, but working every day is a different experience than
vacationing every day. After about 3 months you get very used to changing
scenery and new places do not have the 'wow' factor, so I think most people
settle in one place after traveling for a while. I settled back to Boston
because of the A.I community there.

Lastly, if I had to redo the experience, I would have started with a more
specific outline of what I wanted to accomplish with my extra time. Other than
that everything has been wonderful.

Any questions, feel free to ask! This is the first time I've written about my
experience woo hoo!

~~~
robinwarren
Thanks for the big write up, very insightful.

I actually own my own business so focusing on things during work time isn't
too hard (Always too much to do regardless of the hours I work). The need for
some social contact is an interesting one as I we are also considering moving
out of the town we live in with my family. I think we will use that as an
excuse to join some local groups and get involved with things and hence meet
people that way.

Thanks!

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xutopia
I worked part time and I found myself pressured into doing more hours nearly
everywhere I went. I even had one person say "Either you join us full time or
we'll have to replace you with someone who will."

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jey
I only work part time for other people so I can spend most of my time learning
and working on whatever I want to work on. (And I intend/hope to make up for
the lost income later on through business profits.)

