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Software development jobs for people that want to have a life outside of work
Hey there! Back when the pandemic was in full swing, I stumbled upon a comment that shared a link to a website with a title quite like this post. I can't quite recall if I saw the comment on Reddit, the orange site, or even here. The site was quite basic, and claimed to have a list of jobs from companies that understood that its workers would like to have a life outside of work
The job market has changed a lot since the pandemic, but if any of you awesome folks happen to know where I can find a good part-time software development job, I'd be seriously grateful.
I'd like one too, so I'll pay attention to this thread.
But keep in mind we have now surpassed 400000 people laid off since last year.
I was able to land a full time software engineering position in San Francisco this week. My references were all extremely positive about my performance. When I told my future boss that previous managers and co-workers liked me that much even though I've rarely worked more than 30 hours per week he said (paraphrasing) "If you can make me that happy with 30 hours per week then please go ahead!"
I've had 3 jobs since graduating with a bachelor's degree (two startups and one FAANG). Not a single one has been incompatible with my expectations of work/life balance. Never once has a manager said a word when I show up regularly at 11am. I know there are a lot of toxic workplaces out there where time spent working is the primary metric by which you are judged, but that seems to be easy enough to detect when applying for jobs. Beyond that, every instance I've seen of people regularly working >40 hours per week was self-imposed.
This year I explored doing dev work part time, but I realized that the quality of work you have available to you isn't as good as when you're brought on full time. You need to take what you can get given the lack of stability in that mode of employment. I'd rather work a few more hours and get full responsibility over the solution.
So my advice would be to find a place where the employees are clearly happy and not too stressed. Then just do a healthy amount of work and expect everyone to accept that. Some people find it easier to draw that boundary when working remotely, but I will absolutely just walk out before 5pm and my coworkers can reflect on their own boundaries if they don't like that.
Completely agree, setting boundaries is the most important step towards having a life outside of work. In most jobs (In my experience, maybe I've been lucky to not have been at places with overly toxic environments) you just put in your hours and walk out when the timer runs out at the end of the day. If you ask your manager "Do I need to work overtime to get a promotion/good review?" they'll almost always say no. No one is going to say "You work too much, you need to stop". The caveat being that you have to at least do a good job.
When out at the pub with mates I see them checking their messages/emails and more than a few times their night has been ruined by one of those. I don't understand why they do that to themselves.
One time at a bar a co-worker was getting tons of Slack notifications. I told him he could set it to only notify him on a direct ping - he said he had no idea and switched over right then.
I don't think I've ever known someone who got told off for not seeing a notification sent at 10pm. So I have no idea why people feel they're expected to check that all of the time.
I have seen this a lot, particularly but not exclusively, in junior employees. At some one I think (good) management bears the responsibility to make this clear to folks, especially when they’re just starting out, because not everyone feels comfortable setting these types of boundaries, especially when VPs are calling you up on a Saturday because of an “emergency” (I learned long ago to just leave my computer elsewhere on weekends)
Tagging u/Trauma, since this is also a reply to their comment.
I'm from Mexico, one of the worst places to have work-life balance. Some thing are probably better than the USA, but there are also some things worse. The work week here is 44 hours a week, although it's not as bad for some professionals, including SWE.
With that said, I've only worked for foreign companies from first world countries. I don't know if the expectations are different because they saw me as a lowly third world worker, but I've never worked for a company that didn't expect me to constantly spit out code. I'm only a mid-developer but I already feel burnt out. But to be fair I've only worked on start-ups.
Excuse my rant, I knew asking this was a long shot but I'd to try.
Are you working as a full-time employee or a contractor? A lot of companies treat contractors poorly.
Contractor
I think the kinds of places you’re filtering for as a contractor biases towards worse employers. And if you’re not independent then you’re dealing with the contracting firm as well. That means bigger organizations who are comfortable having a shorter term workers where other companies would be determined to build their base of dedicated employees.
Because of your time zone advantage you have a lot of remote jobs available to you. From what I’ve seen a lot of companies are willing to pay what is market rate in Silicon Valley for a good engineer remotely. I worked somewhere that hired a guy from Brazil, paying him something like $150k-$175k.
So my recommendation is to look for smaller USA companies (less than 100 employees) that will hire you directly as a full time employee.
Try to look for remote work in any Western European country, preferably northern part like Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Denmark. There’s lots of companies looking for devs and they will be able to do all communication in English. You’ll have to deal with time difference, but nobody will blink an eye if you say you want to work 24 or 32 hours a week. Pay is decent, but not like US rates.
Defense sector. Government may shut down over arguments every 4-5 years but otherwise it's the most stable position and I hear it's some of the less stressful work (since the government can't easily lay off workers and contractors tend to be in similar boats). As a bonus, I hear quite a few contractors work 37.5 hour work weeks, so you get every other friday off.
But if you're not comfortable with that sort of industry, I can't really say there is a "safe job", especially not in this economy. Only safe "people" that furfill a very specific role. I'd personally say it's better to not think of software work as a "safe" venture and instead utilize the high pay to build up a lot of rainy day funds. savings are the only true safety and if you live humbly you can rack up a huge buffer.
Freelancing, basically. But that's the least safe position out there.
There aren't too many part time software gigs, and once again, the few I hear of are either from (guest) lecturers on the side teaching students about software, or from very experienced, desirable personnel who can bargain such hours. Both of which are people that possess resumes and knowledge beyond the ordinary SWE. They usually aren't posted on job boards to be found (but don't let that stop you from looking. Just make sure it's paid).
I'd also love to hear where these roles are. I don't need it now, but it would be a nice option to have for some future plans.
Security clearance prunes a lot of people out of this sector, but I never want to go back to working for publicly traded companies after my experience in the government sector.
As a non American here, can I ask why this prunes a lot of folks? I assumed you'd just apply for a background check kind of thing, maybe an interview?
Also, can I ask how is it different from publicly traded companies?
Generally, things like past cannabis use, not being a US citizen, and criminal history can be problems here.
I still do, but I used to, too
It’s a lot of invasive paperwork to fill out and raises privacy concerns. The process causes some people to realize how serious the position is.
Publicly traded companies have investors that always steer the business to an aggressive and general short term push for profit growth. That usually means do more with less. Less benefits to employees and more stressful working conditions. When a company goes public there’s a tendency for the original owners to get bought out, and with them goes any altruistic company goals and the knowledge that made them valuable in the first place.
Government is generally results driven and somewhat indifferent to cost by comparison. It’s not without its flaws. There tends to be a hurry up and deliver culture and so there’s not much time for polishing a product: lots of tech debt builds up, design doesn’t come into play until much later. But I’ve seen that happen with large public companies.
Very interesting, thank you for the response!
Part time? Can't really help there.
But generally if you're looking for work with the balance? Look for places that have ways of work that revolve around team and individual autonomy.
I tend to find part-time people convert from successful full time employment. You could also look for contract work.
With part time work though you’re usually on the hook for your own benefits or a substantial portion of them.
I've recently stumbled across https://4dayweek.io/ which shows you jobs that adhere to a 4 day work week. There are a number of software jobs listed if you filter on them.
Generally, the roles I've both been in and seen in binary analysis/reverse engineering often have great work/life balance.
You should always add location when asking about jobs. This question for example comes across as very US centric to me because in most parts of Europe having a life outside of work is the default and if you want one of those permanent crunch 60 hour minimum dev jobs you either have to go into game development or apply with FAANG or equivalents.
Software development jobs are remote very often, so this would unnecessarily narrow the job pool for no real benefit. While you're right overall that Europe tends to be better for work/life balance than the US, there are exceptions and there's variation within Europe itself as well, especially in the startup scene.
Many software development roles offer remote opportunities, possibly more than in other fields. However, it's not always the standard practice. Even positions labeled as "fully remote" might have geographical restrictions. While the prevalence of remote jobs may be higher in certain countries, it's essential to recognize that not everyone has the same access to such opportunities. Including a location can be more inclusive and shows consideration for those less represented on this platform.