Is Finding Part Time Work In IT Unrealistic?

I like my current job writes "Having worked full-time in IT for the past 12 years, I would really like to work less and focus on other goals and priorities in my life. I asked my current employer and was shot down. It seems like everyone I know in IT works full-time except for entry-level help desk staff. Striking out on my own seems to be the only way to control the ball and chain around my ankle. However, my experience with independent consulting is a 'feast or famine' situation, with work coming all at once, thus making part-time impossible, or the other extreme (which is even more likely). Is part-time work a pipe dream in IT? Maybe a career in toilet cleaning is calling me."

Comments

The Boss Decides... so be the Boss

[alain94040]

One reason corporations don't like part-time is that as long as you are full-time, you actually tend to work way past 40 hours a week. You do whatever it takes to get the job done, under impossible deadlines.

Once you are part-time, you start saying no to crazy demands. Corporations just hate that.

My answer? Be your own boss. It comes with a caveat: starting your own business alone is a bad idea. Guess what? It takes more than one person to provide something of value. It doesn't take an army of hundreds, but a small dedicated group of friends can do amazing things. The sum really is larger than the parts.

Take a look at fairsoftware.net. It was designed for exactly that purpose: geeks starting a side business together.

Re:The Boss Decides... so be the Boss

[plover]

There's always a catch.

I have several friends who have tried this over the years, and know other people who have tried this. The bottom line is: friendships can fail under the strain of a business relationship, and when the friendship fails, the business is not far behind. My wife has worked for three of these ventures over the last 15 years, where two friends created a business, had a falling out, and the business collapsed as a result. All three times. In none of those cases were the owners able to remain friends. She is now with a family owned business who are having their own difficulties right now, but there's no risk of a partnership collapsing here to accelerate it.

Being in it with a friend at a stressful time, when you have one idea about how to save the company, and your friend has a different-and-incompatible idea, and there's just enough money left to try one of your ideas, that's a pressure cooker not many relationships can survive.

Now, you may have a "less permanent" idea about business. Maybe you just want to start a company for the purpose of working, but don't care if it stays together longer than three years or so. As long as you and your partners agree up front, that may work for you.

One other piece of advice -- hire an independent person to do the books, someone you both can trust. Not just an external accountant, but a bookkeeper who sees the day-to-day spending, and lets you both know that the other isn't spending money foolishly.

I will say that family owned businesses seem to be the exception to the rule, as long as Dad or Mom or Grandpa is the "boss" and everyone else understands that.

Re:The Boss Decides... so be the Boss

[tverbeek]

Being part-time is no safeguard against your employer making unfair demands on your time. I used to have a part-time job (their decision, not mine) doing tech support, but routinely found myself working 40-50 (sometimes 60) hours a week. After all, it was so much easier to give me more work (and more hours) than adding staff. They seemed to think that they were doing me a favor, but it also meant that my other priorities (i.e. my personal life and the freelance work that I did to make up for the lack of benefits) had to be neglected.

I had a previous tech support job that was genuinely part-time, and paid just enough (including pro-rated benefits) to survive while I went back to school. The problem there was that being part-time meant that I wasn't a "regular" employee who needed input on technology strategy, etc. Because I wasn't in the office every day, I often didn't hear about things. And when the budget got tight, instead of laying off one of the full-timers with less seniority, they laid off the part-timer, because that was "less disruptive".

Re:The Boss Decides... so be the Boss

[Jeff DeMaagd]

My answer? Be your own boss. It comes with a caveat: starting your own business alone is a bad idea. Guess what? It takes more than one person to provide something of value.

Guess what? That's not absolutely true. It's not hard for one person to provide something of value. You're not going to start a Tesla Motors but if you chose projects and products approprate for a one person operation, you might even do those projects and products better than larger operations could.

I don't know where you think otherwise, but my experience shows such an absolute statement is not true. I'm in business for myself, no partners and no employees. Even before I started it, I knew several people that are in business for themselves, more people than had partnerships or larger businesses. From what I understand, partnerships are generally riskier ventures than sole proprietorships. I think the way to make a business partnership work is to have one person that's actually in control, the other partners are "minor" partners, or hire a non-partner to do the management work.

Re:The Boss Decides... so be the Boss

[mcrbids]

One reason corporations don't like part-time is that as long as you are full-time, you actually tend to work way past 40 hours a week.

Funny. I'm an employer, in a corporation, and I would *never* ask anyone to work over 40, even when on salaried pay.

But I still like full-time over part-time because full time is "immersive" - people who dedicate their time and primary mind share are more productive per time unit. I get more and better work per hour from a full-time engineer than a part-time employee.

My answer? Be your own boss. It comes with a caveat: starting your own business alone is a bad idea. Guess what? It takes more than one person to provide something of value. It doesn't take an army of hundreds, but a small dedicated group of friends can do amazing things. The sum really is larger than the parts.

I call bullshiznt. You think being your own boss means you WON'T work bat-shiat crazy hours under impossible deadlines? BWAH HAW HAW HAW HA!!!!!!

Re:The Boss Decides... so be the Boss

[maxume]

It's always noon somewhere.

Re:The Boss Decides... so be the Boss

[howlinmonkey]

The problem you are describing here isn't a self-employment problem, it is a project management problem. If you had created a project plan and built realistic time expectations with your customer, then he could not have been irate. He would have signed off on the project plan, the schedule, and would have been kept abreast of the project's progress via milestones and a strong communication plan.

This is going to be a problem whether you are self-employed or work for $MegaCorp.

On the right track

[BadAnalogyGuy]

If you are involved in the development of software then you will be on the treadmill. The only way out is to either strike out on your own or to give up on the industry altogether.

Personally, I wouldn't do it. But I can see how leaving the industry completely is attractive for some. Just be prepared for the paycut.

But then again, money isn't everything, and if you can improve your quality of life, even with a paycut, then more power to you.

of course

[larry bagina]

Depending on your definition of IT, I've worked with a handful of people who worked part time. Of course, when it came time to rightsize, they were on the top of the list. And without a strong reason (like young children), that put a big question mark on your company loyalty.

Re:of course

[hobo sapiens]

rightsize...company loyalty

Can we please dispense with the euphemisms, seeing as how this is slashdot and all? "Rightsize" is just a word companies came up with to save a little face when they cut jobs.

"Company loyalty" is false, some are just better than others at hiding the fact that the company they work for doesn't define the person. You go to work to pay the bills, provide for your family, and maybe if you are in the right industry, to make the world a better place. Company loyalty only exists to the extent that a company allows you to do these things. And that's not loyalty in the true sense of the word.

possible ways to do part-time

[misterjava66]

You could go into consulting, and only spend 1/3 of the money you earn and put the rest into reserve for between gigs, and then work parttime by doing 55hr/week some of the time and 0hr/week most of the time.

Logically conceviable, but would require trememdous dicipline financially and some luck in finding gigs.

or

You could develop your own software as part of an independent entity, and then set a schedule and stick to it.

I've seen a few donationware projects outthere that seem to run that way, but you would have to have the tremendous luck of being able to make something useful with parttime work.

Logically conceviable, heck people do this, but the odds of looking for it and getting it? More people win the lottery.

or

If you live in a city, really all you need to do is find a job 5 minutes from your home and take a couple hours out of your day that way. It will feel like parttime compared to what you are doing now, and still probably have benifits.

OR

Find a job you love, and you won't mind working fulltime. Even if you think you don't have a social consciousness, try working for a company that does (like a B-corp or a charity). You won't feel like you are wasting your limited and precious time on earth so much if you spend your days making this place better.

Re:I did it

[murdocj]

So you were only available 2 days a week, and you're upset that your boss couldn't somehow schedule all of the work to occur those 2 days? You say "he placed another employee to deal with issues that came up while I was out of the office"... what was he supposed to do? Put the problem on hold 4-5 days till you were available?

It's one thing to say "this is my code, my system, no one else touches it without talking to me first" if you are available normal working hours. If you aren't available, guess what, someone else is going to have to deal with the "issues" that come up while you are out of the office. Where I work, people are nervous if there's only one full time employee who understands how to do something, having a part-timer be the only one would be utterly unacceptable, unless the function is pretty marginal to being with.

skillset maintenance

[chappel]

I suspect only working part time in IT would make it difficult to maintain a current skillset. I seem to learn something from just about every project I do - and I'd hate my job if I didn't. Only working part time gives you fewer opportunities to learn new things, stay current with what you already know, and keep up with the constant changes compared to a full-time co-worker. Unless you really focused on keeping up - which I find tougher to do without a specific (job related) task associated with it, you are going to fall behind over time, and you'll be lucky to get any job in IT.

Re:I did it

[Spazmania]

You misunderstand. I'm suggesting that someone who isn't entry level, someone with real responsibility who tries to drop to part time sets himself up for failure. He's asking the manager he works for to greatly exceed normal and reasonable expectations. Few can.

I will, however, defend my choices this far: I carried a cell phone and left standing instructions to call me when faced with something that genuinely couldn't wait. Knucklehead didn't call. He did wait though: he postponed tasks until I *wasn't* there.

Get the definition right

[heretic108]

In the IT industry as I've known it, 'part time work' is anything less than 80 hours/week.

Re:Get the definition right

[hobo sapiens]

Not sure if you are joking, but if not...then you need a new job. Or you may just need to put your foot down. I have been in IT for years as a web developer for a few diff companies, and have never worked like that. Get your stuff done at work, make it clear you are willing to work a little extra where needed (which should be rare) but if there is bad planning, well, tough. IT shops need to be brought back to reality, namely, that poor planning cannot be overcome by stressing out your workers. And I've done pretty well, and thus far my family hasn't starved. The people who are often overworked are overworked because they let it happen. I have known way too many "heroes" who are all willing to work as long as needed for no good reason at all. Trouble is, today's hero is tomorrow's burnout.

Or become a consultant. You may work the hours, but they are no longer a free gift from you to the company. You bill every hour you work.

Re:Get the definition right

[nabsltd]

Any project that requires "significant overtime" is a project that was planned with unrealistic ideas of how much work would be required.

This assumes the overtime is free because the workers are on salary. If the overtime gets paid (even as normal hours instead of 1.5x), then it's possible the planning took this into account and was just willing to pay the price to get the job done in fewer calendar days.

Otherwise, it's most likely a company with employees who aren't able to get jobs anywhere else, so they can't push back against the unreasonable demands of management.

Re:Get the definition right

[Bodrius]

Trollish ad-hominem apart, the parent AC comment does bring up a valid point.

Web application development does have some characteristics that makes it more natural to do gradual, measured updates that do not 'require significant overtime'.

Part of it may be their current limitations (some things just cannot be done in html+js, and many things should not be done in html+js), but mostly it is just the way the tech is supposed to work by design.

A lot of the time, the 'required significant overtime' in traditional apps is a consequence of the features being tightly coupled - even if not in the code itself, ultimately they tend to be tightly coupled at application delivery. This makes death marches almost unavoidable without very conservative planning, because "it's all or nothing": by the time you 'require' that overtime, removing a feature that is not ready will often look as risky / expensive as trying to complete it. A 'late cut' normally brings in at least binary changes, installer changes, etc that also need to be tested before the whole app is released - and the horrible feeling of waste for everybody involved, because after investing so much the feature missed the boat and now may never even get shipped.

In general, web development doesn't make the app easier to implement in time (sometimes, very much not so) - but it forces a loosely coupled interface for your features:

- Gradual updates are easy to prop to web servers and generally transparent to the users.
- REST architectures help to keep features self-contained (essentially you're updating / publishing a new resource at a url - much of the time you can isolate any code update to just the component that serves that specific url).
- Proper use of CSS and html/code separation mean that fit&finish UI changes, which are often a good share of that overtime, can be updated more dynamically than the application logic.

By design, the web makes it easier for people to 'cut late', and release the 'cut' features a bit later, transparently to the users. Once the penalty for missing the release boat is not fatal to the feature, people are a lot more willing to acknowledge schedule risks, and less willing to try heroics to get their pet feature done in time. Features go back to requiring time, not overtime.

Granted, that doesn't mean there are no death marches in web development shops, there are plenty. Or that traditional apps cannot be architected to use very granular, automatic updates, to deal with the same thing. I'm just saying that the web, by nature, is already architected this way, so it is easier to break away from the implications of a release model that was created when software shipped in little boxes full of floppy disks.

Re:Get the definition right

[JWSmythe]

    Actually, I've found a lot of "web developers" who only know HTML with average graphics skills. They're the ones that can take a template site, and make it say what the customer wants it to say. Unfortunately, a lot of customers eat that up, until the day that they want it to actually DO something.

    Then there are the real "web developers". I can code a site to do just about anything. I still don't have an interface to run the kitchen sink, but no one's asked for that. :) My primary work isn't web development though, it's systems administration. In systems, people want stuff to run. In web development, the customer wants it exactly as they have in their head or better, but can never express it. Even still, once they have it, they want more for the same cost. "Oh, that should only take you a minute." Sure. 2 days later, you have this new cool web application, and they don't want to pay an extra $20 for it. A friend of mine specializes in real web development, and I swear she gets that from every customer she has.

   

Re:Get the definition right

[RightSaidFred99]

Web development doesn't (necessarily) mean what you think it means. You're an imbecile if you think JSF, ASP.NET, GWT, etc... development is at the bottom of the programming food chain. Web site design, on the other hand, is at the bottom and isn't programming at all.

Re:Get the definition right

[hobo sapiens]

Sure, I agree. There is plenty of built in functionality in HTML and CSS to take advantage of.

My rule is if a layer has some built in functionality, don't use another layer to simulate it. Don't use Javascript to style things that CSS can do, don't use CSS to make things that HTML already does (like classing divs to look like h1 elements) and the list goes on.

Depending on the audience and purpose of the site, make your site fail gracefully if the user agent doesn't understand javscript. Case in point, a site I did recently, http://ampedia.redbeartrading.com/ works this way. The menu is a folder tree. If you have javascript + cookies turned on then the site will remember which folders you had open and reopen them for you when you return. If no javascript, then everything will be expanded by default. Sure, you lose the convenience but you can get to the content. If you want convenience stop being a luddite and get a user-agent that does javascript. The markup on that site is semantic, so if your user-agent doesn't understand CSS the info will still be relatively well organized. How is this possible? By using default behaviour for each layer to the extent possible.

An experienced web dev knows how the layers fit together, and that's sort of to my original point: there are lot of layers that you have to know well in order to be a good web developer. HTML and CSS is the foundation of web development. But just as there is more to a house than the foundation, there is much much more to web development.

Re:Get the definition right

[hobo sapiens]

"That's okay, they'll let you go and replace you with a 23-year-old straight from college who is willing to work 18 hour days for 3-4 months. No exaggeration on that - I saw it happen. Fortunately, it is usually not THAT bad."

Then I say let 'em have what they deserve. To quote a poster in my financial planner's office: "If you think a professional is expensive, wait till you hire an amateur."

Re:Get the definition right

[hobo sapiens]

web design != web development

I can't design graphics to save my life. Photoshop, Fireworks, the Gimp, etc...voodoo if you ask me. Like, time to get out the dead chickens and perform arcane rituals.

Design is but a small part of web development.

Re:Get the definition right

[drolli]

The point is that there are incredibly good websites and incredibly bad websites, as there are incredibly good programs and incredibly bad ones. For programs, people nowadays already got used to judge them. For Websites they seem to be more lenient - and since everybody uses a webbrowser on a daily base, everybody seems to believe he can supervise the creation of a website. This enables a market for completely incompetent idiots who believe that everything has to be done in PHP on their own.

Completely separate from that you have real programmers who *happen* to program web applications using the principles they learned in programming.

In my opinion the easiest way to distinct the two classes is the following: A good programmer will always talk about the underlying datastructures first and try to figure out *what* he should process, how it is structured and what ressources are available for maintaining it. *Then* he decides to distribute it ofe client/server and after that he uses a suitable set of tools. A bad programmer will start to talk about something else (e.g. how the interface should look like). Sadly the latter one seems to be easier understood, which leads to absurd situations.

Re:Find a small company...

[tirerim]

Exactly what I was going to suggest. Or a company that has a particular job that only needs to be part-time -- my organization has one full-time IT person (me), but we also have a part-time sysadmin who takes care of various stuff and is an extra person on-call (useful with a very small staff), and a part-time developer (who is part-time because we can't afford to hire him full-time).

Not in this market

[edcheevy]

This is not the best economy in which to quit your full time job in search of contracting or part time work. Everyone who has been fired (and may not have a savings cushion) is looking for anything they can get, including part time and/or underbidding your contracting price. I know it is not the answer you're looking for (and many above have offered helpful suggestions) but I would seriously consider riding this recession out a little more and be happy you still have a job. At the very least, build up a *minimum* 6 month savings cushion before you quit, in case you can't find anything or end up hating the job you move to.

Re:I work parr time - or used to

[nine-times]

Yup, this doesn't really have much to do with the job being in IT. Generally two sorts of people work part-time:

• People on the low end, perhaps just starting out. These might include personal assistants, receptionists, helpdesk personnel, service related jobs, etc. They don't make much money.
• People on the high end. This group includes contractors, consultants, and the self-employed. There can be a lot of money there if you're very good, and it's only really a part-time job when things are slow. When things are busy, it's a more-than-full-time job, and if you're not willing to work more than full time when it's busy, then you won't keep getting work.

What it comes down to, in large part, is that there's no easy money. I know, we'd all love to think that we can find a nice and easy part-time job that still pays well, but if there are jobs out there like that, good luck finding them. And most likely, the only reason anyone will offer such a sweet deal is if you're highly skilled and valuable.

Re:Are there many high level PT jobs anywhere?

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside of IT, how often do you find people working higher level jobs part-time?

Nurses, physicians, and many other medical-related fields. Fits very well with shift work, and many of the health professions are short of personnel so they take what they can get.

It is possible

[dave562]

I went from working as an IT consultant to an in house DBA/head network administrator position. I took a pay cut, but I enjoy a better quality of life. Instead of driving all over southern California and flying across the country on a regular basis, I now take the train to work. Instead of working random schedules whenever I was needed and putting in a lot of overtime, I work 35 hours a week and some times even less. I spend the mornings and evenings training martial arts, and spend the weekends and Wednesday nights with my girlfriend.

Life isn't all roses though. I'm working for a non-profit that has been all over the papers (Los Angeles and New York Times) because of serious fiscal mismanagement on the part of the board of directors and senior staff. I could very well lose my job due to the mistakes of others.

What you really need to do is to take a long hard look at how hard you want to work, and what you want out of life. I decided that I could live without a Porsche and a nice big house. I simply wasn't willing to put in the hours it took to make the big bucks. Some people are driven by those rewards. I'm not. I value tranquility and simplicity. I don't deal well working with the ladder climbing, self centered prick types who seem to end up at the "top" of the material world. I'd rather have free time to meditate, and practice tai chi, and read, and cook, and do other things that don't have me sitting in front of a computer, or sitting in meetings and thinking about work all the time.

If your meta question is, "Can I make the big IT dollars and work part time?" I think the answer is a big NO. People make a lot of money with IT skills because, a lot of IT skills require a serious time commitment. Being successful in IT requires constantly upgrading your skills and staying abreast of the trends. In the two years I've been working where I'm working, I've missed the shift to virtualization. If I had stayed with my previous employer, I'd have VMware ESX skills right now. Since I didn't, I don't. I make ~$68k a year which is on the low side of what IT people make, and in southern California it isn't much at all. I'm happy though. I'm not going to starve any time soon.

Re:Maybe it depends on where you are

[dunkelfalke]

that is the main difference between the european and the american attitudes.
americans prefer to work hard, europeans prefer to get things done.

Re:Are there many high level PT jobs anywhere?

[dcollins]

College adjunct faculty.

Re:Take a full time job and don't show up.

[tjstork]

Moral character....And if you *weren't* joking, well...you should be banned from giving advice for the rest of your life.

Only a fool would think that working hard for a company is a moral issue, when there is scant evidence that companies have any morals themselves. I've averaged 50 billable hours a week for the year straight, and you know what I get come January? At my primary client my job is off to India so that the company can meet its earnings targets, and, my consultant firm doesn't have more work, so I'm going to get whacked and thus they are asking me to not have any time off in December so that I will be able to finish another project in time for them to can me at year end.

So, I've a less than friendly view of the corporate world. The notion of loyalty to a company is just lie, a slogan designed to get you to throw your life away so that someone else can cash in on you, and then replace you like so much of a part. I'm not questioning their right to do it, it's their business. But, if they argue the right to shaft you, and do, then, certainly, who cares if you shaft them. They are in it for themselves, and why can't you be too?

If our man can slack for a year and write the Great American novel, then, let him do it.

Overtime != free time.

[jotaeleemeese]

I will be available for you 24x7 if needed.

But you will pay for it.

If you can't do planning that is not my problem.