Some companies have flexible work policies that give employees the option of switching to part time. My current employer (megacorp, not tech) has such a policy documented internally, not really widely advertised. I read about it, discussed it with manager, I framed it as "it doesn't make sense for me to work full time any more. I'm still open to doing part time. Can we switch to part time, per company policy?". Manager agreed, I negotiated with managers of project I was allocated to, to let them lock in the 3 days a week they wanted me at work, provided it left me with a contiguous 4 day weekend.
I've been part time for over a year now, 4 day weekends every week. It is pretty great. I don't do anything much productive with my days off, but that's okay. I worked full time for about a decade prior to this point.
Perhaps part of this is having negotiating power to frame the switch to part time not as a request, but instead implicitly framing it as "we need to figure out a part time arrangement or I'll need to find another employer that does", rather than requesting a switch to part time. Part of the negotiating power is being good enough at what you do for your skills to be in demand, and having resources or alternatives to fall back on if company is not willing to agree to a part time arrangement.
I appreciate that you acknowledge the negotiating power required to make that kind of a move.
That sounds like a great move for you, and I'm really curious about your experience. Do you find that you're more "out of the loop"? Naively, I would expect you to become a lot more of a satellite employee, less involved in any decisionmaking. How has that gone?
> Do you find that you're more "out of the loop"? Naively, I would expect you to become a lot more of a satellite employee, less involved in any decisionmaking
yes. more decisions will be made without your ability to influence them. if everyone else is full time then projects won't wait for you!
there are some ways to mitigate this, that perhaps also overlap with ways to organise decision making more effectively. if your company or team has a culture of drafting and circulating written docs (e.g. engineering design docs) before making a decision, then you can somewhat influence decisions by submitting written feedback and recommendations in advance, even if you cannot attend the meeting on the day when the decision will be made. also, if there is some written record of the decision -- written up in the company wiki, or emailed, or broadcast into the project slack channel -- then you can catch up over morning coffee and review how the entire strategy has changed since last week.
similarly, avoid becoming a bottleneck for your full-time colleagues. if i leave a code review on a colleague's pull request that we're not able to close off before my week ends, i tell them they don't need to wait for me to "approve" the pull request & ask them to merge it when they feel they've sufficiently addressed review feedback, or get a colleague to review it instead.
>Part of the negotiating power is being good enough at what you do for your skills to be in demand, and having resources or alternatives to fall back on if company is not willing to agree to a part time arrangement.
but that's the thing: there aren't many jobs past entry level that even give such an option for part time. Consulting is the closest factor but even than can have some strict time requirements (too strict at times).
So for (I wager) 90+% of people, the only fallback is "I can quit and never work a day in my life again" sorts of situations. That or you are playing some high stakes career haggling should the employer decide to try and train a replacement that will work full tim.
I've been part time for over a year now, 4 day weekends every week. It is pretty great. I don't do anything much productive with my days off, but that's okay. I worked full time for about a decade prior to this point.
Perhaps part of this is having negotiating power to frame the switch to part time not as a request, but instead implicitly framing it as "we need to figure out a part time arrangement or I'll need to find another employer that does", rather than requesting a switch to part time. Part of the negotiating power is being good enough at what you do for your skills to be in demand, and having resources or alternatives to fall back on if company is not willing to agree to a part time arrangement.