Ask HN: Why don't companies hire programmers for fewer hours per day?

Re:Ask HN: Why don't companies hire programmers for fewer ho... by niallwingham on Tuesday July 26, 2016 @06:57AM (#12164711)

We work 20-hour weeks (remotely) at Apsis and it goes fine for us. We're a small consulting company with very little overhead, but I imagine it could work in other contexts as well. It certainly encourages you to eliminate unnecessary meetings!

I'm earning about 2/3 of the salary from my previous job, where I worked 60-80 hours a week. In practice this has meant a more-than-doubling of my free time outside work with only a small change in living standards, so I'm very happy with the tradeoff.

The company gets a pretty good deal too -- our work hours tend to be quite productive -- but I don't know if there's a purely economic argument on the company's side. Part of it may require looking at the company as a vehicle for employee benefit rather than an opposing force trying to extract maximum value.

http://apsis.io/blog/2016/03/14/work-and-passion http://apsis.io/blog/2015/04/23/work-sustainably

PS: Apsis is a U.S. company, though I personally live and work in Toronto, Canada.

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Re:Ask HN: Why don't companies hire programmers for fewer ho... by wkirby on Tuesday July 26, 2016 @06:00PM (#12169027)

Apsis co-founder here. I think there's an excellent economic argument from the employer's perspective for what we do: we can attract top-tier talent that's technically outside of our budget, without having to come up with the money to pay for it.

Not every 10x-employee* is looking for non-monetary compensation, but there are plenty out there who are happy earning "enough" without sacrificing their life for a bank account. We get the best engineers, and the best engineers get to stay happy at work, which makes them even more productive.

* I actually don't think there's such a thing as a 10x employee. Honest to god we hire for 1x employees; finding an additional head that doesn't reduce team efficiency is an extraordinary challenge.

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