Comment by ToJans | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ToJans | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> btw, if anyone has any ideas of how to work very few hours a week as a pretty decent full stack web dev without too high of a financial aspirations, I’m all ears, people seem too look for all or nothing employees only.

I'm starting an experiment next week with a marketeer, where she can work whenever it suits her for how long she wants for a retainer/fixed amount per month. The rate is about 1/4th of a full-time freelance, and the idea is to mutually agree on actions and/or outcomes/results each month.

I plan to do something similar with a very senior dev this summer, who is training for a triathlon and has 2 small kids he needs to look after, probably at 50% of market rate...

The biggest issue when setting up something like this is trust, but as I've worked with both of them before on short stints with a regular daily rate (a few days to weeks), I don't have that issue myself.

For me it's a simple math equation: how much am I putting in, and what will this bring me financially (SaaS license income etc), so I can easily figure out the point where I'll be satisfied with our agreement.

I have high hopes for this experiment, but low expectations. We'll see how it goes.

My best bet for you would be to look for similar opportunities: find someone who pays on commitment/outcome, and doesn't care about hours worked...

Wait - are looking for 100% of the work to be done, but at a fraction of the cost? i.e. instead of everyone pretending to work 8 hours per day 5 times per week they are just going to do work when there is work to do?

This is called "asynchronous work" or "async work"[1]. Do work when it makes sense for you, but get it all done. Async workers should not be discounted.

[1] https://levels.io/async/]

It sounds like the amount of work would be reduced to less than what a full time person could deliver.

Most programmers/engineers only work realistically a few hours per day, if so much.

Veterans bring a wealth of experience, can likely do more in two hours than many others in two days. Like OP mentioned, it is a matter of balance and profit. When both sides of the equation are happy, isn't that what really matters?

Well, veterans will do lots in a day, but it will be conversations, drawings and thinking about exactly what the best thing to do is. They will then spend much, much less time programming than someone green who had a React bootstrap and pre-commit rules up before they knew what they were building.

Sure, and that's the way it should be. Understand what the heck we are really supposed to be building.

Otherwise we deliver what the customer asks, while failing to deliver what the customer wants.

True, but also the "how". There are plenty of pitfalls to avoid with a bit of up-front thinking.

I wasn't aware "async work" was a thing; thanks for the pointer!

It's a little bit of a hybrid TBH: the question is "what can you aim for given the amount of money I pay you per month, assuming everything goes right?".

For marketing it's simple: I'd like to get x demos scheduled in timeframe y; tell me the plan, including the metrics and conversion ratios that you expect (i.e. content publishing, visitors, activations, cold calls/emails,...), And how much it will cost. If the price/value/risk balance is worth it, I'll commit.

For dev it's about rewrites, migrations, upgrades,... Always well scoped. The dev knows the software and he's a way better dev than me, so I fully trust his judgement.

The important thing here is that it's all about trust, and that these metrics are a best guess and a way to stay informed.

If it's the first time somebody is doing something I suggest to multiply the estimated happy path timing by 3 and start with that, but I understand some things take 1/10th, and others x 10.

From a commitment/risk point of view, actions are important but results are even more important. It's during the negotiation that we will decide whether/how much of the commitment is time -, action- or result-oriented, i.e. I will spend x hours, do y things or deliver z results...

I don't hire toddlers, so I don't treat them or expect them to behave like toddlers. The whole idea of hiring mature people is having to do less of it myself, not more...

The closer the reporting KPIs are to the results, the less work and risk it is for me, so I am able to value it higher. If you get more efficient in a job but we agreed on results, it's your win, not mine.... (For the marketing example, 5 demos are worth more than 100 cold calls, and these are worth more than hours active f.e., so if you get 5 demos in a fraction of the expected timeframe, I don't care.)

It's all a big experiment and I'll have to see how this works out, but if it does I'd love to organize the whole company like this...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com