entityresq

At the least you’ve convinced me that some engineers will find the concept quite unacceptable. Probably sufficient to table it as an idea I think! Thanks I suppose lol.

This sounds like a good idea as well!

We will still have all legally mandated vacations available for sure (which is definitely limited in the US but still). I don’t see any other way around it. But I assume we will only have the legally mandated minimums in this regard. One possibility I am thinking is If the position they’re applying for allows them to work when most of the company is off (extremely productive IC or product manager for example) then they could flexibly take the sabbatical whenever.

As for matching schedules, children already have summers off, sure the spouses might not have the time off but doesn’t mean this can hurt? It’s only on top of standard vacation time.

The first point is definitely true - for sure, this can’t be possible for the first year (or even two) of the startup anyway since we need to get a viable product off the ramp and garner enough interest and hopefully revenue. I agree that we can’t compromise on overall productivity.

Which brings me to the next point which is that I do strongly believe that productivity will not take a massive hit overall - as much as managers like to think engineers are like factory workers assembling a toaster, my personal observation has been that we’d get things done when they are needed (within reason) and would subconsciously pad out the time when we can afford to.

A long sabbatical would make me immensely happy and I think more focused when I’m actually working. Importantly if we all prepare for the same full on break that’s scheduled that’s more manageable than individual engineers taking time off at random intervals and having everyone cover for them.

Just still spitballing so for sure all comments are appreciated.

I'm a PhD from Bio background who became a data-scientist in a health-care related (but not biology research) company. I have been reasonably successful in this job, but because of the change in fields I lost my H1B to a failed RFE the one time I passed the lottery. Now I'm thinking of doing an O1 application, but my assumption has been that all my expertise must now be demonstrated in this new field of health-care data analytics and not from my PhD times, and I'm working on it.

My question is, has the difficulty of getting O-1 visas gone up significantly in the past year or so?