I've been working 4d/week for the past 2 years as a software engineer, and it would be very hard for me to go back to a full time position.
I'm pretty sure I'm making more right now compared to how much I was when working full time.
I explain this by having had more time to become a better engineer, as I've been able to spend time on side projects (learning new things), distancing myself from my professional duties (thus avoiding unnecessary/inefficient work), and recovering better during the weekends. Exercising more probably helped a lot too.
Overall, I deeply think that more small tech companies should start offering 4d/week positions, as it will make them able to compete against bigger companies that can offer bigger compensations. Most of the best programmers I know would happily trade a 15% net income reduction for an additional day off. This is also reflected by how popular such articles get on Hacker News or Reddit.
As a side note, part time work for white-collar positions is already very common in the Netherlands[1], and the country if one of the richest in the world.
There's a sub-set of engineers who would provide serious value (to employers) by having regular 20% freetime to work on what they wanted.
I sorta "steal" (do without asking permission) 10% of time to work on what I want (stuff not PM sanctioned bugs/features), and not only is it GREAT for mental health, it often turns out to be greatly appreciated by others at work. There's always stuff that many people wish for but never gets prioritized. Or just me cross-training myself in other languages and frameworks so I can support a larger set of code-bases also provides a lot of value.
But not everyone works like this. Many people just take any extra slack they can get and use it to chill. :shrug:
I'm pretty sure I'm making more right now compared to how much I was when working full time.
I explain this by having had more time to become a better engineer, as I've been able to spend time on side projects (learning new things), distancing myself from my professional duties (thus avoiding unnecessary/inefficient work), and recovering better during the weekends. Exercising more probably helped a lot too.
Overall, I deeply think that more small tech companies should start offering 4d/week positions, as it will make them able to compete against bigger companies that can offer bigger compensations. Most of the best programmers I know would happily trade a 15% net income reduction for an additional day off. This is also reflected by how popular such articles get on Hacker News or Reddit.
As a side note, part time work for white-collar positions is already very common in the Netherlands[1], and the country if one of the richest in the world.
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[1] https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/05/11/...