Show HN: Fractional jobs – part-time roles for engineers
fractionaljobs.ioI'm Taylor, I spent about a year as a Fractional Head of Product. It was my first time not in a full-time W2 role, and I quickly learned that the hardest part of the job wasn't doing the Product work (I was a PM for 10+ years), it was finding good clients to work with.
So I built Fractional Jobs.
The goal is to help more people break out of W2 life and into their own independent careers by helping them find great clients to work with.
We find and vet the clients, and then engineers can request intros to any that seem like a good fit. We'll make the intro assuming the client opts in after seeing your profile.
We have 9 open engineering roles right now: - 2x Fractional CTO - 2x AI engineers - 3x full-stack - 1x staff frontend - 1x mobile
I realize I should probably comment links to some of the better engineering roles we're currently featuring right now. BTW I should also note we don't take a % commission like Upwork, Toptal, etc. So if you get hired you'd work with the company directly and get paid by them direct.
Fractional CTO @ A Consumer Healthtech Marketplace 20 - 40 hrs | $175 - $200 / hr | Remote (USA only) https://www.fractionaljobs.io/jobs/chief-technology-officer-...
Senior AI Engineer @ A European Insurtech Startup 20 - 40 hrs / week | €85 - €100 / hr | Remote (CET +/- 6hrs) https://www.fractionaljobs.io/jobs/senior-ai-engineer-at-a-e...
Senior Full-stack Engineer @ A Consumer Social Startup 20 - 40 hrs / week | $125 - $150 / hr | Remote (EST +/- 5 hrs) https://www.fractionaljobs.io/jobs/senior-full-stack-enginee...
Staff Frontend Engineer @ An HR-tech Analytics Platform 20 - 40 hrs / week | $120 - $180 / hr | Remote (USA / Canada only) https://www.fractionaljobs.io/jobs/staff-frontend-engineer-a...
AI Engineer @ A Creator-focused AI Startup 10 - 15 hrs / week | $100 - $125 / hr | Remote (USA / Canada / Europe only) https://www.fractionaljobs.io/jobs/ai-engineer-at-a-creator-...
These prices seem very low.
As someone who's done freelancing previously for years and also has run an agency previously for years, it really depends. I've certainly seen freelancers at double or triple these rates. If you already have clients, are well known, or you're good at selling the value of your time, you can ask for much higher. If you're just getting started or you're going through an agency, these rates seem pretty competitive. Also macro economic factors will change the equation and what you can ask for.
For those just getting started, my piece of advice is to be OK taking a lower rate initially, and just keep pushing it higher until you find resistance. If you're good at what you do, you will quickly find that you will get referrals (make sure to ask!) and can charge a ton more. It's a lot easier as a freelancer/contractor than a salaried employee since the market is much more liquid (you spend less time at one gig) and therefore you can test the waters with a higher rate much more often.
Regardless, what these companies list as what they will pay hourly isn't necessarily what you have to ask for. If you think about it from a negotiation perspective (and you have the ability to sell yourself), these are simply just the lower bound of what you can ask for.
Great advice. Sometimes you need to take a step back to take three steps forward.
Referrals are the key.
That was my thought too. General rule of thumb for independent contracting is that you should take the annual salary you would normally make and chop off the zeroes to get the hourly rate. So 150K/yr becomes $150/hr. That’s about double the yearly salary and pays for your increased costs (payroll tax, healthcare, retirement, vacation) as well as your bench time between jobs.
Additionally, the going rate for an interim CTO was about $50K/month last time I checked, which doesn’t get you 40 hrs / week, so is north of $600/hr.
My rule of thumb as a contractor is to take the hourly rate x2100 to get an equivalent full-time salary plus benefits, 401k, vacation, etc.
Fractional CTO | $368k - $420k
Senior AI Engineer | €179k - €210k
Senior Full-stack Engineer | $263k - $315k
Staff Frontend Engineer | $252k - $378k
AI Engineer | $210k - $263k
Given that the rates are decent. Not the best out there but decent. I'd consider this before Upwork where contract rates are criminally low.
The normal compensation for full time work is x2080. Do you actually value 401k, benefits, time off, etc at only 20 hours wage per year?
No that's not to do with benefits, I'm rounding up to 2100 for easier mental math.
The benefits calculation is a more complicated one and I've never met any two contractors who calculate it the same.
Yeah but the details don't matter when you say "full time equivilant". Just health insurance alone will be far far far more than you are allowing. Then there's all the tax implications. Like, if you said 2500x I might consider beleiving you. 3000x I'd probably believe you.
Every contractor already knows all this. And those who don't learn quick.
I'm not clear what you're arguing here.
When I evaluate an hourly rate, I multiply by 2100 and ask myself if this is a reasonable salary & benefits total package.
So if my rate is $125 an hour, that comes to $263k, which is a base salary of around $200k plus healthcare, self-employment taxes and sick/vacation time, etc. Now my healthcare costs might be lower than others and I don't factor in retirement because I work primarily for startups, but again this is why each contractor calculates differently.
I wouldn't multiply it by more hours if it was insufficient, I would just raise my rate.
When I read
> My rule of thumb as a contractor is to take the hourly rate x2100 to get an equivalent full-time salary plus benefits, 401k, vacation, etc.
I thought you meant to include everything on top of salary. Reading it again after this thread, maybe you meant to this is the calculation for hourly from full time salary, and then you need to also do ("plus") a calculation for everything else.
x2100 is base salary plus benefits, aka "total compensation."
So if this doesn't cover everything then charge a higher hourly rate for more money, don't change the multiplier.
Why? It's not obvious that an employee works 2080 hours, for example, because they take vacation (or work extra), so charging a 2100th of salary doesn't cover vacation benefit. Also, the employer will pay part of health insurance, and that isn't included in the salary number, so why would it be covered by a calculation from the salary.
Once again, this relates to total comp not base salary alone. Total comp includes salary and benefits which can include vacation time.
So it's not 1/2100th of a base salary, it's the hourly rate x2100 to get the total comp.
Do you know what your preferred total comp is? Take the hourly rate being offered, multiply by x2100, if it meets that then it's a decent offer.
It's a useful rule of thumb but it's just a rule of thumb. It's not meant to be perfect but I find it easy to understand and calculate so it's served me well in my ~20 years of contracting.
The roles seem very high too. I think "part time engineer" and figured these would be small gigs, or temp roles for specific tasks.
Not "CTO". Is anyone is a role of lead or higher (or AI engineers in general) having that bad a time finding work?
Plenty of people are qualified to be CTOs but only a small handful of them actually become them.
For publicly-posted jobs, they are about right.
The higher rates come through trusted referrals. If you arrive at a company via referral from someone they trust, they will usually pay a lot more than hiring random people who apply.
*For the North American perspective
20-40 will certainly round up to a full time role, just with less pay and benefits than a regular job.
I'm curious to know the business model. I assume you charge the companies, but I couldn't find the pricing model on the website.
Are you able say something about this?
May want to look into finding fractional security roles as well. Lots of smaller companies don’t need full time security staff but *do* need help.
Totally agree! We've featured a number of Fractional CISO roles.
I'm curious if anyone has any experience either as a "fractional CISO" or at a company who had one.
CISO is famously a "sacrificial lamb" sort of job, and it's certainly never one I would take on on a fractional basis (all of the risk but a lot less of the reward). I could understand having a fractional "security advisor" or "security lead", so maybe I'm just arguing about semantics, but again I'm primarily just interested in hearing about real world experiences with this sort of arrangement.
I know someone who actually enjoyed the fractional CISO role. Unless your goal is to move to a less expendable CxO role I actually see it as less of the risk and more of the reward.
There’s definitely a need for this! I’ve been thinking hard recently about how I could go part time without leaving the industry. Almost all of the good SWE work situations I’ve heard of require full time. Even the contractors I’ve worked with in my career have been full time.
Same. I hate the 9-5. It's soul-crushing for me. This is right up my alley!
I think there's an interesting market here. I know a couple moms who were exceptional FAANG level engineers who were willing to take huge pay cuts to go part time. They wanted to keep working but have enough time for their family.
I'm also aware of someone who made a lot of money in tech and doesn't really need to work but wants to stay in the game. They have told me they'd take a lot less money than they were making for a low salary and some equity if there weren't crazy high expectations for hours worked.
I don't think you could build a team of only part timers, but it really could be a solid way to round out a less experienced team without breaking the bank.
Yes. For someone who’s already financially comfortable, it’s nice to be able to stay in the game, keep working with great people, and make some money without having to deal with burnout.
Lots of people in tech like their jobs; they just like other things too. Personally I don’t know why I would want to stop working completely. It sounds boring. I love to build. Why ever stop?
I'm not yet financially comfortable, but once I am, this is definitely how I see my life going. I love my work, but I don't love the job, I've gotten burned out too many times.
For people who want some more freedom with their time, part time is ideal. I want to have more time to experiment and learn. Currently there is just no time for it.
Yup, I see these examples all the time. You're spot on.
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42425473
How does this compare to https://www.hirefraction.com/about ?
I've noticed they market 'overemployment' as a benefit, is this platform similar?
I'm personally not a huge fan of the over-employment trend, although I do see some arguments for it. A lot of the companies that are looking to hire on fractional jobs are quite explicit that they don't want folks that have full-time jobs (aka are over-employed) because of the negative connotations and consequences.
I'm familiar with Higher Fraction. I believe that the core difference is just that they're an agency that takes a percent markup on your hourly rate, so typically it's 20%.
I think the best software engineers don't need to do this, though, and they can find clients directly through their network or even through places like Fractional Jobs where we connect you directly with clients, and it's your relationship to own.
They don't pay much. $5k-$6k/mo for half time.
One of the things I always found a bit dumb about contracting houses is that the sales contact and the manager might work multiple projects but nobody else did.
Why shouldn’t I as a client get 10 hours a week from an architect and 5 hours a week from a security expert instead of paying for a whole one? We should be comparing notes with our consulting house colleagues on design problems and interpersonal dynamics, but we never have. Only when they project is going badly does anything like this happen, and then it’s done begrudgingly.
This is great. I currently work a fractional role on top of being a founder. Wish it was more commonly available.
Screw part time. The whole economy is moving towards part time, gig work, etc and it's terrible for most employees who need good wages and benefits.
Fair, but I find, and I think this thread is evident, that a lot of folks are actually proactively seeking part-time work for one reason or another. If done correctly, you can actually make more money than an equivalent full-time role.
It's more likely to work if you move to Micronesia or Mexico or something like that, easy places for citizens to move to with low cost of living so you can bid on par with the other gig workers in Pakistan/India/Romania etc.
I think trying to do gig work from the states unless it is Defense contracting you're quickly going to find someone buying that might not care what geography they're drawing from which puts USA based workers at a massive disadvantage.
Or, you take a couple contracts and make more than you did full time. This doesn’t add up. If I’m part time 25 hours a week, I can squeeze another 25 hours a week in there. 2x my rate.
You can definitely do it.
Ahh yes, the total of... 1 mobile role. I definitely have a chance here.
If you fell qualified for the 2 ceo's roles, or the staff Role, you're probably not in a situation where you need 2 jobs.
Same could be said why you’re looking at part time when you need a career.
Because careers aren't hiring sadly. Can only take so many ghosts and dropped interviews before you decide "I just need something to stay afloat"
I empathize. The tech market is rough, one of the worst I've seen. No one knows what's going to happen so no one wants to invest, plan, hire, etc.
There's work available if you were determined enough but it may not be in your field or it may be contract work temporarily. The struggle is real and if you're in a position where you're sinking then take anything to keep you afloat.
Indeed. For now my work is a mix of 2 part time jobs, one freelancing, and one not in my field. That should sustain me for 2025, but I am keeping my eye out for ideas while I revamp my portfolio. The disappointment is normalized at this point.
then you are competing with the whole world for those jobs
With the outsourcing I'm seeing, we already are. I feel this is and even bigger factor than AI in the terrible tech market right now, only really behind zirp.
Global software dev, off-shoring, and out-sourcing have been going strong for decades. The tech market was extraordinarily strong for most of that time.
Like I said, second to ZIRP. The offshoring options now are greater than they have been in the past.
The other part that everyone misses is that the rest of the world now has better infra infra and time to catch up. The amount of people online who can program and speak English has vastly increased.
A total of 9 open part time roles, 2 of which are C-level executives, doesn't fill me with much confidence in addressing this issue. It's pretty much for those already at top or even retired to grab some side income at best.
Even if workers were choosing more paprt time hours, it's only because they were able to make enough money in full-time employment (ususally) to build up enough money to only need part time work.
I see way more full-time engineering jobs than part time
I'd love the opportunity to work 10-15 hours per week for a couple years as a sort of "semi-sabbatical". That could give me enough to pay for enough of my expenses to keep my savings going for long enough to make it worth it.
Screw full time, I have a life and I want to enjoy more than 30% of it.
Sure, but how do you pay for it?
If single with no dependents this is still very achievable on 4 days a week (and more than doubly so if dual income no kids), and it gets progressively more difficult the more dependents one has, so it really depends far too heavily on the individual context to make sweeping judgements about feasibility.
I agree.
I have 10 years of experience. How the heck am I realistically getting a CTO or Staff role? Maybe I could title inflate staff if it was in my domain, but I certainly don't have the resume to realistically get a call back for a CTO position. Especially in this job market.
> single with no dependents
sure, but that's an unfulfilling existence for most, naturally
You can still have kids and not have any dependents. As in, they grow up and move out.
you ever feel like getting this far out on a wacky thread and realized everyone was coming from their own perspective, which means everyone is naturally just talking past each other and so, basically, into the wind?
Ducks are like toasters. Both love bread and seem like fun in the bath but in reality can be messy.
(Yeah I agree, it’s so hard to get people to actually engage instead of just talking past, and it’s one of those things you can’t under one you start noticing it, and it’s everywhere!)
You are absolutely correct, and I did not think of that!
Having worked full time and saving for the past 15+ years
Exactly - it requires the very type of work this shift is starting to eliminate.
The problem isn't part-time hours, which are ideal and actually more in-line with workers' actual labor time. The problem is that companies refuse (and workers refuse to make them) pay high-enough wages.
The problem isn't wages, it's that part time jobs don't come with benefits. Health insurance being tied to employment is maybe the second biggest problem in this country and you almost never see anyone even talk about it. Ever wonder why you see so few disabled start up founders?
Part-time jobs shouldn't come with benefits. Neither should full-time jobs. As you said, "Health insurance being tied to employment is [one of the] biggest problems in this country."
People should be getting paid money for their work, and generally more than they are now.
Part time work is a godsend for those of us with kids, it might not fit in with your life situation, but for lots of us it does.
Many with kids need full time for the benfits.
Maybe times are different now (I’m not freelancing anymore) but I was the happiest when I was a freelancer. I made more than I could have as a full time employee, because I could ask more often for more (vs jumping jobs every 2-4 years). I could write off a ton of expenses. I could put away more for retirement (self-employment gives you higher limits). I didn’t have to do stupid whiteboard interviews. I could work whenever and wherever I wanted. And I could ultimately choose when I took time off and for however long.
It’s not ideal for everyone, especially if you need the security of a predictable salary and good benefits
Freelancing enjoyment depends entirely on your clients and ability to find more clients.
I’ve had some freelance clients I’ve loved and some that made me regret ever leaving full-time work.
> Freelancing enjoyment depends entirely on your clients and ability to find more clients.
Yes, though I found the former generally to be dependent on the latter
This sounds kind of crazy for me. How can you get over the extra 8% or so from Social Security and Medicare tax and still make more with while paying for benefits and not getting a 401k match? Maybe you're an outlier? I get that expenses get written off, bit that still means they were an expense from your profits.
1. Part of your negotiation should be explaining that independent contractors have ~30% less overhead than a salaried employee due to the savings on payroll taxes as well as unemployment insurance, recruiting, benefits, vacation time, etc and therefore require a higher rate than salaried employees
2. If your time is in demand because you’re being referred enough, your leverage is higher
3. You can jump ship as often as you want for a higher rate without having to explain it on a resume
4. Building a brand around yourself lowers your perceived risk for businesses and gives you additional leverage
5. Write off as much as possible, and if you make enough, there’s additional things you can do on the tax savings front beyond just writing off expenses (S-corp salary + draw taxed as capital gains)
6. Specialize in something (e.g. specific ecommerce platforms, web performance optimization, accessibility remediation) and you will become more trusted in that something, get more referred to others for it, and gain more leverage
You get over it by making your hourly rate numerically the same as your annual salary divided by 1000. If you can pull it off, quote only a day rate (that figure times 8) rather than hourly.
Companies readily pay more per hour for contractors.
If your market full-time salary is $200k/yr, charge $200/hr. If you’re offering your services a la carte at $100/hr, you’re going to have a terrible time.
Why did you stop freelancing?
I wanted to play the start-a-business lottery. After enough success selling your time, you might feel the urge to try your luck selling other things
You may not and I don't really but I'm tired of people telling other people they don't really want what they ask for.
How hard is it to believe that some people like gig work, even if they have to pay for their own insurance.
I’m probably never going to retire, unless I cannot find part time work in my dotage. We are the only first world country where benefits are as big an issue as you’re making it. That’s an “us problem”.
> Screw part time. The whole economy is moving towards part time, gig work, etc and it's terrible for most employees who need good wages and benefits.
People want different things. And you normally get either good wages or benefits. This is erring on the side of wages.
The wages listed there are pretty reasonable. Someone who wants more could work more hours/jobs. Life a little more on your own terms.
There are simply no more jobs available for the massive population we have right now. Part time economy increases employment.
The US unemployment rate of 4.2% begs to differ. It seems there are at least some jobs available.
https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-une...
I’ve only skimmed the FAQ articles but haven’t seen anything about how exactly you get paid (1099, does that platform facilitate fractional pay, etc).
The idea of fractional jobs implying you need to work on multiple jobs at a time probably makes sense.
I like the idea of part time but feel like just keeping up with technology is already such a lot of work you can't ever be useful working 2 or 3 days per week for the rest of your career.
You could use a better string interpolation tool that replaces, “0 days ago” with “today”.
ActiveSupport still has a wonderfully readable implementation:
https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/b0c813bc7b61c71dd21ee3a6...
Though I don't really use Rails that often any more, I still miss some of the niceties.
Genuinely curious: do you all think that a fractional position would work for a sales / sales engineering type role? Considering pursuing a PhD but would love to be able to continue to utilize this skillset
Fractional sales and GTM is huge right now
Where would you recommend looking for roles like this?
I’ve gotten a lot through my personal network just asking companies if they need help.
Can you share more details about it? Like who did you contact in those companies (owner? HR? your past manager?), what did you say, was it in-person or over an email, etc.
Recommending fractional sales and not elaborating is huge right now!
Personally, every salesperson I know works way too much to ever do it part time.
Any thoughts on a reputation system for talent/clients? A way to streamline hiring for talent and clients who have received good feedback from past work through your service?
Here's the thing, and I'm open to thoughts here. But I've found that candidate A can be a great fit for company B, but a terrible fit for company C. I think a match is way more subjective than folks tend to give it credit for, and a rating system (like Uber) makes it seem more objective than it actually is. It works for things like Uber, where you can have hundreds of ratings very quickly, and so it converges on a natural truth. But with fractional clients, I think the N is so small that there's might just be too much noise.
Thoughts?
Agree with this. It's kind of like dating. No such thing as a 4.5/5 human since it's way too subjective and the enumeration of hard skills/soft skills is too high. Sometimes a fit can be an unspoken thing. You'll probably end up wasting a ton of time trying to figure out this magical algo and likely end up nowhere with it. Just my 2c
Hot take: I find that a lot of the businesses that are a good fit for terrible staff, have terrible business practices. It would probably be beneficial for a lot of absolutely garbage clients to consider hiring better people to fix their processes and corporate culture, rather than just picking the person they like.
> a good fit for terrible staff, have terrible business practices
I think generally the people that end up choosing terrible staff that perpetuate terrible business practices are probably pretty terrible executives/founders themselves. Talent generally attracts talent in some way. There's really almost no situations where someone really fantastic would even _want_ to work for a bad company barring huge pay, or a rare moment of desperation due to life circumstances
Agreed but thats why a good rating system goes both ways.
That’s cool- I worked on a similar website a few years ago.
Do your jobs tend to be for technical or non-technical customers? What are the characteristics of developers who succeed on your site?
Thanks! Most of the clients hiring engineers tend to be non-technical, especially those hiring Fractional CTOs of course. But sometimes we'll work with CTOs to hire a contractor for their team too.
I think the devs that have the most success have the following qualities: - They can clearly show their work history (Linkedin, Resume, Github, custom site, etc.) - They have some baseline level of knowledge/experience in relationship management, i.e. they can talk the talk. You do have to do a bit of "selling", especially when looking for contract work.
What sort of legal protections and guarantees do you provide talent that apply through your service?
Does any job board do this?
I use an ad-blocker which seems to break the “Function(s)” multi-select drop-down on the sign up form.
Which ad blocker? I will test this.
BlockBear, Firefox Focus, Hush and Wipr on Safari mobile. And it’s still not enough, though from time to time I run into issues like this where it seems like I’m asking for it not to work. Thanks for looking in to it, I like the site.
This is a great idea. I have (deliberately) been working between 50-75% time for most of my 20 years in development. Finding places that are ok with part time is a pain in the ass on normal job boards. While I'm not looking now, I would absolutely have used this.
Hi Taylor, we have a pool of talent connections open to work, could possibly help you find the right people. Please reach me at chloe@olofsson.sg
So like, gig economy but for people who should know better than to accept gig economy jobs. Sounds exactly like the next YC project.
huh? that's what freelancing always has been. what's wrong with that?
Freelancing already exists, good point. There is no need for this product.
finding projects for freelancers is hard. if only because many freelancers struggle at the networking side of it. anything helps. also most freelancers are not interested in long term commitments. this service therefore solves the problem for a subset of freelancers for both sides. i am in the market for exactly what it offers: part time long term engagements.
What does W2 mean?
It's the form USA employers report employee earnings on for calculating income tax.
I think OP is using it to mean "regular full time employee".
race to the bottom.
[flagged]
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Are you trying to insult my design skills or my Webflow skills?
[flagged]
A self deprecating sense of humor demonstrates a lot of confidence.
view-source says Webflow
[flagged]
> Fuck you very deeply.
You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to. Criticism is fine, but personal attacks like this are not. Please make an effort to observe the guidelines if you want to participate here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[flagged]
OK, sure, the comment will remain flagged, killed and collapsed.
Off-topic: wouldn't not reinstating an edited comment disincdntivize the idea to correct and fix their behavior?
Sure, but that commenter didn’t correct or fix their behavior at all. We happily reverse flags or bans when people change their behavior. That’s always a good outcome.
I will just reiterate what I posted before about using the term "engineering."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44855157#44860128
It's about time that there should be a distinguished difference between an engineer who went through engineering school and another who went to a bootcamp/computer science/etc. Not only is it confusing for people like me whenever I see the word engineering - the first thing that comes to my mind are engineering topics, only to find it's just full stack, JavaScript, prompt "engineering" jobs- but it also disturbs the market for both seekers and employers. When an employer posts a "systems engineering" job and gets bombarded with people who had some JS and DevOps work, meanwhile the employer is after systems with hardware and the like, you are making it worse for both sides. And this kind of "relaxed" approach is only in engineering professions for some reason; even as a plumber you need an apprenticeship, let alone being a lawyer, nurse, or doctor.
I agree that the term 'Engineer' has lost all meaning in the software/IT world. I studied CS at a UK uni which was a subject in the engineering school. I then worked with engineers on multidisciplinary projects (mechanical, electrical, chemical) and am a qualified CAD engineer.
When people start advertising for roles my 'mobile engineer' for someone who makes iphone apps it just makes me feel a bit sad. It genuinely cheapens the term.
I imagine 'architects' also get p1ssed off for the same reason tbh. There's probably loads of real architects who see an 'architect' and say 'he's not a bloody architect! I went to architecture school for SEVEN YEARS!!! He's an idiot with a 1 month AWS certificate!'
Why is IT so bad at trying to steal others' glory!?
I expect an employer can escape that by asking for a professional engineer whow can sign and stamp for their work, and has some malpractice insurance.