Thank you for the comment. It’s good to hear this may be possible. I actually really enjoyed alphabet in some ways, but I do not want to commit so much of my life to work.
Here’s some more context if you’re curious:
Just before I left, as FTE positions were being discussed on other projects (the role I was hired in disappeared after 6 months and they had moved me to something I didn’t like), I had a walk and talk with my skip level. I was told that the pay for engineers at X was partially because of the expectation of the quantity of work. My skip level told me that on previous projects they had worked 60 hour weeks, and that this kind of thing is necessary sometimes in the types of projects done at X. My other coworkers and friends at X told me 35 hours was normal for FTEs, but this manager seemed to clearly believe my 20-30 hour schedule had no place at X for an FTE.
I wasn’t necessarily ideal for that role, as again I did not even apply for the job they moved me to (something I appreciated versus termination when my original role got reorg’d away). But I never heard from anyone that something like 50% time would be possible. I think X is under a lot of headcount pressure, so my skip level was probably responding to that.
Anyway I’m not sure if that is relevant. I also had issues at ABC for the way they treated TVCs (I was one) and my new job is definitely what’s right for me. But I’d love to hear that more partial time roles are entertained at alphabet. Maybe in time it will become more common there.
So far this has worked quite well, and the support the company has provided to me as the manager, and to the report has been excellent.
There are some tooling issues (especially around oncall) - but otherwise it has been quite a smooth transition.