Anyone convince job to switch to "school teacher" schedule?
Posted by Careless_Bat_9226@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 71 comments
I have 13+ YOE and have been staff-level at a couple companies. Currently working at a well-funded startup. I'm over the grind/slog of day-in-day-out work with only \~3 weeks off a year.
Talking to a school teacher friend it occurred to me he almost always had some kind of vacation coming up to look forward to (all summer, full week for thanksgiving, 2 weeks at Christmas, Spring Break, etc) which sounds amazing.
I thought about pitching the idea of taking a pay cut for a reduced schedule, eg 2-3 weeks off every quarter, or 1-2 months a couple times a year. Anyone ever do something like this?
Cube00@reddit
What your teacher friend isn't telling you is all the admit and marking they have to do after hours.
Careless_Bat_9226@reddit (OP)
He makes $100k and basically works a 9-5 but I know that's not the case for most teachers. I'm not saying I want to be a teacher; I'm just using that as an example of a schedule that would be appealing.
Ozymandias0023@reddit
The problem is your servers don't go home to Mom and dad for a week at Thanksgiving. Customers don't stop clamoring for more features. Quarterly earnings calls don't begin with "Well, it's July so our dev team has been on holiday for 6 weeks". Teachers get that schedule because students do too.
I understand that you're proposing this for yourself, but from a manager's perspective that's a very slippery slope. If you can do it, what's stopping the rest of engineering leadership from doing the same? I just don't see anyone giving this a second thought.
SuspiciousSegfault@reddit
"Well, it's July so our dev team has been on holiday for 6 weeks" You're describing Sweden, manage your team's leaves, that should be a standard managerial skill. 6 weeks vacation is standard in IT, add on sick leave and parental leave and you might just be slipping down the slope of a healthy work life balance.
LoaderD@reddit
Inb4 seething FAANG hopefuls tell you “That’s why the good software companies aren’t in Sweden!!”
It’s so wild to read something and instantly know it’s the US, because having 15 days of vacation after ~15 years is brutal. In Canada I don’t know of anyone starting with under 15 days unless it’s a sweatshop startup
cracked_egg_irl@reddit
I'm thanking my lucky stars for 20 in the US. It still sucks, and there's an endless stream of insufferable people around me who want to work harder and more. And a daily stream of /r/ShitAmericansSay
EmotionalQuestions@reddit
I had worked my way up to 25 at my last job and thought I was living in the lap of luxury. Now I want to move to Sweden, lol.
parasite_avi@reddit
Baseline in Russia is 28. Many dev jobs I've seen pump it up to 31 because they can claim your schedule is not fixed, but you still work standard 40 hour weeks and only occasionally do overtime for some updates or on-call duty -- which you often can compensate with working less the next week, no strings attached.
That being said, there are absolutely horrendous employers here, many.
nacholicious@reddit
Stockholm actually has the highest amount of billion dollar valuation tech companies per capita in the world, after silicon valley :p
SolidDeveloper@reddit
I mean, that’s exactly how it was at the Danish company I worked at for many years, and the majority of the other companies in Denmark that I had contacts at.
The months of July and August had a skeleton crew in the office as the majority of the employees were on summer vacation. The offices felt like a ghost town. December was similar, as everyone was gearing up for Christmas and New Year.
Also, in Dutch companies it’s quite usual to work on a 4-day schedule with an 80% of the full salary.
AIOWW3ORINACV@reddit
On a sister team we had someone request this type of schedule and he was out the door in 3 months. His own accord, or the manager's choice for being unengaged, I have no idea. In my mind, once someone makes this decision, they are already out the door.
apartment-seeker@reddit
how lol
tuckfrump69@reddit
Cushy private school job
Puggravy@reddit
I'm really sick of this narrative, teachers make excellent pay for the hours and benefits they have. It's a pretty competitive job.
kcbh711@reddit
Incorrect. Please research before making such insane claims..
Teachers in the U.S. earned about 73 cents for every dollar earned by similarly educated professionals in 2024, a record "teacher pay penalty". This wage gap persists in every state and has widened over time, making teaching one of the least compensated professions for individuals with a college degree.
https://www.epi.org/publication/the-teacher-pay-penalty-reached-a-record-high-in-2024-three-decades-of-leaving-public-school-teachers-behind
https://www.texasaft.org/policy/funding/teacher-pay-penalty-reaches-record-high
https://www.tasb.org/news-insights/teacher-pay-penalty-hits-record-high
https://fordhaminstitute.org/ohio/commentary/teacher-compensation-compared-other-professions
Puggravy@reddit
This is only correct if you ignore benefits and only look at salaries. An extremely high percentage of their compensation comes from benefits.
kcbh711@reddit
Please read.
Your "benefits advantage" partially offsets lower wages, but not enough to close the gap. Not even close. AFTER including benefits, teachers still earned 17.1% less in total compensation than comparable non-teaching professionals in 2024. the largest gap on record.
https://www.epi.org/publication/the-teacher-pay-penalty-reached-a-record-high-in-2024-three-decades-of-leaving-public-school-teachers-behind/
https://fordhaminstitute.org/ohio/commentary/teacher-compensation-compared-other-professions
Please research before spreading misinformation.
Puggravy@reddit
I have researched it well, that EPI article is not terrible (at least from a non-peer reviewed lobbyist group) but it still is less than entirely rigorous in it's approach. Among other things:
- It doesn't account for the value of job stability
- It assumes teaching degrees are equivalent to all college degrees broadly (teaching degrees are much more popular at affordable public institutions and online programs),
- It doesn't properly account for the value of time off (teachers weekly wages may be lower, but most teachers actually receive prorated paychecks during the summer).
This study is far more rigorous, even though I think some of the methodology is uncompelling, and if you are skeptical I urge you to read the Rebuttals at the bottom!
kcbh711@reddit
Job stability, “time off,” and degree prestige don’t erase a double-digit compensation gap. Every rigorous national dataset that controls for those exact variables like wage weeks worked, degree level, benefits, job security still land in the same place. Teachers earn significantly less than similarly educated workers even after benefits are included.
This isn’t just EPI. Fordham, EdWeek, NCES, state-level audits, and even Education Next (which you linked) all acknowledge that teaching pays below-market almost everywhere except the very top performance-tier districts.
The “teachers aren't underpaid” conclusion only holds if you adopt a really unusual set of adjustments that really don't make any sense.
In fact they start by replacing years of education with AFQT scores as the only measure of skill, meaning they compare teachers (nearly all with BAs/MAs) to workers with much less education but similar test scores.
That isn’t standard labor methodology, that's skewing the data in their favor...
Every other major study (NCES, EPI, state auditors, EdWeek, etc.) uses education as a control because the market pays people for credentials, not their SAT-equivalent.
Secondly they inflate teacher wages by +29% under the assumption teachers get 15 weeks off.
But that 185-day figure excludes holidays, breaks, and PD days.. and the Current Population Survey they use already accounts for paid leave in annual wages.... Mishel & Roy cite the standard correction (~14%), and you still get a teacher pay penalty after adjusting for it.
At the end of the day though you provided a debate forum article when I provided literal studies into the matter. I urge you to either A. Stop spreading misinformation or if that's too much to ask B. Be sure to include the doesn't asterisk in your claim like "Teachers are actually overpaid *if you adjust in very strange ways that weirdly skew the data to fit my worldview"
Puggravy@reddit
Even going with the more conservative 14% correction, that is still double digit.
You are right, that is by far the weakest part of their argument, I would prefer if they corrected by the cost of education, I assume they don't have that data.
I never claimed that. I said they receive competitive compensation. My point is that a teaching career is a highly recommendable option for people, our national teacher shortage is largely due to a misperception about the compensation of teachers!
kcbh711@reddit
Yes a double digit gap in income compared to other jobs.
Wait wait wait... You think the teacher shortage is because.. a misperception? That's laughable.
The shortage exists because new grads look at the actual numbers, not the PR spin. When a profession requires:
a bachelor’s (often a master’s)
licensing
mandatory continuing ed
student debt
unpaid overtime
and still pays less than jobs requiring fewer credentials…
…people make rational decisions.
There’s no “misperception.” There’s just math.
Puggravy@reddit
Since you're all about math, they found a 52% compensation advantage you use a more conservative benefits value 29% -> 14% and remove the adjustments made for skill completely 21.5 -> -12.6, what is the result? 49.1%, that still gives a ~3 percent edge, vs the average market.
You can't rant and refuse to examine your priors all you want but that is both competitive and a conservative estimate.
kcbh711@reddit
You can’t splice together numbers from completely different models and call it “math” each percentage comes from a separate regression with different assumptions, controls, and populations, so they aren’t additive or interchangeable. The result you’re getting isn’t a “conservative estimate,” it’s just what happens when you combine incompatible statistics into nonsense.
Puggravy@reddit
This is rambling nonsense. The total compensation is additive even if it is a product of differing models. These are using the figures directly from the rebuttal.
IAmADev_NoReallyIAm@reddit
Bull. They don't make enough for all the crap they put up with. Between, the low pay, the long hours, crazy schedules, the unpaid hours of prep, kids that are ... well, kids, and the unending cycle of continuous education they have to go through, yeah... they don't get paid what they should be getting, get the short end of the stick, and don't get nearly enough credit for any of it. Oh, yeah, and then there's the issue of many of them having to buy their own classroom supplies or get donation because the schools won't/can't give them shit. Best thing this country could do is take some of the money it spends on the military, give a part back over to NASA, and a chunk back over to the DOE to fund salaries. Excellent pay my ass.
Puggravy@reddit
Again pay is just one factor in total compensation. Teachers total compensation is considerably higher once you account for pension compensation (around 60k in value in my state), retirement healthcare benefits (around 12k in value), and total hours worked.
I am not saying this to denigrate teachers. It is just the facts, I highly encourage people to consider a teacher career, there is a significant shortage of teachers in the US.
cronuscronus@reddit
I went to 80% and never looked back. I will be considering 60% in a few years.
If youre a high performer and not a flight risk you can make it happen.
AardvarkIll6079@reddit
What kind of shitty job only gives you 3 weeks off a year? I’ve never had less than 5 weeks vacation. And that doesn’t include holidays or sick time.
According-Music141@reddit
Ive never had more than 3 weeks vacation at my small company SWE jobs. Which country do you live in?
69f1@reddit
Czech Republic has four weeks as a legal minimum. But I guess we get paid much less than in the US.
redditisaphony@reddit
I’ve seen similar. If you’re tenured and they’re cool, it’s possible.
CubicleHermit@reddit
I've seen similar in good job markets. I haven't seen anyone try in the past couple of years, but I think the calculus on the employer side will be different when a lot of employers are already taking the bet "if I cause attrition, I can hire someone better, cheaper" and a few are literally "let's just lay people off because odds are we can hire someone better, cheaper."
pl487@reddit
Not a chance. Even proposing it would be career limiting. There is no better way to communicate that you are not fully engaged.
Teachers aren't trying to make a company work in a highly competitive environment. They are government workers.
RobertKerans@reddit
This is BS though, as demonstrated by places that are not the US (in particular). It is a cultural thing, but having worked for an Italian company (particularly relevant re this subject), and the majority of Italian employees just basically disappear en masse for a month in summer, there's almost zero issue. All those employees were not bad employees or not fully engaged.
AIOWW3ORINACV@reddit
Managers, no matter how accommodating they are, hate the idea too.
You're asked for a high level project plan for feature Y. You need to go make a special case for Joe, because he has a part time role, and you don't know if his vacation time corresponds to sprints 3, 4, and 5.
The manager thinks: Can he pick up work in sprint 5 that he started on sprint 3? Can we relegate him to something not on the critical path? We can't do that, he'd get low performance review for lack of impact.
So - naturally - the answer is that these requests are shot down, and it tarnishes the reputation of the person that asked. They are no longer seen as reliable, and are seen as escapists.
Calm-Medicine-3992@reddit
This is a great argument for giving less flexible PTO and making everyone take off for 2 weeks in August.
RobertKerans@reddit
This is what used to happen. I assume it's the same in the US, but in the UK there are a load of fairly shabby coastal towns that are poor in [large] part due to this not happening anymore, due to the industries that supported this dying off (Scarborough, Middlesbrough, Blackpool etc etc). Factories would shut down for a week in, say, Glasgow, and the employees + families would go to a resort town.
LuckyHedgehog@reddit
Teachers work crazy overtime to grade papers, prepare lessons, etc.
You're probably working fewer hours already, and with a much better salary
caffeinated_wizard@reddit
I have a lot of teachers in my family and you couldn’t pay me enough to do this. Not enough money in the world to deal with the parents, the kids and the shitty politics of working in a school.
chaoticbean14@reddit
Married to a teacher and I work in education (as a programmer). I can confirm this one million times over.
I could never do it. My SO is getting out of it after 20 years teaching (where she has won national awards, state awards, etc. she's respected educator) specifically because it's so different. The parents are getting worse and worse, the kids don't care. Grades/assignments carry no value, they can't flunk kids and have to pass them and the kids know this and abuse it... just insanity. She's just done with it. I hate it for her, because it was her lifes calling, truly. She is such an amazing teacher - but she's not alone. Plenty of other highly influential teachers in the space have called it quits in recent years for similar reasons. Our education system is... not in great shape. Thanks largely due to parents & administration.
There are two types of teachers: 'bell to bell' and the others are generally people who care. 'Bell to bell' teachers show up for work at the first bell and leave immediately with the kids - they grade only on 'work hours' and give other teachers a bad rap. Then there are the good ones, who spend hours every night grading, weekends creating lesson plans, summer actually thinking how to engage with the kids in the coming year and working on projects for them.
I am thankful for teachers, but damn would I never be one!
IGotSkills@reddit
Lol that'd not even the issue. The issue is the parents and administration.
Throwaway__shmoe@reddit
My sister is a teacher. I have 10yoe; nah, I work so much more OT than her. I work at a small business in Idaho. I refuse to believe this is true.
LuckyHedgehog@reddit
I've known teachers that average 12 hours a day, work weekends, and half their summer break is planning curriculum for the school year.
Throwaway__shmoe@reddit
There you go: “half their summer break is planning curriculum for the school year”.
I work 45-60 hours a week EVERY WEEK OF THE YEAR. I don’t have a “summer break” or a “winter break”.
valence_engineer@reddit
That's going to be a hard sell in the US due to various reasons including second order ones like fear of there being jealously/preferential treatment/etc. from other team members. There's also other aspects such as you being staff means that others depend on you and they're not going to be off while you're off.
There's companies with more generous holiday policies that have cultures designed around it. My current company provides 20+ holidays a year and actual unlimited vacation policies. I took 20+ days off this year and next year I'll go through that many in Q1 alone. The tradeoff is that the hours when you're not off are very far from 9-5.
z960849@reddit
You need to find a government tech job if you just want to work 9 to 5
HQxMnbS@reddit
Not in the US
snorktacular@reddit
To actually answer the question: Yes, OP, you can attempt to negotiate more PTO in exchange for a pay cut. I know a principal eng who negotiated (iirc) two months off a year from day one. I ended up getting four weeks of PTO a year (plus additional RSUs) in lieu of a higher salary when I accepted the offer at my current company, and after a couple years they started increasing the rate at which I accrue it.
The real question is, can you try to negotiate more PTO with your current employer without burning bridges? No clue, but I wouldn't bet on it at a startup. Can you find a new role where you'll have enough leverage to negotiate for what you want? Good luck in this market, but it's not impossible.
blueboybob@reddit
Teacher union contracts are usually 180 days. So you're asking to work half a year.
endurbro420@reddit
Compare that to 52 weeks x 5 work days/week - 15 days of vacation and 10 bank holidays = 235 days
So teachers are at 79% of what is “normal” in tech.
bonbon367@reddit
Put another way 235-185 =50 days = 10 weeks of extra vacation.
I would sacrifice quite a bit for an extra 10 weeks vacation
madspiderman@reddit
Would you take 3rd or 4th of your salary? Would you take being a babysitter to 40-50 kids? Would you take having to deal with helicopter parents?
bonbon367@reddit
Yeah I mean if I work 20% less days I would expect at a minimum an equal reduction and I would be willing to take even more of a reduction than 25-33% of my pay like you asked.
The closer I get to financial independence I get the bigger a reduction I’d be willing to take. Right now I’d probably do it for 50%, but a decade for now I’d probably do it for an 80% reduction.
endurbro420@reddit
I think they are saying they would choose that schedule for their current work at 79% pay. That is the premise of OPs question.
I would take a 21% pay cut for 10 more weeks of vacation.
redditisaphony@reddit
Not really half because it’s not normal to work 365…
bonbon367@reddit
Yeah I mean if I work 20% less days I would expect at a minimum an equal reduction and I would be willing to take even more of a reduction than 25-33% of my pay like you asked.
The closer I get to financial independence I get the bigger a reduction I’d be willing to take. Right now I’d probably do it for 50%, but a decade for now I’d probably do it for an 80% reduction.
caffeinated_wizard@reddit
When I worked federal gov we had something available to us called “Leave with income averaging”. It was subject to manager approval and you had to take 6 weeks minimum but the idea is you could say “hey I would like to take 3 months off this year total” and they would deduct it from your pay but averaged over a whole year. That was on top of our vacations and sick leave. A know a few people with children who did it to basically get June-July-August off.
So instead of going 3 months without income, you reduced your annual salary by the equivalent of 3 months of gross salary.
No idea if this can even make sense for a small company and the implications on taxes/insurance. But worst they can say is no.
marsman57@reddit
I think this would be hard to achieve at most companies. You'd need to be highly valued to be worth getting less work for the same headcount. You could start consulting short contracts though I suppose.
dbxp@reddit
I met a guy once who worked 3 months a year in San Diego, spent the rest of the year surfing and scuba diving in Thailand
marsman57@reddit
It's a good gig if you can manage it!
_hephaestus@reddit
Don’t frame it as a school teacher schedule, ask for more time off in exchange for a pay cut or what your options are for additional vacation time. I’ve seen an exec and staff level come onboard with a deal like this but not sure how much leverage you have to ask for it in your current role.
Calm-Medicine-3992@reddit
I wouldn't expect any place to do it at that level but there are plenty of companies that will basically send all but a skeleton staff on vacation for a chunk of August. Other places shutdown for 2 weeks around Christmas. Time off is a lot less disruptive if everyone takes it at once.
drunkandy@reddit
School teachers make so much less money than software devs
KornikEV@reddit
I think the best you can count on is 4 days week, maybe even 3 days week, that will lower your contributions but will not disrupt overall company schedule. The worst part of your proposal is unpredictability of production. Unless the time off was mandatory (e.g. you're out every first week of the odd month, no matter if you have anything to do or not), but even then you'd have to be top producer on my team for me to agree to something like this. And forget about more than a week at a time.
mattbillenstein@reddit
Your best bet is contracting - 1099, but that comes with a lot of self-management, hustle, bringing in new work, etc which is its own trouble. And managing healthcare, taxes, etc.
The benefit is, you can sorta work half and charge double - when times are slow, take time off, take trips, etc. And when there's work, you can bill the hours. If you get to busy, raise your rate, when you get too idle, lower it.
I did this for a time, it can be lucrative and you can have some large gaps in work to do fun stuff. But, it's also tiring vs a w2 where you just put in the work and get paid regularly without all the management overhead.
fued@reddit
companies that let you buy additional leave are great, Ill glady take a job with 8 weeks leave if its an option.
they seem pretty rare tho
AIOWW3ORINACV@reddit
This won't fly. Big companies don't know how to deal with it for the payroll and capacity planning purposes. Small and large companies alike won't like that they'll constantly be bringing you up to speed after your 2-3 week vacations every few weeks.
You can't even do this on 1099 contracts because they usually want someone doing 3-6 months of focused work. Contracts hire with specific skills in mind, and again, they don't want someone packing up halfway through the contract to go hike in the Andes.
You pretty much looking at semi-passive business ownership. You can't run a service business because someone's going to want your attention halfway into your vacation.
dbxp@reddit
My mum was a teacher, I found her planning lessons at 4am before when she has to be in the classroom for 8:00am. Teachers work famously long hours.
Careless_Bat_9226@reddit (OP)
You missed the point
DeterminedQuokka@reddit
You can get more vacation if you are willing to get paid less. I mean not 2 months. But charities tend to have good packages to make up for less money. The one I worked at closed the entire company for a week in December and a week in July. And had 11 holidays. And unlimited vacation which I was told to use at minimum 20 days a year.
Molluskscape@reddit
I convinced my company to give me six months’ of work half time instead of taking three months fully off for paternity leave. It can’t hurt to ask, but it seems unlikely for them to agree to it.