Looking for a change in work and would love suggestions on how to find jobs with understanding bosses and/or odd hours. I can always get my work done, but I tend to put in bizarre hours for my own projects due to the ebb/flow of chronic pain.

For me personally, I would prefer to work 16 hours on my good days and 0 hours on the days I can barely see straight because of migraine-level pain in my neck and back.

I’m currently working in San Francisco and have major issues getting to/from work without my entire day being focused on work-related travel (not to mention spending all of my time at home recuperating for the next work day)

I would take a massive pay cut to have a job from home with an understanding boss. Country is entirely irrelevant to me if they speak English and accept foreigners; otherwise, I know 2nd-grade-level Spanish, German, and French.

  • Is going through a recruiter a good idea?
  • Would there be any agencies that work specifically with disabled workers?
  • If not, what are good websites for actually getting call-backs on dev jobs?

I have all of the requirements for a home gig (desk, monitors, multiple computers, home server, webcam, etc), is there a way to subtly express that to a potential hiring manger?

  • myliltoehurts@lemm.ee
    101·
    3 days ago

    I don’t know if there are agencies focussing on this, but in general it probably comes down to the company more than the agency. Probably worth filtering for companies offering flexible hours in the description

    I would say at the moment the IT job market is incredibly competitive for candidates, so it might be even more difficult to find truly flex roles when they can so easily find 100s of people who just work regular hours.

    On your last question: I’ve been a hiring manager in 2 companies (although in the UK) for software engineers and adjacent roles (like devops, platform, QA) and I would not care whether someone needs equipment. In the big scheme of things spending $800 for a monitor, keyboard and mouse is not even a drop in the bucket for the cost of an employee. What I would want to know is how do you work in a team in your situation and what arrangement can we do where you have a good experience, but other people in the company can still count on you. E.g. if you are working on a project and an issue pops up that’s blocking others from progressing and we need you to discuss, but you’re having a bad day and not working, what are the options you can offer? Or what if you get blocked when everyone else is asleep so you can’t progress?

    I think being prepared and upfront about this in an early stage of interviewing would be ideal, it signals that you have thought about others around you and also weed out any companies who aren’t willing to make this arrangement work. That being said, as above it’s a very competitive market right now so chances are pretty slim (at least in the UK).

    Also keep in mind once you look at companies who hire from abroad, you’re now also competing with (comparably) cheap labour from developing countries, who will likely agree to much worse terms.

    Edit: one thing I forgot, you may have the option to be your own boss (depending on your skill level) and freelance on a project basis rather than on a per-day basis.